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: gay aristocracy
Comment: We prefer to align ourselves with the Washington Heights intelligentsia.

Search: washington heights+architecture
Comment: Two possibilities come to mind: already in ruins or 85 percent there.

Search: Closing Night for My Bit Part modern love
Comment: We suppose some people might be happy that only 1 out of 164 columns in Modern Love (the weekly column in the Style Section of The Times) has considered the question of same-sex love from the vantage point of a gay writer. It is safe to say that we are not among these people. (Welcome to the new dark ages.)

Search: gay male gut punching
Comment: This is what ESPN had in mind when they ran their let’s-make-fun-of-the-faggots pottery ad campaign. (As with the Modern Love informal-but-rather-telling quantitative analysis referenced one entry above, we seem to be the only ones bothered by this, however. Welcome to the new dark ages — Part 2.)

Search: cutie clementines
Comment: The interest in this election has surprised even us.

Search: Tufts University stereotypes
Comment: If you’re interested in reinforcing gay stereotypes, Tufts wants to hear from you.

Search: cannanes a love affair blog
Comment: There are times when — despite everything we’ve learned — we still hope that something might magically appear and change everything that seems miserable about our lives. At such moments we often think of the song “Vivienne” by the Cannanes; that is, we imagine a girl — no, a young woman, at least — in a small town in Australia longing for New York City and resigning herself to the idea that she will never get there. What is magical is how transformed we are by the sad beauty of her resignation as we realize it mirrors our own.

Search: gay politicians
Comment: We’re pretty sure that none of the openly gay ones are running for president.

Search: Russian gay blues
Comment: Our male cats are not related but they like to sleep together. Does this make them gay?

Search: gay baseball jock
Comment: Is there anything more annoying than listening to some Republican policy wonk go on and on about the “genius” of baseball and its identification with the most sanitized (i.e., non-gay) version of American culture? Actually, there is, in the form of a suburban troglodyte (female) from New Jersey who used to do the same thing just one cubicle over from ours (thankfully we’re no longer affiliated with that workplace).

Search: gay.sex.gay.sex
Comment: Look, we’re all for it, but sometimes you have to get a grip and resign yourself to the allure of one of the greatest works of post-war American fiction. Friends, feed yer soul.

Search: BRITISH WRITERS WHO WERE GAY
Comment: [AS A PRELIMINARY NOTE, WE ALMOST NEVER RECOMMEND ALL CAPS, EVEN FOR SEARCHING]. More substantively, we are dismayed that Henry James — who toward the end of his life officially renounced his American citizenship and became a Brit — is not recognized as the hot bear he so clearly was.

Search: what does mta stand for frisbee players
Comment: Sometimes we joke that mta stands for “shitty D-train service” but it never occurred to ask if it stands for frisbee players.