Archive for February, 2008
In which The Gay Recluse ponders a sampling of 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: students ‘shallow […]
Filed under: Architecture, Gay, Infrastructure, Language, Search, The Gay Recluse, The Russian Blue, The Times, Washington Heights | Leave a Comment
Tags: Big Boobs, Bob Mould, Burt Lancaster, Daddy Bears, Daniel Jones, Gay Sex in the Seventies, Geraldine Ferraro, Grant Hart, Hüsker Dü, Henry James, Hot Bears, In the Mood for Love, Janice Dickinson, Outcast, Povery, Shit Sandwich, Super Bowl, The Rainmaker, West Side Piers
In which The Gay Recluse takes a field trip to Harlem and makes the case that the city should rezone the shit out of 125th Street. Lately there has been a lot of press — from Curbed, The Times and others — about the city’s proposal to rezone 125th Street in Harlem. Much of this […]
Filed under: Architecture, Brooklyn, Decay, Disaster Footage, Drivel, Gentrification, Government, Knockbusters, New York City, Photography, Politicians, Retail, Ruins, Stereotypes, The Gay Recluse | Leave a Comment
Tags: 125th Street, City Plan, City Planning, Class, Gentrification, Harlem, Race, Stereotypes, The Times, Theresa
In which The Gay Recluse scores selected opinion pieces in The Times. David Brooks/Remembering the Mentor The Short Version: Even though he was a Nazi, I loved William F. Buckley. In her words: “Buckley was not only a giant celebrity, he lived in a manner of the haut monde.” Score: F (Foolish) In this column […]
Filed under: Capitalism, Dissonance, Drivel, Film, Gay, History, Obsession, The Gay Recluse, The Times | Leave a Comment
Tags: David Brooks, Luchino Visconti, Nazi Germany, The Damned, The New York Times, William F. Buckley
On Roses and Ruins
In which The Gay Recluse contemplates an uncommissioned masterpiece from the walls of an uptown subway station.
Filed under: Capitalism, Decay, Dissonance, Longing, New York City, Photography, Subway, The Gay Recluse, Washington Heights | Leave a Comment
Tags: 163rd Street, Masterpieces, Roses, Ruins, Subway, Washington Heights
In which The Gay Recluse becomes increasingly obsessed with The George Washington Bridge. Time and Date of photograph: February 28, 2008, 7:56am. Notes: The sky is starting to seem spring-like, but it was actually close to minus-fifty. “It was to be encased in granite but because of the Depression was never done and the structure […]
Filed under: Capitalism, Dissonance, GWB Project, Photography, The Gay Recluse, Washington Heights, Weather | Leave a Comment
Tags: 1947, Blue, February, George Washington Bridge, James Renner, Minus-Fifty, Morning Light
In which The Gay Recluse contemplates an uncommissioned masterpiece from the walls of an uptown subway station.
Filed under: Conspiracy, Gay, Graffiti, Infrastructure, New York City, Subway, The Gay Recluse, Washington Heights | Leave a Comment
Tags: Advertising, Graffiti, MTA, Subway Art, Transit Check
On Washington Heights Monopoly: 577 West 161st Street (or How To Run an Illegal Parking Lot)
In which The Gay Recluse reports on real estate in Washington Heights. A few weeks ago we reported on three vacant lots, two of which seem to be owned by a church and a third by a doctor’s office. Today, in response to reader e-mails, we thought we’d update you on the latest, which is […]
Filed under: Architecture, Bad Rock, Gentrification, Government, Monopoly, The Gay Recluse, Washington Heights | Leave a Comment
Tags: 577 West 161st Street, Curb Cut Denial, Development, Doctors, Fences, Illegal Parking, Monopoly, Parking Lots, Pylons, Vacant Lots
In which The Gay Recluse wonders if Deborah Solomon thinks we’re impressed. (Because we’re not.) Usually we skip Deborah Solomon’s weekly interview in the Sunday Magazine, in which the notoriously harsh and arrogant New York Times critic tersely interrogates a publicity hound hawking a useless book about the latest nonsense du jour. But this week […]
Filed under: Architecture, Conspiracy, Drivel, Sickness, Stereotypes, The Gay Recluse, The Times | Leave a Comment
Tags: Asshole Republicans, Deborah Solomon, Gawker, Homophobia, New Media, Old Media, Rick Perry, Stereotypes, Texas, The Gays, The New York Times, The Straights
In which The Gay Recluse becomes increasingly obsessed with The George Washington Bridge. Time and Date of photograph: February 26, 2008, 7:56am. Notes: The morning light — not unlike our mood — is not so much blue as tinged with blue. “The George Washington Bridge over the Hudson is the most beautiful bridge in the […]
Filed under: GWB Project, Photography, Ruins, Technology, The Gay Recluse | Leave a Comment
Tags: 1947, Blue, February, George Washington Bridge, Le Corbusier, Morning Light
