Archive for November, 2007
The deserted, haunted quality of the oldest mansion in Manhattan is — like so much of Washington Heights — almost exhilarating when you consider the extremes of neglect it has endured to join us here today. The sign tells us that George Washington made his headquarters here during the fall of 1776, following a British […]
Filed under: Decay, Drag Queens, History, Landscape, The Gay Recluse, Washington Heights | Leave a Comment
Tags: Alexander Hamilton, Candy Darling, George Washington, History, John Quincy Adams, New York City, Revolutionary War, The Morris-Jumel Mansion, Thomas Jefferson, Washington Heights
Bravo, Andrew! Your dismissal of “community” was a pleasure to read, even if it did make us wish you would find a similarly pessimistic lens through which to analyze political regimes and nation building. But no matter, this is an important notion, one that faithful readers of The Gay Recluse will recognize as the foundation […]
Filed under: Longing, Pessimism, Pleasure, The Gay Recluse | Leave a Comment
Tags: Andrew Sullivan, Arthur Schopenhauer, Community, Community-Free Existence, The Gay Recluse
On Norma
Yesterday — what luck! — a final dress rehearsal for Norma at the Metropolitan Opera. The first thing we note, incredibly enough, is that the audience on average is even older than the one into which we immersed ourselves the other night at Aida. Can you imagine it? What a rare oasis from capitalism! How […]
Filed under: Good Rock, Longing, Opera, Pessimism, Politicians | Leave a Comment
Tags: , Bellini, Bernard Kerik, Dolora Zajick, Hasmik Papian, Hillary Clinton, Huma Abedin, Norma, Rudy Giuliani, The Metropolitan Opera, The Odyssey
Last night we were pleased to be joined by New York Times critic Janet Maslin, who earlier this week treated us to her review of Boom, the new memoir by Tom Brokaw about life in the 1960s. Generally Maslin appears to have enjoyed the book, which she describes as “a response to the yearning for […]
Filed under: Drag Queens, Drivel, Gay, History, The Gay Recluse, The Times | Leave a Comment
Tags: Candy Darling, Gay Culture, Gay Film, Gay History, Greta Garbo, Janet Maslin, Leonardo da Vinci, Ludwig II, Magnus Hirschfeld, Maria Callas, Marlene Dietrich, New York Times, Tom Brokaw
Stark and imperial, during the day the white travertine facade of the Metropolitan Opera seems as inviting as a walk across a desert, but at night glows like a beacon to the modern, urban spirit in which it was conceived. The cloud-like apparitions of Chagall’s paintings hypnotize us and soften the disdain of the high roman arches through which we pass […]
Filed under: Drag Queens, Good Rock, Memory, Opera, Resignation, The Gay Recluse | Leave a Comment
Tags: Aida, Amneris, Chagall, Giuseppe Verdi, Lincoln Center, Luciana D'Intino, New York City, Opera, Rademes, The Metropolitan Opera
On the Gay Voice and Zen Arcade: A Panel Discussion with Four Critics from The New York Times
After yesterday’s post on the gay voice and American literature, we were invited to lead a panel discussion with A.O. Scott, Edward Rothstein, Michael Kimmelman, and Judith Warner, four critics from The Times whose work in recent weeks has been subjected to scrutiny from The Gay Recluse. The focus of our talk was Zen Arcade […]
Filed under: Good Rock, History, Literature, The Gay Recluse, The Times | Leave a Comment
Tags: A.O. Scott, Bob Mould, Edward Rothstein, Grant Hart, Hüsker Dü, Judith Warner, Michael Kimmelman, The Gay Recluse, Zen Arcade
Ferocious and (like all plants) unapologetic, the wisteria growing in the vacant lot next door is poised to take over the entire crumbling shell of the adjacent building (and possibly our life along with it!). Nor — like some — are we deceived by the delicate and emphemeral blooms of the morning glory, which (equally […]
Filed under: Decay, History, Landscape, Memory, The Autumn Garden, Washington Heights | Leave a Comment
Tags: Coba, Maya, Mexico, Morning Glory, Vines, Wisteria, Yucatan
In reading great works of literature, we are sometimes struck by the presence of what could be termed a “gay voice.” It is a voice that resonates with perspective of the sexually-oriented “outsider,” so that we come away with an understanding (and it does not have arrive by way of a literal representation) that “heterosexuality” […]
Filed under: Capitalism, Drivel, Gay, Infrastructure, Sickness, The Gay Recluse, The Times, Writers-American, Writers-British, Writers-French, Writers-German | 2 Comments
Tags: A.O. Scott, Gay, Henry James, Herman Melville, Marcel Proust, Michael Kimmelman, Peter Nadas, Susan Sontag, Thomas Mann, Toni Morrison, Virginia Woolf
On Marathons
Good luck, runners! On this day of the New York City Marathon, we remember years ago, when we too joined the tens of thousands who sprinted across the Verrazano Narrows before stretching out into a line of hope and desperation that snaked through the five boroughs. Then of course we were strong and idealistic enough […]
Filed under: Capitalism, Dream, Gay, Memory, Pessimism | Leave a Comment
Tags: Death, Life, NYC Marathon, Past, Running
There was a sleeping man, presumably homeless, in the subway station; as we approached, he turned over and gazed at us with eyes like those of a beaten animal, which is to say both fearful and imploring. He cleared his throat and began to speak in a surprisingly deep and resonant voice, which echoed in […]
Filed under: Capitalism, Dream, Infrastructure, Subway, Writers-French | Leave a Comment
Tags: Baudelaire, History, MTA, NYC, Spleen, United States
On Breakfast with the Damned
Each morning Zephyr wakes up and positions himself in front of the western window, where he sits perfectly still as the new day permeates the gray dawn. “For one so young, you seem remarkably serene,” we noted as we passed by to announce that breakfast would be imminently served. “It is true that I have […]
Filed under: Dream, Landscape, The Russian Blue, Washington Heights | Leave a Comment
Tags: Apartment Towers, Breakfast, Cats, New Jersey, Palisades, Sunrise, Zephyr
On Free Speech
Certain misguided if likable (at least in the case of Andrew Sullivan) conservatives and libertarians are questioning the verdict against “asshole of metaphysically transcendent proportion” Fred Phelps, who with his “church” picketed the funeral of a gay marine, as a potentially “bad precedent” for First Amendment free-speech rights. For those untrained in the nuances of constitutional law — and with some […]
Filed under: Drivel, Government, Law, Sickness | Leave a Comment
Tags: Andrew Sullivan, Chris Eisgruber, Conservatives, Constitutional Law, First Amendment, Fred Phelps, Free Speech, Libertarians
We leave work and walk the long blocks from Madison to Sixth Avenue. We hurry down the stairs into the station, where we mindlessly extract our card from our wallet and slide it through the reader. In the distance we can sense the deep, subterranean rumble of what is surely an empty uptown D-train approaching […]
Filed under: Infrastructure, Longing, Resignation, Subway, The Gay Recluse | Leave a Comment
Tags: D-Train, Fate, God, Homophobia, Karma, MTA, New York City, Pessimism, Proletariat, Schopenhauer, Subway
The Gay Recluse 