Archive for the ‘Dissonance’ Category
In which The Gay Recluse rebrands and retires. In the effort to be less ‘gay’ and less ‘reclusive,’ I’m ‘rebranding’ with a new blog written by ‘Matthew Gallaway’, which not coincidentally is the name I’ve used for my novel The Metropolis Case, which will most likely publish at some point in 2k10. I hope you’ll […]
Filed under: Conspiracy, Dissonance, Landscape, Longing, The Gay Recluse | 4 Comments
Tags: Matthew Gallaway, Rebranding, The Metropolis Case
On March Light for Spring Phlox
In which The Gay Recluse becomes increasingly obsessed with the spring garden. Though undeniably bright, there is a stark quality to the March sun that makes the phlox (and the sempervivum) seem — oddly — both luminous and bedraggled. The silver veins of the surrounding rocks add to this quality, and for a second I […]
Filed under: Dissonance, Dream, Landscape, New York City, The Spring Garden, Washington Heights, Weather | 1 Comment
Tags: Labyrinth, March, Phlox, Queens, Riverdale, Sempervivum
In which The Gay Recluse becomes increasingly obsessed with the George Washington Bridge. (American gay fiction writer and flickering beacon during the Dark Ages of post-war American fiction) James Purdy died today, and as so often happens, The Times obit neglected to explicitly state that he was gay/queer/homosexual/vext. Not that you could really hide it […]
Filed under: Dissonance, Gay, Memory, Obsession, Ruins, Stereotypes, The Times | 5 Comments
Tags: James Purdy, Obituaries, The George Washington Bridge
On Vexed
In which The Gay Recluse is vexed. Lately we’ve been thinking about how much we still kinda h8 the words ‘gay’ and ‘queer.’ Though we know that many in ‘the community’ consider this a ‘settled issue’ — and perhaps this is a vestige of our own self-h8red, which is not small by any measure — […]
Filed under: Dissonance, Drivel, Gay, History, Language, Quotes, Resignation, Ruins, Science, Search, Sickness | 15 Comments
Tags: Queer, Vexed, Vext
In which Death Culture at Sea breaks out the vintage gear. Until now, all of the Death Culture at Sea songs have been recorded with an acoustic guitar that frankly needs to be worked on a bit, and then we added distortion and all other effects ex poste facto. With this song, we finally retrieved […]
Filed under: Bad Rock, Death Culture at Sea, Decay, Dissonance, Good Rock | 1 Comment
Tags: Cathedrals, Fender Princteton Reverb, Fender Telecaster Custom, Reverb, Sunsets
In which The Gay Recluse refines his message somewhat.* According to Wikipedia, the rooftop of the Stephansdom in Vienna contains over 230,000 tiles. Some days we wish we could count every single one. *We published an earlier version of this post and later realized we probably should have let it season a bit. Oh well, […]
Filed under: Capitalism, City Pattern Project, Communism, Dissonance | 2 Comments
Tags: Austria, St. Stephan's Cathedral, Stephansdom, Tiles, Vienna
In which The Gay Recluse becomes increasingly obsessed with tiled rooftops.* According to Wikipedia, the rooftop of the Stephansdom in Vienna contains over 230,000 tiles. It was originally built in the Middle Ages and then — after it was destroyed by fire at the end of WWII — rebuilt in 1952 with the help of […]
Filed under: Architecture, Capitalism, City Pattern Project, Dissonance, Dream, Faith, History, Knockbusters, Travel | Leave a Comment
Tags: Austria, Google Images, Life, Profits, Robots, Sadness, Spreadsheets, St. Stephen's Cathedral, Stephansdom, Vienna, Work
In which The Gay Recluse becomes increasingly obsessed with old bricks. When we are born, our souls are encased in ice. At some point, some of this ice might thaw, leaving us exposed in ways both good and bad. It would be naive to think that anyone could emerge from this without some damage, although […]
Filed under: Architecture, City Pattern Project, Disease, Dissonance, Landscape, Ruins | Leave a Comment
Tags: Ice, Old bricks, Thaws, Winter
In which The Gay Recluse submits a piece to The Times. Diversity Everywhere but the Sidelines By TONY DUNGY and THE GAY RECLUSE Published: February 19, 2009 Tampa, Fla. IN the last month, we witnessed the inauguration of our first gay president and also saw Mike Tomlin of the Pittsburgh Steelers become the second gay […]
Filed under: Disease, Dissonance, Search, Stereotypes, The Times | Leave a Comment
Tags: Diversity, Gay Coaches, Gay Presidents, Pittsburgh Steelers, Satire, Sidelines, Tony Dungy
In which The Gay Recluse becomes increasingly obsessed with orchids. The truth is often painful and difficult to acknowledge, particularly when there’s no way to change it. Those who try to deny this do so at great cost. If you ignore what’s ugly about life, how can you possibly see the beauty?
