Archive for November, 2008
In which The Gay Recluse loves Robert Bresson. In Diary of a Country Priest (1951), Robert Bresson offers us a portrait of a beautiful and painfully sensitive young priest who has just arrived to his new parish. For reasons that are never quite explained, the priest is mocked and detested by the local citizens; those […]
Filed under: Conspiracy, Film, Gay, Search, Sickness, Stereotypes, Writers-French | 2 Comments
Tags: Counts, Diary of a Country Priest, Farm Girls, Grief, Priests, Robert Bresson, The Dark Ages
In which The Gay Recluse scores selected opinion pieces in The Times. Charles Blow/Gay Marriage and a Moral Minority The Short Version: The gays are not about to win over black women — who statistics show are stupid, bitter, homophobic cows — by appealing to equality. Better to appeal to reproductive health! In his words: […]
Filed under: Drivel, Gay, Government, Politicians, Stereotypes, The Gay Recluse, The Times | 1 Comment
Tags: Charles Blow, Church Ladies, CNN, Cows, Extrapolations, Gay Marriage, Homophobia
In which The Gay Recluse considers a southern exposure. Admittedly, we have often cursed the apartment buildings that face the southern side of our garden. In addition to casting a shadow, they are sometimes the source of crushingly loud (and bad) music and garbage thrown from their windows. Also, it’s hard to escape the feeling […]
Filed under: Capitalism, City Pattern Project, Communism, Conspiracy, History, Knockbusters, Washington Heights, Weather | 1 Comment
Tags: Apartment Buildings, Clotheslines, Gardens, Hate, Shadows, Southern Exposures, Sun, Urban vistas
In which The Gay Recluse ponders gay marriage literary equality. (Ed: we accidentally published an earlier version of this piece with a lot of unfinished crap at the bottom — please disregard in favor of the below!). UPDATE: please check out this post for gay-oriented 2008 book recommendations from those better informed than us! Last November, […]
Filed under: Disease, Gay, Government, Health, Landscape, Language, Literature, Politicians, Stereotypes, The Gay Recluse, The Times | Leave a Comment
Tags: Assfucking, Cocksucking, Fiction, Gay Marriage, James Balwin, Janet Maslin, Marcel Proust, Michiko Kakutani
In which The Gay Recluse lives in the past. Our favorite part of Thanksgiving this year was not the food, but the table,* particularly after it was set and waited patiently in the late afternoon sun. Accompanied by the cats, we spent quite a few minutes quietly circling the table, observing the way the light […]
Filed under: Architecture, Capitalism, Communism, Food, GWB Project, History, Memory, New York City, Nostalgia, Washington Heights, Weather | 1 Comment
Tags: Bygones, Community Plate, Grosvenor, Table Service, Thanksgiving
In which The Gay Recluse considers the dark ages. So today we were reading about the new Thomas Pynchon novel, which is going to be released next year. Like so many adolescent boys we’ve known, we went through a serious Pynchon phase. His maddeningly complex yet (somehow) crystalline prose managed to resonate with the best […]
Filed under: Capitalism, Conspiracy, Gay, GWB Project, Literature, Memory, Science, Technology, The Gay Recluse, Writers-American | 2 Comments
Tags: Adolescents, Boys, Conspiracy, Dark Ages, Entropy, Physics, The George Washington Bridge, Thomas Pynchon
In which The Gay Recluse becomes increasingly obsessed with birds. So guess what? We now have a Twitter and a Tumblr and a Facebook! Sometimes we feel like the oldest person in the blogosphere. If we were a bird, we’d probably just fly away.
