Archive for the ‘Dream’ Category
In which The Gay Recluse becomes increasingly obsessed with the George Washington Bridge. Today I read a disturbing post on the NYT’s City Room blog about a pair of teenagers who broke into a vacant apartment in Brooklyn, doused a cat with lighter fluid and then set it on fire. According to the article, “[t]he […]
Filed under: Brooklyn, Disease, Dream, Film, Gay, GWB Project, Memory, Philosophers, Sickness | 3 Comments
Tags: A Short Film about Killing, Cats, Crimes, Cruelty, Death, Judith Shklar, Krzysztof Kieslowski, Punishments, Richard Rorty, Teenagers
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 Dealth Culture at Sea* is a light that turns to blue. *Since there seem to be a few new folks stopping by here, a note of explanation: I used to play in an indie-rock band called Saturnine, and this — i.e., Death Culture at Sea — is my new ‘band,’ consisting of me, […]
Filed under: Bad Rock, Death Culture at Sea, Dream, Good Rock, Orchids | Leave a Comment
Tags: Indie Rock, Late Bloomers, Music, The George Washington Bridge
In which Death Culture at Sea looks back a few decades. Listen on our Tumblr or Download from the Death Culture at Sea site. “My Back for Thirds” Here I looked around In your dream I hit the ground I was bringing something wrapped in silk around to you But it was nearly cut in […]
Filed under: Death Culture at Sea, Dream, Memory | 1 Comment
Tags: Indie Rock, Ponzi Schemes, Retro
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 birch trees. I first met Leanne in the fall of tenth grade in the Kingswood dining hall. This was my first year of boarding school and — residual fear from public school — I was still petrified at the thought of eating alone; I don’t remember […]
Filed under: Architecture, Brooklyn, Dream, Gay, Longing, Memory, Ruins, Search | 2 Comments
Tags: Art Openings, Bloomfield Hills, Boarding School, Cornell, Cranbrook Kingswood, Detroit, Flannel Shirts, Swimmer's Hair
On “Whatever Homo Tendencies I Have Are Basically a Minor Health Problem” (Valentine’s Day 2k8)
In which The Gay Recluse revisits the past, both distant and not-so-distant. As many of you may or may not know, last year we wrote an essay that was published by Gawker on Valentine’s Day as part of a “Gay Modern Love” contest sponsored by Sheila (miss u!) and inspired in part by our rants […]
Filed under: Competitions, Dream, Gay, Health, History, Longing, Memory, Nostalgia, Obsession, Pleasure, Search | 2 Comments
Tags: 2k8, Gawker, Gay Modern Love, Sheila, Valentine's Day
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
On the Search for Spring
In which The Gay Recluse dreams about the garden. When the February blues hit — and considering this winter, how could they not? — we like to immerse ourselves into dreams of spring, which entails many hours in the seed and plant catalogs. Though our garden is dominated by perennials, bushes and trees designed to […]
Filed under: Dream, Faith, Longing, New York City, The Spring Garden, The Summer Garden, Weather | Leave a Comment
Tags: Annuals, Flowering Tobacco, Perennials, Salvia, Sunfower, Zinnia
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
In which The Gay Recluse reads Roberto Bolaño in stages. As the title indicates, the second book of Roberto Bolaño’s 2666 is devoted to Amalfitano, a professor of philosophy (or maybe sometimes literature) at the university in the Mexican town where — in the previous book — the three pretentious European academics/literary critics gathered to look […]
Filed under: Dream, Literature, Memory, Writers-Chilean | 1 Comment
Tags: 2666, Amalfitano, Chile, Geometry, Madness, Mexico, Roberto Bolaño
On DeathCulture@Sea: Anodyne
In which The Gay Recluse sings a song. Here’s the latest from DeathCulture@Sea — aka the staff here, some papers towels, an acoustic guitar and a book (oh and chopsticks and a silver plate) — a song inspired by our recent remembrance of shoegazing past (even though this is more an attempt at lo-fi Spacemen […]
Filed under: Bad Rock, Conspiracy, Death Culture at Sea, Dream, Good Rock | 1 Comment
Tags: DeathCulture@Sea, Lofi, Shoegazing, Singing, Songs
In which The Gay Recluse reads Roberto Bolaño in stages. In our experience, one test of a great novel is whether you find yourself altered as you ingest the text, so that your mental dialog seems to be narrated by the writer in question. This is one of the strengths of the form, to the […]
Filed under: Dream, Faith, Literature, Search | 1 Comment
Tags: 2666, Novels, Roberto Bolaño, The Part About the Critics, Windbags
In which The Gay Recluse ponders Junot Diaz and the purpose of novels. Today we finished The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz. For obv reasons — namely, the book won every award last year — our expectations were high, and but for the most part were met. In case we’re only the second-to-last […]
Filed under: Capitalism, Decay, Dream, Literature, Pessimism, Washington Heights, Writers-American | 3 Comments
Tags: Dictators, Entertainment, Junot Diaz, Novels, Oscar Wao, Rafael Trujillo, Truth
On Sunday Afternoon
In which The Gay Recluse dreams of spring. With the afternoon light streaming through the windows, it was easy to believe.
Filed under: Architecture, Dream, Faith, Weather | Leave a Comment
Tags: Shoes, Spring, Sunlight, Winter
In which The Gay Recluse makes a teevee show for the internets.* In Part 3, Chaos Detective Lasalle follows “the Russian” onto a train headed for Munich. YouTube Clip below (click through to watch in high-res, or go to our FaceBook page!) THE CHAOS DETECTIVE Episode 1: City of Dreams (Part 1) Episode 1: City of Dreams (Part 2) *Sigh…if […]
Filed under: Architecture, Conspiracy, Dream, Gay, Longing, Memory, Search, Technology, The Chaos Detective, Travel | 1 Comment
Tags: Detective, Munich, Mysteries, Noir, Trains, Travelogs, Vienna
In which The Gay Recluse goes to Paris. One thing that never seems to change in Paris: the booksellers — les bouquinistes — that line the banks of the Seine. These are the ones who operate out of those green metal boxes that sit atop the balustrade. Obviously this could never exist in the United States; […]
Filed under: Capitalism, City Pattern Project, Communism, Decay, Dream, Flatware, Infrastructure, Landscape, Search, Travel | 5 Comments
Tags: Booksellers, Bouquinistes, Comics, Paris, Seine
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 dreams of decorating garden walls and office spaces. While in Vienna, we visited the Secession Building. According to Wikipedia: “The Vienna Secession was founded on 3 April 1897 by artists Gustav Klimt, Koloman Moser, Josef Hoffmann, Joseph Maria Olbrich, Max Kurzweil, Otto Wagner, and others…In 1898, the group’s exhibition house […]
Filed under: Architecture, Capitalism, City Pattern Project, Communism, Conspiracy, Dream, Fashion, Landscape, Pessimism, Ruins, Search, Sickness, Travel | 4 Comments
Tags: Art, Garden Walls, Jugendstil, Offices, Secession Building, Tedium, Vienna
The Gay Recluse 