Archive for the ‘Dissonance’ Category
In which The Gay Recluse provides a gay alternative to this week’s Modern Love offering in The Times. Mom, It’s Me, Your Gay Son, Finally By PETE MacDONALD and THE GAY RECLUSE Published: March 22, 2008 A YEAR after my partner Alan left me, and on the day before my estranged mother would have turned […]
Filed under: Dissonance, Landscape, Language, Longing, Memory, Search, Sickness, Stereotypes, The Gay Recluse, The Times | 4 Comments
Tags: Anger, Daniel Jones, Drama Queens, Fashion & Style, Forgiveness, Gay Modern Love, Pete MacDonald, Psychology, Redemption, Stereotypes, The New York Times
In which The Gay Recluse posts an incisive reader comment. This was left in the comments but we thought it merited a full post because it brings to light several important and interesting issues that are not unrelated to our obituary of Arthur C. Clarke, which — ahem — did not please everyone. Vikram — […]
Filed under: Decay, Dissonance, Gay, Letters, Stereotypes, The Gay Recluse | 5 Comments
Tags: Arthur C. Clarke, Colonialism, Gay, India, Outing the Dead, Rich Foreigners, Sri Lanka
In which The Gay Recluse becomes increasingly obsessed with The George Washington Bridge. Time and Date of photograph: March 19, 2008, 6:54am. Notes: A gray morning, but the cats are up. (There’s no going back to sleep.) “The George Washington Bridge over the Hudson is the most beautiful bridge in the world. Made of cables […]
Filed under: Architecture, Dissonance, GWB Project, Infrastructure, The Gay Recluse, Washington Heights, Weather | Leave a Comment
Tags: 1947, George Washington Bridge, Gray, Le Corbusier, March, Morning Light
In which The Gay Recluse kills two birds with one stone. Today we received a certain amount of shit for “trashing” Arthur C. Clarke as a major closet-case only milliseconds after he died. Fair enough, we trashed him a little. But our purpose in doing so — besides being an internet traffic whore, of course […]
Filed under: Disease, Dissonance, Gay, History, Language, Letters, Literature, Longing, Stereotypes, The Gay Recluse | 5 Comments
Tags: Arthur C. Clarke, Closet Cases, Closet Queens, Internet Whores, Self-Hatred, The Gay Voice
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: The Steep Price of Our Forbidden Kiss Subject: A young woman with […]
Filed under: Disease, Dissonance, Language, Resignation, The Gay Recluse, The Times | Leave a Comment
Tags: Cystic Fibrosis, Daniel Jones, Fashion & Style, Gay Modern Love, Stereotypes, The New York Times
In which The Gay Recluse compares the Richard Wagner opera Tristan and Isolde (first performed in Munich in 1865; financed by King Ludwig II of Bavaria and now running at The Metropolitan Opera) with Loveless, the final record by My Bloody Valentine (Creation, 1991). While the music is dissonant, it’s never abrasive; it’s just another […]
Filed under: Dissonance, Good Rock, Longing, Memory, Opera, The Gay Recluse | Leave a Comment
Tags: Bavaria, Creation Records, Gesasmtkunstwerk, King Ludwig II, Loveless, Munich, My Bloody Valenting, Richard Wagner, Tristan and Isolde
In which The Gay Recluse thinks about shit on the daily commute. As we walk through midtown each morning and each afternoon, we often pause to observe a fading silhouette on a wall; while somewhat decrepit, it provides comforting evidence — of a sort we are always on the lookout for — that Andy Warhol […]
Filed under: Architecture, Capitalism, Decay, Dissonance, Drag Queens, Graffiti, Infrastructure, Landscape, Longing, New York City, Nostalgia, Obsession, Pessimism, Resignation, Sickness, The Gay Recluse | 6 Comments
Tags: Andrea Feldman, Andy Warhol, Candy Darling, Commuting, Dishonored, Edie Sedgwick, Flesh, Geri Miller, Greta Garbo, Holly Woodlawn, Jackie Curtis, Joe Dallesandro, Marlene Dietrich, Nico, Outer and Inner Space, Superstars, The Past, The Velvet Underground
In which The Gay Recluse scores selected opinion pieces in The Times. David Brooks/Remembering the Mentor The Short Version: Even though he was a Nazi, I loved William F. Buckley. In her words: “Buckley was not only a giant celebrity, he lived in a manner of the haut monde.” Score: F (Foolish) In this column […]
Filed under: Capitalism, Dissonance, Drivel, Film, Gay, History, Obsession, The Gay Recluse, The Times | Leave a Comment
Tags: David Brooks, Luchino Visconti, Nazi Germany, The Damned, The New York Times, William F. Buckley
On Roses and Ruins
In which The Gay Recluse contemplates an uncommissioned masterpiece from the walls of an uptown subway station.