Filed under: Animals, Drivel, Gay, Obsession, Photography, Resignation, The Gay Recluse | Leave a Comment
Tags: Birds, Facebook, Old, Tumblr, Twitter
In which The Gay Recluse remembers the fall. This weekend we visited family and spent time remembering what a weirdly obsessive kid we were in many ways, some of which involved books about birds and spiders, others of which involved stuffed animals, and still others of which involved a crippling fear of birthday parties. Perhaps […]
Filed under: Animals, City Pattern Project, Landscape, Memory, Obsession | 2 Comments
Tags: Birds, Birthday Parties, Commuters, Fall, Leaves, Spiders
In which The Gay Recluse remembers an old obsession with the color red. Years ago, we went through a phase when we wore only red shirts. But here’s the thing: you couldn’t find any good ones that were new, so we were required to scour used-clothing shops all over the country in a mostly vain […]
Filed under: Architecture, Gay, Health, Longing, Memory, New York City, Obsession, Ruins, Washington Heights | 1 Comment
Tags: Art Nouveau, Doorways, Flannel, Red, Seattle, Shirts, Tours, Vintage Clothing Shoes, Wrought Iron
In which Dante and Zephyr take over The Gay Recluse. Friends, you can be safe in assuming that we spend more time together than any human couple on the planet! That’s why we rushed out and got our federal civil union license, which gives all couples — gay or straight! — the same rights and […]
Filed under: Animals, Not Every Cat a Lolcat, Resignation, The Russian Blue | 2 Comments
Tags: Assistants, Couches, Federal Civil Unions for All, Sunlight
In which The Gay Recluse becomes increasingly obsessed with birds. So today we read a most excellent post on marriage at Emily Magazine, which we strongly recommend (and not just because we’re quoted at some length in it, lol!) We have to wonder, is it a coincidence that the only two bloggers to link into […]
Filed under: Capitalism, Communism, Dissonance, Faith, Gay, Government, Language, Pessimism, Philosophers | Leave a Comment
Tags: Civil Union for All, Ellie Smeal, Femiladyism, Gay Bffs, Gay Marriage, Marriage, N.O.W., Seagulls, The Hudson River
In which The Gay Recluse holds a contest. Sort of. We are quite pleased to tell you that our favorite art blogger C-Monster has recently been documenting the hot-gay-statue scene in Los Angeles, where in addition to the University of Southern California, some of the hottest gay statues in history have been cropping up at […]
Filed under: Capitalism, Communism, Gay, Hot Gay Statues, Infrastructure, Travel | 4 Comments
Tags: Bronze, Getty Villa, Greek Statuary, Los Angeles, Victorious Youth
In which The Gay Recluse covers the teen beat. We first noticed this trend at the beginning of the summer, when we were walking past a group of kids — including some girls, which was extra cool! — on Fort Washington Avenue, all of whom were messing around with skateboards. Then we noticed a regular […]
Filed under: Architecture, Athletes, Memory, New York City, Photography, Stereotypes, Washington Heights | Leave a Comment
Tags: Baseball, Ghettos, Skateboard, Surfing, Teen Beat, Teenagers, The George Washington Bridge, Trends
In which The Gay Recluse watches French film. In Robert Bresson’s Pickpocket, the young (and kinda hot, in an aloof, cerebral way) lead is given to wandering the streets of Paris, looking into the eyes of men with whom he has the briefest and most exhilarating (but ultimately soulless) encounters. Surprise: at least superficially, this […]
Filed under: Addiction, Film, Longing, Obsession, Writers-French | 4 Comments
Tags: Dark Ages, Gay Film, Pickpocket, Robert Bresson
In which The Gay Recluse rather quickly dies of lung disease. Although there are countless slumlords offenders in Washington Heights, this building is one of the worst. We’ve written about this building before — and for a while it seemed to get better — but now that it’s getting cold, the smoke is getting worse, […]
Filed under: Capitalism, Health, New York City, Washington Heights | 2 Comments
Tags: 311, 672 West 162nd Street, Asthma, Boilers, Cheap Oil, Department of Environmental Protection, Pollution, Slumlords
On Beatrice, 2008
In which The Gay Recluse remembers Beatrice, two years later. We don’t have too many photographs of Beatrice; although we owned a camera, it was a particularly trying period of our life, so that we were almost never inspired to memorialize it. (All of these pictures were taken by Stephen.) You can tell that this […]
Filed under: Animals, Disease, Dissonance, Longing, Memory, The Russian Blue | Leave a Comment
Tags: Beatrice, Dante, Grooming, Requiescat in Pace, Windows
In which The Gay Recluse loves The Manhattan Times. Hey, so The Manhattan Times wrote a charming (if we say so) piece on The Metropolis Case. If you’ve never read the uptown weekly, you’re missing out (and really, we’re not just saying that!). In this week’s issue alone, there are excellent articles about Andy Linares […]
Filed under: Animals, Literature, The Gay Recluse, The Russian Blue, Washington Heights, Writers-American, Writers-French | 4 Comments
Tags: Beatrice, Book Deals, Novels, The Manhattan Times, The Metropolis Case, Uptown
In which The Gay Recluse becomes increasingly obsessed with birds. Some mornings the pigeons arrive en masse and circle the rooftops over Washington Heights. One minute the sky will be blank, and the next it will be filled with birds — somehow they move as a single entity — careening like a speed boat on […]
Filed under: Animals, Architecture, GWB Project, Landscape, Washington Heights | Leave a Comment
Tags: Flocks, November, Pigeons, The George Washington Bridge
In which The Gay Recluse wonders who made this stuff up, and not without appreciation. “I like your style” is kinda funny, but the back of the bottle is where things get good. “Wow. That’s some great looking hair you have.” Did you lol? We did. For some reason it never ceases to amuse us. […]
Filed under: Architecture, Capitalism, Dissonance, Language | 2 Comments
Tags: Copywriters, Great Looking Hair, Pert Plus
The Gay Recluse 