Archive for the ‘Dissonance’ Category
In which The Gay Recluse becomes increasingly obsessed with trees. We were waiting a long time for the copper beech (Fagus sylvatica “Dawyck Purple”) to open this spring. We had only planted it last year so didn’t know what to expect. We were worried when everything else was in bloom and the beech showed no […]
Filed under: Decay, Dissonance, GWB Project, Landscape, The Gay Recluse, The Spring Garden, Washington Heights, Weather | Leave a Comment
Tags: Beech, Copper Beech, Dawyck Purple, Fagus sylvatica, Lies, Problems, Shells
In which The Gay Recluse presents a gay/impressionistic alternative to this week’s Modern Love offering in The Times. Those looking for our quantitative analysis should click here. By JULIE BUXBAUM and THE GAY RECLUSE Published: May 11, 2008 SEVEN months ago, I was married in an ivory lace dress to a woman in a gray […]
Filed under: Dissonance, Dream, Gay, Longing, Memory, Search, Stereotypes, The Gay Recluse, The Times | Leave a Comment
Tags: Bridal Showers, Death, Dresses, Gay Modern Love, Julie Buxbaum, Lace, The New York Times, Weddings
In which The Gay Recluse suggests a link. The most beautiful ads are always for dead companies. Like this one we recently took on 35th Street between 5th and 6th Avenue. Does this company still exist? We hope not, because we don’t want to have to think about buying anything. New York City is filled […]
Filed under: Architecture, Capitalism, Communism, Conspiracy, Decay, Disease, Dissonance, Dream, Gay, Graffiti, Health, History, Infrastructure, Landscape, Longing, Memory, New York City, Obsession, Pessimism, Photography, Quotes, Ruins, Search, Sickness, The Gay Recluse | 2 Comments
Tags: AIDS, Apple, Dead Companies, Gay Blogs, General Electric, Google, HIV, Microsoft
In which The Gay Recluse documents the sunset of a dream. Today the tide seemed to finally turn against Hillary Clinton. We felt bad about it, but mostly on behalf of our mother. She’s in her seventies now and really wanted Hillary to win. She’s spent the better part of four decades fighting for women’s […]
Filed under: Dissonance, Dream, Gay, Government, GWB Project, Landscape, Language, Memory, Nostalgia, Pessimism, The Gay Recluse | 4 Comments
Tags: Hillary Clinton, Mothers, Orchids, Ronald Reagan, Sunsets
In which The Gay Recluse is entranced by the lowly marigold. Time/Location: Sunday afternoon at the Green Valley Nursery in Westchester. Yellow marigolds. Red marigolds. Orange marigolds.
Filed under: City Pattern Project, Dissonance, Photography, Retail, Stereotypes, The Gay Recluse, The Spring Garden | Leave a Comment
Tags: Green Valley, Marigold, Westchester
In which The Gay Recluse leaves New York. Last month we went to Pittsburgh for a few days. Even though we “grew up” there, it was almost like visiting a new (as in unfamiliar) city. We always lived in the suburbs, and almost never went into the city except to see the Penguins! This time […]
Filed under: Architecture, Capitalism, Communism, Decay, Dissonance, Gay, Gentrification, Infrastructure, Landscape, Language, Memory, Nostalgia, Television, The Gay Recluse, Travel | 7 Comments
Tags: Altar, Bridges, Chuck Noll, City of Champions, Discos, Gay Clubs, Mario Lemieux, Pittsburgh, Primanti's, Queer As Folk, The Penguins, The Pennsylvanian, The Steelers, The Strip, Wholey's
In which The Gay Recluse holds a contest. Sort of. Today we received two unofficial entries for the contest, “unofficial” because 1) the first statue is in Europe and we are primarily interested in locating the hottest gay statues in the U.S., and 2) the second statue doesn’t exist except in someone’s photoshopallucination! Yet we […]
Filed under: Architecture, Dissonance, Gay, Hot Gay Statues, Photography, Stereotypes, Technology, The Gay Recluse | 1 Comment
Tags: Bears, Chubby Chasers, Competitions, David, Florence, Gay, Hot Gay Statues, Woof
In which The Gay Recluse contemplates an old friend. Date of Picture: April 24, 2008 Location: Our garden in Washington Heights. Even as a child in Pittsburgh, we loved this table. All winter it would sit out on the porch as we stared longingly at it. Every May, when it was finally warm enough (this […]
Filed under: City Pattern Project, Dissonance, Landscape, Longing, Memory, Ruins, The Gay Recluse, Washington Heights, Weather | Leave a Comment
Tags: 1970s, Chores, Porch Furniture, Porches, Spring Cleaning, Suburbs, Tables, Wrought Iron
On Miranda
In which The Gay Recluse appreciates Miranda. Many years ago we had a friend named Miranda. She was the coolest! She wore the smallest backpack ever! It was gold and she used it to carry her cigarettes in it and nothing else, and even that was a tight fit. She was a photographer and a […]
Filed under: Dissonance, Memory, Nostalgia, Photography, Science, Search, The Gay Recluse, The Spring Garden | Leave a Comment
Tags: BackPack, Cigarettes, Climbing Hydrangea 'Miranda', East Village, Enemies, Fame, Friends
On a Miracle on 35th Street
