Archive for January, 2008
Dear ESPN, we wanted to take a few seconds to let you know how much we hate your pottery-themed ad campaign. It might not even be running anymore; we first saw it in the back of a cab two months ago, or maybe it was even longer than that, but we saw it again last […]
Filed under: Capitalism, Drag Queens, Drivel, Gay, New York City, Stereotypes, Television, The Gay Recluse | Leave a Comment
Tags: Advertising, Ceramics, Chris Berman, ESPN, Glazes, Mike Ditka, National Football League, Pottery, Sunday NFL Countdown
On The City and the Pillar
In which The Gay Recluse looks back at a classic of post-war American fiction written in a gay voice. Admittedly, to read Gore Vidal’s 1946 novel The City and the Pillar is to be thrown with startling efficiency into what has to be one of the bleakest periods in history, the post-war era of the […]
Filed under: Drag Queens, Gay, Literature, The Gay Recluse, Writers-American | Leave a Comment
Tags: Gay Classics, Gay Literature, Gay Writers, Gore Vidal, John Waters, Paul Morrissey, Same-Sexers, The City and the Pillar, Thomas Mann
In which The Gay Recluse ponders the role of technology in the transformation of the monumental into the mundane (and vice versa). Date of Incident: January 15, 2008 Time: 6:34pm. Causes of Disaster: Narrow countertop; careless placement of container; fatigue; needless “multi-tasking.” Remarks: After much debate about whether to even supplement the salad in question […]
Filed under: Gay, Government, Landscape, Technology, The Gay Recluse | Leave a Comment
Tags: Cherry Tomatoes, Cooking, Digital Photography, Disaster Footage, Grape Tomatoes, Salad Dressing, Salad Preparation
In which The Gay Recluse ponders some recent search terms used to find the very pages you are now reading. Note: All search terms listed are in the exact form provided by WordPress.com, which is the host (at least for a while) of this blog. Hyperlinks to relevant posts included. Search: where to find sweetie […]
Filed under: Architecture, Gay, Longing, Obsession, Search, The Gay Recluse, Traffic | Leave a Comment
Tags: Arthur Schopenhauer, Corsican Mint, Die Walküre, Friedrich Nietzche, George Washington, Leonard Cohen, Metropolitan Opera, Michael Kimmelman, Peter Nadas, Stephanie Blythe, Sweetie Clementines, The Gay Voice, Velcro Jeans
In which The Gay Recluse contemplates an uncommissioned masterpiece from the walls of an uptown subway station.
Filed under: Film, Gay, Infrastructure, Subway, The Gay Recluse | Leave a Comment
Tags: C-train, Dumb Movies, Emotions, Funerals, Graffiti, MTA, Rambo, Sylvester Stallone, Tears
Given the long-ascendant Manhattan real-estate market, people are often surprised to learn the extent to which abandoned, burned-out property still plagues Harlem and Washington Heights. On our block alone — which is not even close to one of the worst around here — there are three completely annihilated townhouse “shells” and several other larger buildings […]
Filed under: Architecture, Decay, Gentrification, Government, Landscape, New York City, Pessimism, The Gay Recluse, Washington Heights | 1 Comment
Tags: Ailanthus, Ann Coulter, HPD, Marcus Millichap, Massey Knakal, Pigeons, Rats, Real Estate, Shells, Uptown Manhattan
On A Book of Memories
Today – after more than two months of reading over 700 pages of tightly wound dream and remembrance – we finally finished A Book of Memories by Peter Nadas. If you remember, it was a Michael Kimmelman interview with Nadas a few months ago that prompted us to write a diatribe against the beleaguered state […]
Filed under: Communism, Gay, Language, Literature, Memory, Writers-Hungarian | Leave a Comment
Tags: A Book of Memories, Gay Literature, Gay Voice, Gay Writers, Hungarian Writers, Peter Nadas, Quotations
In which The Gay Recluse offers approximately fifteen quotes from a modern masterpiece written in the “gay voice.” A Book of Memories by Peter Nadas: “[T]here’s nothing in the world with which I have a more intimate relationship than ruination.” “If one could learn the most important things in life, one would still have to […]
Filed under: Gay, Language, Literature, Pessimism, Writers-Hungarian | Leave a Comment
Tags: A Book of Memories, Gay Literature, Gay Voice, Gay Writers, Hungarian Writers, Peter Nadas, Quotations
Back at work this morning we find our blood still coursing with the slow, oscillating melodies of last night’s third act of Die Walküre at the Met. By the end (and really, by the middle of the first act) it was sublime and transcendent, so that all of our quibbling about the final dress seemed […]
Filed under: Good Rock, Opera, Pessimism, The Gay Recluse | Leave a Comment
Tags: Die Walküre, Jim Morris, Richard Wagner, Stephanie Blythe, The Metropolitan Opera, The United States
Yesterday as we approached Ft. Tryon Park for our weekly promenade in Washington Heights‘ most beautiful cliff-side heather garden, we were confronted by a small regiment of bagpipe players, apparently rehearsing for an upcoming event. We sat for a few minutes on one of the adjacent benches and observed these maneuvers, in which the band […]
Filed under: Government, New York City, Politicians, The Gay Recluse | Leave a Comment
Tags: 2008 Presidential Campaign, Bagpipes, Bette Midler, Ft. Tryon Park, Heather Gardens, Parade Maneuvers
On Repulsion
As we watch Repulsion, the Roman Polanski film starring “the young” Catherine Deneuve, it’s hard not to be impressed by the way Polanski — like so many great artists — seems to predict the future. Released in 1965, the film presents a tightly wound portrait of a London which — and as a metaphor of […]
Filed under: Film, Government, History, The Gay Recluse | Leave a Comment
Tags: Catherine Deneuve, Horror Movies, Iowa Caucus, Nervous Breakdown, Repulsion, Roman Polanski
Did you see the story in today’s Times about the man — the window washer — who fell 47 stories (500 feet) and survived? He’s in the hospital and while basically a bag of broken bones, doctors say he should be walking within a year. Incredible. It reminds us of when we were at Cornell […]
Filed under: Addiction, Animals, Drag Queens, Faith, Memory, Sickness, The Gay Recluse | Leave a Comment
Tags: Ann Coulter, Cascadilla Gorge, Cornell University, Miracles, Raccoons, Tragedies
As we have discussed before, some of the best art in Washington Heights is in the subway stations. Here we pause to admire the genius of a delicate, floating (if raw and mildly distorted) line drawing of Jack Nicholson, which miraculously transforms a garish Hollywood poster into something subversive and entertaining, which is to say […]
Filed under: Graffiti, Infrastructure, Subway, The Gay Recluse, Washington Heights | Leave a Comment
Tags: Art, Graffiti, Jack Nicholson, MTA, Posters, The Bucket List
That cloud overhead — you really don’t recognize it? That hovering and inescapable dread, which makes New Year’s the longest Sunday of the year, particularly now that we no longer have to endure the last day in August before returning to school? No, it’s not so much the prospect — or let’s be honest, the […]
Filed under: Brooklyn, Memory, New York City, Pleasure, The Gay Recluse | Leave a Comment
Tags: 2008, New Year's Day, Resolutions, Saturnine
The Gay Recluse 