In which The Gay Recluse would like to think “outside the box.” Heating bills keep getting higher and higher, and despite global warming, there are days when it’s still very, very cold. Freezing air rushes through open windows, and we wonder: what can we possibly do about it? Any complex problem would seem to require […]
Filed under: Architecture, Infrastructure, New York City, The Gay Recluse, Washington Heights | Leave a Comment
Tags: Efficiency, February, Heating Bills, Idiocy, Iraq, Oil, Problem Solving, Washington Heights, Wind, Windows
In which The Gay Recluse ponders two photographs of an immense white brick wall and doesn’t regret taking drugs. Photograph 1: Here we see one photograph of an immense white brick wall. Like 90 percent of the architecture in Washington Heights, it is thousands of years old and on the verge of collapse. Note how […]
Filed under: Architecture, Decay, Obsession, Photography, Ruins, The Gay Recluse | Leave a Comment
Tags: Bricks, Drugs, Hallucinogens, LSD, Magic Mushrooms, Patterns, Ruins, Tripping, Washington Heights, White Walls
In which The Gay Recluse ponders a photograph of the George Washington Bridge and provides an interesting (and possibly depressing) fact. Date of photograph: February 24, 2008 Notes: We were rushing out to buy donuts and didn’t notice the reflection of the window to the right. (Oh well.) Interesting (and Possibly Depressing) Fact: The George […]
Filed under: Government, GWB Project, Infrastructure, Landscape, New York City, Photography, The Gay Recluse, Washington Heights | Leave a Comment
Tags: Arcadia Publishing, Construction Schedules, Depressing Facts, Donuts, Images of America, Interesting Facts, The George Washington Bridge, Washington Heights
In which The Gay Recluse updates his informal but rather telling quantitative analysis of Modern Love, the weekly Style Section (of The Times) column in which openly gay writers almost never appear, and even less frequently describe a romantic relationship. This week’s piece: An April Fools’ Joke I Played on Myself Subject: A frat boy […]
Filed under: Drivel, Language, Stereotypes, The Gay Recluse, The Times | Leave a Comment
Tags: Daniel Jones, Fashion & Style, Frat Boys, Homophobia, Jay Ruttenberg, Modern Love, Stereotypes, The New York Times
In which The Gay Recluse provides an alternative to this week’s more tedious and stereotypical Modern Love offering in The Times. “The April Fools’ Joke I Played on Myself” by Jay Ruttenberg and The Gay Recluse MY boyfriend and I were descending into the Eighth Avenue L train subway station when I remembered it was […]
Filed under: Drivel, Gay, Stereotypes, The Gay Recluse, The Times | Leave a Comment
Tags: Daniel Jones, Fashion & Style, Frat Boys, Gay Modern Love, Jay Ruttenberg, Stereotypes, The New York Times
In which The Gay Recluse reads the usually dependable City Room and says wtf. Yesterday City Room crapped out an astoundingly bad (and factually inaccurate) propaganda piece called “Should All of 125th Street Be Declared Historic?” in which they discuss a “proposal” — until now, completely unheard of (and for good reason) — being put […]
Filed under: Architecture, Capitalism, Communism, Drivel, Gentrification, Knockbusters, New York City, Retail, The Gay Recluse, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment
Tags: Adam Leitman Bailey, Audubon Ballroom, City Room, Crap, Harlem, Knockbusters, Lawyers, Malcolm X
On the Extinction of Golf
In which The Gay Recluse ponders the dinosaurs. In today’s New York Times, in a shocking piece that has vaulted all the way to number one on the “Most Popular” chart, we learn that golf is on the way out; declining in a popularity, with too many courses built in the 90s, it’s no longer […]
Filed under: Dissonance, Memory, Resignation, The London Eye, The Times | Leave a Comment
Tags: Asshole Republicans, Extinction, Fifty Dollars, Forest, Golf, Golf Balls, Sledding, Tiger Woods, Woods
On V (x4)
In which The Gay Recluse contemplates four uncommissioned masterpieces from the walls of an uptown subway station and finds evidence of paranoia, conspiracy and entropy.
Filed under: Addiction, Conspiracy, Decay, History, Infrastructure, Obsession, Subway, Technology, The Gay Recluse, Washington Heights | Leave a Comment
Tags: 163rd Street, C-train, Graffiti, Modern Art, MTA, Thomas Pynchon, V
In which The Gay Recluse appears on the back of a tattered subway poster in the post-apocalyptic dungeon that is the 163rd Street subway station.
Filed under: Capitalism, Graffiti, Infrastructure, New York City, Subway, The Gay Recluse, Washington Heights | Leave a Comment
Tags: 163rd Street, C-train, Dungeons, Graffiti, MTA, Neglect, Post-Apocalypse, Ruins, Shitholes, Washington Heights
The Gay Recluse 