In which The Gay Recluse rather quickly dies of lung cancer.

Chronic pollution is a lot like chronic pain.

You know it’s there but it’s hard to get rid of.

Particularly when everyone’s doing it!

Sometimes it blows right in the window.

And makes us wish we lived in Vermont.

The oily black smoke of 100-year-old boilers disperses daily across the rooftops in Washington Heights, heedless of those (including birds) who suffer from pneumonia, asthma and tuberculosis. Officials and politicians? Not even footnotes in this story, which is about the aggregation of capital and the relentless rise of the metropolis.

–The Gay Recluse, 9/29/07