In which The Gay Recluse ponders random acts of beauty garbage. So yesterday we wrote about a giant-tote-bag-and-broken-sawhorse installation on 35th Street between 5th and 6th Avenues. Today we are happy to report that not only has the installation survived, but that it has grown! This is facing west. We like the way the new […]
Filed under: Disease, Dissonance, Landscape, New York City, The Gay Recluse | 1 Comment
Tags: 35th Street, Con Edison, Holy Art, Installation, Jesus, Landfills, Sculpture, Totes
In which The Gay Recluse provides a gay alternative to this week’s Modern Love offering in The Times. Those looking for our quantitative analysis should click here. When The Chutney’s Gone (or Before I Came Out as a Lesbian, I Was the Worst Kind of Scary Sadshaw) By SUZANNE FINNAMORE and THE GAY RECLUSE Published: […]
Filed under: Addiction, Dissonance, Drivel, Food, Gay, Language, Stereotypes, The Gay Recluse, The Times | Leave a Comment
Tags: Coming Out, Daniel Jones, Divorce, Gay Modern Love, Lesbian, Scary Sadshaw, Suzanne Finnamore, The New York Times
In which The Gay Recluse becomes increasingly obsessed with The George Washington Bridge. Time and date of photographs: April 3, 2008, wheneverness. Work was difficult this week. It was hard to concentrate. Life felt very distant. We wished we could take a nap. Somehow it never ends. “I, too am obsessed with the George Washington Bridge, […]
Filed under: Dissonance, Dream, Gay, GWB Project, History, Photography, Quotes, Resignation, Ruins, Technology, The Gay Recluse | Leave a Comment
Tags: George Washington Bridge, Sunsets, Work
In which Deirdre’s Terrain checks in with The Gay Recluse. Today we received this startling news report and follow-up analysis from our Manhattan correspondent Deirdre’s Terrain: ieeww I hate people who post picts & videos of their KIDS at the beach taking a bath etc etc… playing with their iPhone.. YUCK! why do parents post […]
Filed under: Animals, Conspiracy, Deirdre's Terrain, Dissonance, Gay, Health, Landscape, Language, Photography, The Gay Recluse | 2 Comments
Tags: Baths, Beach, Children, iPhone, Mundane, Pets, Redactions
In which The Gay Recluse is momentarily disturbed. Of all the natural vistas we have encountered — desert landscapes, arctic tundra, the badlands — the rooftops of Washington Heights remain one of the most tranquil and undisturbed. Originally carved from the bedrock some 10,000 years ago by the retreating glaciers, the surreal beauty of these […]
Filed under: Architecture, Conspiracy, Dissonance, Dream, Landscape, New York City, Resignation, The Gay Recluse, Washington Heights | Leave a Comment
Tags: Artic Tundra, Badlands, Birds, Desert, Glaciers, Ice Age, Palisades, Rooftops
In which The Gay Recluse turns forty. Today we received the following note from Harry, a reader in Washington Heights: Subj: YOU Mess: It is none my business to know, but! My curiosity is tweaked. Who are you? Have you posted something somewhere to give a more detailed bio? or do I have to continue […]
Filed under: Architecture, Decay, Dissonance, Gay, Landscape, New York City, Resignation, Ruins, The Gay Recluse, Washington Heights | 1 Comment
Tags: Aries, Autism, Birthdays, Fort Tryon Park, Forty, Galaxie 500, Inwood Hill Park, Lampposts, The Minutemen, Upper Manhattan
In which The Gay Recluse provides a gay alternative to this week’s Modern Love offering in The Times. Those looking for our quantitative analysis should click here. How We Got From Grief to Pancakes By PATTY DANN and THE GAY RECLUSE Published: March 30, 2008 I WAS nervous about meeting my new partner’s parents, even […]
Filed under: Conspiracy, Dissonance, Gay, Stereotypes, Technology, The Gay Recluse | 2 Comments
Tags: Daniel Jones, Gay Modern Love, Modern Love, Patty Dann, The New York Times
In which The Gay Recluse reads a book five years later and says wtf. Last fall, after we posted our thoughts on the suffocation of the gay voice in American literature, a reader suggested that for the sake of comparison we check out The Yacoubian Building, by Alaa al Aswany, which said reader described to […]
Filed under: Decay, Dissonance, Drivel, Gay, Literature, Sickness, Stereotypes, The Gay Recluse, Writers-Egyptian | 4 Comments
Tags: Alaa al Aswany, Egypt, Gay Characters, Stereotypes, Yacoubian Building
In which The Gay Recluse celebrates Easter. It was not until eleventh grade — in Mrs. S____’s English class — that we began to appreciate the obsessive and illogical side of literature, which of course is to say we were reading Wuthering Heights. Do you remember Mrs. S____? How thin and small and severe she […]
Filed under: Dissonance, Dream, Landscape, Language, Literature, Memory, Obsession, The Gay Recluse, The Spring Garden, Washington Heights, Weather, Writers-British | 1 Comment
Tags: Catherine, Easter, Emily Bronte, Fort Tryon Park, Heathcliff, Heather, Sylvia Plath, The Moors, Wuthering 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: Mom, It’s Me, Your Son, Finally Subject: A man in mid-life crisis […]
Filed under: Dissonance, Infrastructure, Pessimism, Resignation, Search, Stereotypes, The Gay Recluse, The Times | Leave a Comment
Tags: Daniel Jones, Fashion & Style, Gay Modern Love, Modern Love, Stereotypes, The New York Times
The Gay Recluse 