Archive for the ‘Gay’ 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
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 The Gay Recluse becomes increasingly obsessed with bamboo. We planted bamboo a few years ago in a cement planter we constructed along the back of our garden. The concept is that it’ll grow about 100 feet tall and block out the apartment buildings behind us. It’s also hardy to Zone 4, which means […]
Filed under: City Pattern Project, Gay, The Winter Garden, Washington Heights | Leave a Comment
Tags: Bamboo, Laughter, Snow, Views, Zone 4
In which The Gay Recluse becomes increasingly obsessed with the George Washington Bridge. My fifth grade teacher, Mr. W, was a large, macho man with a mustache and a tight perm. (You could actually be macho and have a perm in 1978.) He liked to aggressively talk about boys and girls “dating” and “kissing,” and […]
Filed under: Conspiracy, Gay, Government, GWB Project, Health, Memory, Nostalgia, Resignation, Sickness | 10 Comments
Tags: Cleaning Supplies, Fifth Grade, Girls, Harold & Maude, Knives, Macho Men, Suicide, The George Washington Bridge
In which The Gay Recluse becomes increasingly obsessed with the George Washington Bridge. Today we sent out to our millions of followers on Twitter the following tweet: Q: What post-war (US) novel best reflects the gay experience as BELOVED reflects the Af-Am exper? Me: Holleran/DANCER FROM THE DANCE (You?) Nobody answered! We followed it up […]
Filed under: Conspiracy, Gay, Literature, Writers-American | 6 Comments
Tags: Andrew Holleran, Dancer from the Dance, Surveys, Tweets, Twitter
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
In which Dante files a book report. Recently we heard from a publicist at Viking, who asked us to review the latest book in a series of “transvestive detective stories from Turkey.” Our editor agreed, although — because he does not deign to immerse himself into “genre” fiction — the task fell to yours truly. […]
Filed under: Drag Queens, Fashion, Gay, Not Every Cat a Lolcat | Leave a Comment
Tags: Genre, Istanbul, Mehmet Murat Somer, Mystery, The Kiss Murder, Turkey
In which The Gay Recluse becomes increasingly obsessed with the George Washington Bridge. You’d be surprised how often ‘str8 bros’ write in to tell us how ‘wrong’ we are in our assertions that this or that is homophobic, that we really shouldn’t be offended by something that’s ‘not that offensive,’ that we’re actually hurting the […]
Filed under: Architecture, Gay, GWB Project, Health, Language, Letters, Pessimism, Sickness, Stereotypes | 1 Comment
Tags: Hassles, Homophobia, Letters, Str8 Bros, The George Washington Bridge
In which The Gay Recluse finishes reading Roberto Bolaño. Through the fourth part of 2666, Roberto Bolano’s epic treatment of many things, we were extremely forgiving of the many tangents and digressions that permeate the work; not only were we impressed by the obvious genius of the writer, but we marveled at his ability to […]
Filed under: Capitalism, Communism, Conspiracy, Gay, Landscape, Literature, Memory, Nostalgia, Writers-Chilean, Writers-German | 1 Comment
Tags: 2066, Archimboldi, Bolaño, Letdowns, X-Files
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
In which The Gay Recluse says fuck yall. Do you read The Atlantic? If so, be sure to check out this month’s ish, which has “Gay Sex” on the cover for a pull quote that says “Gay people, too, deserve to be wanted sexually,” as if that could ever be enlightening in any context, and […]
Filed under: Conspiracy, Drivel, Gay, Sickness, Stereotypes | 9 Comments
Tags: Dark Ages, Homophobia, Jeffrey Goldberg, Losers, Olds, The Atlantic
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
In which The Gay Recluse helps the United States in a time of crisis. Today was a tough day on Capitol Hill, where the topic of hot gay statues was taken up and — as usual — soundly defeated. Fortunately, the issue is not entirely moot, and reader Tyler Green was kind enough to point […]
Filed under: Architecture, Capitalism, Competitions, Gay, Government, Hot Gay Statues, Infrastructure, Politicians | Leave a Comment
Tags: Capitol Hill, D.C., Depressions, Federal Trade Commission, Man Controlling Trade, Michael Lantz, Stimulus Plans, Washington
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 holds a contest. Sort of. Today we heard from Mike, who’s taking a break from Rottin’ in Denmark to travel our great country in search of hot gay statues (among other things). He writes: I was shocked when I found this in SF this week. Does it count? It’s about […]
Filed under: Architecture, Athletes, Competitions, Gay, Hot Gay Statues, Search, Traffic, Travel | 1 Comment
Tags: Brosephine, NSFW, San Francisco
The Gay Recluse 