Filed under: Capitalism, Decay, Dissonance, Longing, New York City, Photography, Subway, The Gay Recluse, Washington Heights | Leave a Comment
Tags: 163rd Street, Masterpieces, Roses, Ruins, Subway, Washington Heights
In which The Gay Recluse becomes increasingly obsessed with The George Washington Bridge. Time and Date of photograph: February 28, 2008, 7:56am. Notes: The sky is starting to seem spring-like, but it was actually close to minus-fifty. “It was to be encased in granite but because of the Depression was never done and the structure […]
Filed under: Capitalism, Dissonance, GWB Project, Photography, The Gay Recluse, Washington Heights, Weather | Leave a Comment
Tags: 1947, Blue, February, George Washington Bridge, James Renner, Minus-Fifty, Morning Light
On the Extinction of Golf
In which The Gay Recluse ponders the dinosaurs. In today’s New York Times, in a shocking piece that has vaulted all the way to number one on the “Most Popular” chart, we learn that golf is on the way out; declining in a popularity, with too many courses built in the 90s, it’s no longer […]
Filed under: Dissonance, Memory, Resignation, The London Eye, The Times | Leave a Comment
Tags: Asshole Republicans, Extinction, Fifty Dollars, Forest, Golf, Golf Balls, Sledding, Tiger Woods, Woods
In which The Gay Recluse is inspired by a classic. Of all the French photographers who documented Paris at the turn of the last century (and we don’t mean 8 years ago), we are most obsessed with Eugene Atget. Who can resist his urban streetscapes, his ghostly renderings of the city of light? And his […]
Filed under: Dissonance, Memory, Nostalgia, Pessimism, Photography, Pleasure, The Winter Garden, Washington Heights | Leave a Comment
Tags: Eugene Atget, Litter, Paris, Roots, Trees
On the Gawker Executions
In which The Gay Recluse — in case you missed it — reports on today’s media frenzy. So get this: today Gawker “executed” four of its “more-stupid-than-funny” commenters, three of whom we specifically targeted in the post we wrote yesterday about (get out your pencils and paper) Gawker’s original post about Chris Crocker. Say what […]
Filed under: Dissonance, Drag Queens, Faith, Gay, Law, Stereotypes, The Gay Recluse | Leave a Comment
Tags: Chris Crocker, Conformity, Executions, Free Speech, Gawker, Homophobosphere, Velvet Rope
In which The Gay Recluse enjoys a game of “Would You Rather,” the elementary school game in which you must choose one of two offered alternatives and explain why. The Set-up: You are at the gym over lunch, about to get on to the treadmill for fifteen minutes when you realize — fucking-shit! — that […]
Filed under: Dissonance, Government, Memory, Pessimism, Politicians, Television, Would You Rather | Leave a Comment
Tags: 38-Special, Bethel Park, Bruce Springsteen, Charlie Rose, Condileeza Rice, Dead Battery, iPod, John McCain, Pittsburgh, Republicans, The Allman Brothers, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, WDVE
On the Rainbow Room
In which The Gay Recluse writes metaphorically about life. Let’s say you were invited to a cocktail reception in the Rainbow Room, hosted by ____ and featuring a talk by _____, a political hero of yours who now works at a prestigious law firm. And even though it was a corporate event, which is never […]
Filed under: Dissonance, Government, Longing, Memory, Politicians, The Gay Recluse | Leave a Comment
Tags: Crab Cakes, Law Firms, Midtown Manhattan, Rockefeller Center, Suits, The Rainbow Room, Ties, Wine
In which The Gay Recluse live-blogs the Super Bowl. 5:58. Our friend T___ arrives to give us haircuts. He tells us that his mother, who is only 64 years old, has just been diagnosed with an inoperable form of brain cancer. She has just begun chemotherapy, and to give him encouragement, we tell him about […]
Filed under: Addiction, Dissonance, Dream, Film, History, Landscape, Photography, Technology, Television, The Gay Recluse, Washington Heights | Leave a Comment
Tags: Contempt, Giants, Haircuts, Hong Kong, In the Mood for Love, Jean-Luc Godard, Le Mepris, Maggie Cheung, Netflix, Patriots, Super Bowl, Tawaa, Tony Leung, Wong Kar-wei
The Gay Recluse 