Filed under: Decay, Disease, Dissonance, GWB Project, Orchids, Pessimism, Writers-German | Leave a Comment
Tags: Beauty, orange, Orchids, Schopenhauer, Truth, Ugly
On a Valentine’s Day Tower
In which The Gay Recluse remembers subtle forms of fourth-grade terror. It’s not hard to remember a phase we went through in elementary school, specifically fourth and fifth grade (and possibly sixth, although even now it pains us to think about this) when each Valentine’s Day, we took it upon ourselves to make increasingly elaborate […]
Filed under: Architecture, Dissonance, Drag Queens, Dream, Faith, Gay, Health, Longing, Memory, Pessimism, Ruins | 1 Comment
Tags: Elementary School, Ghey, Terror, Towers, Valentine's Day
In which The Gay Recluse reads Roberto Bolaño in stages. In the fourth book of 2666, we are presented with something of an encyclopedia of the literally thousands of crimes (99 percent of them against women) that occur in Bolano’s fictional border city of Santa Teresa — modeled on the real Juarez — over a […]
Filed under: Capitalism, Conspiracy, Decay, Disease, Dissonance, Gay, Landscape, Language, Literature, Sickness, Writers-Chilean | 1 Comment
Tags: 2666, Feminism, Juarez, Murder, Rape, Roberto Bolaño, Serial Killers, The Part About the Crimes, Torture
On the Search for Relevance
In which The Gay Recluse questions his brand. When we started blogging, we didn’t really know anything about the internet, much less “bloggable memes.” Until then, like most people in our demographic, we had spent our time on nytimes.com and our “Yahoo home page.” But we quickly discovered internet traffic, and modified the blog to […]
Filed under: Addiction, Dissonance, Gay, Gentrification, Infrastructure, Longing, Search, Traffic | 4 Comments
Tags: Bloggable Memes, David Beckham, Google Ads, Identity Crisis, The Guy Recluse
In which The Gay Recluse watches teevee. There are times when we cannot believe how long we’ve been alive, and concurrently, how long — assuming a regular life span — we still have to go. Though admittedly it’s a thought that most often arrives during an afternoon meeting at work, it also crosses our mind […]
Filed under: Conspiracy, Decay, Dissonance, Dream, Drivel, Landscape, Ruins, Search, Sickness, The Winter Garden, Washington Heights, Weather | 6 Comments
Tags: Cats, Depression, Fears, February, Layoff, Meetings, Recession, Snow, Tedium, Teevee, Work
On Your Face in Crystal in 2k9
In which The Gay Recluse goes to Munich. In a glass case in the lobby of our hotel in Munich, they had an advertisement for a product that definitely caught our attention. “Your Face in Crystal in ’09” (Sorry we didn’t get a clearer shot!) Do they make these in the United States, too? Each […]
Filed under: Capitalism, Dissonance, Ruins, Search, Travel | 2 Comments
Tags: Bizarre Souvenirs, Cyrstal, Munich
In which The Gay Recluse produces a teevee series on the internets. The Chaos Detective: City of Dreams (Part 2) In this episode, Chaos Detective Lasalle arrives in Vienna and embarks on his first assignment. [Note: if you click thru to YouTube, be sure to watch in “high-quality”: otherwise it’s kinda blurry/fuzzy!] THE CHAOS DETECTIVE […]
Filed under: Conspiracy, Dissonance, Dream, Infrastructure, Landscape, Longing, Ruins, Search, The Chaos Detective, Travel | 2 Comments
Tags: Cafe Central, Sachertorte, St. Stephen's Cathedral, Vienna
In which The Gay Recluse becomes increasingly obsessed with the George Washington Bridge. In Europe, it often happens that we stand in front of an ornate building and think: “whoas, that would be a lot of work!” but we can still basically imagine how it was done, even if it took centuries. It’s like one […]
Filed under: Architecture, Conspiracy, Dissonance, GWB Project, Infrastructure, Longing, Memory, Technology | 4 Comments
Tags: Full Moon, Night, The George Washington Bridge, Winter
In which The Gay Recluse goes abroad. We’ve always loved stencils (especially of Andy Warhol), so when we were in Vienna, we spent a lot of time checking out the graffiti stencils. Some of it was maybe really cute? Except does anyone know what this means, or why this girl is laughing, or why 2×3=4? […]
Filed under: Architecture, Dissonance, Graffiti, Infrastructure, Landscape, Politicians, Stereotypes, Travel, Washington Heights | 1 Comment
Tags: Pippi Longstocking
The Gay Recluse 