Archive for the ‘Graffiti’ Category

In which The Gay Recluse considers a subterranean masterpiece. Our friend Paul just sent us this from his phone: “So what if I voted for McCain?” OMGLMFAO! We’re not sure exactly where this was taken, but Paul lives in Harlem, so we’ll give our downtown neighbors credit for this piece of brilliance. (But Paul would […]


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? […]


In which The Gay Recluse becomes increasingly obsessed with birds (and vlogs about it). Today we decided to go on a walk with our video camera. The streets were slushy and frozen after the snow; the magic of the previous night had dissipated with the sullen day. We trudged along, not really thinking about anything […]


In which The Gay Recluse considers the ephemeral nature of art. Today we received a letter from “the fictionist,” a Brooklyn writer who inserts “short stories into the surrounding urban environment: a construction site, guard rail, park bench, etc.” Hmm, that sounds kinda cool…let’s take a look, shall we? This reminds us of when we used to be […]


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 […]


In which The Gay Recluse contemplates an uncommissioned masterpiece from the walls of an uptown subway station. Consider the old panels on the subway platform wall, and observe the finely wrought precision with which each strip of peeling paint has by the hands of time been distressed in the subtlest shades of gold and silver, […]


In which The Gay Recluse contemplates an uncommissioned masterpiece from the walls of an uptown subway station. Consider the old panels on the subway platform wall, and observe the finely wrought precision with which each strip of peeling paint has by the hands of time been distressed in the subtlest shades of gold and silver, […]


In which The Gay Recluse contemplates an uncommissioned masterpiece from the walls of an uptown subway station. Consider, if you will, one of the old panels on the subway platform wall, and observe the finely wrought precision with which each strip of peeling paint has by the hands of time been distressed in the subtlest […]


In which The Gay Recluse provides a postscript to our gay alternative to this week’s Modern Love piece in the Times by Kayla Rachlin Small. (For those looking for our informal-but-telling quantitative analysis of Modern Love, click here.) Dear TGR, I loved your riff on “The Steep Price of Your Forbidden Kiss” (a title which, […]


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 […]


In which The Gay Recluse contemplates an uncommissioned masterpiece from the walls of an uptown subway station.


In which The Gay Recluse appears on the back of a tattered subway poster in the post-apocalyptic dungeon that is the 163rd Street subway station.


In which The Gay Recluse ponders a sampling of recent search terms used to find the very pages you are now reading. Note: All search terms listed are in the exact form provided by WordPress.com, which is the host (at least for a while) of this blog. Hyperlinks to relevant posts included. Search: the winter […]


In which The Gay Recluse contemplates an uncommissioned masterpiece from the walls of an uptown subway station. Dear readers: we invite you to submit any particularly inspiring (or uninspiring) examples of subway graffiti to us at thegayrecluse@gmail.com.


In which The Gay Recluse contemplates an uncommissioned masterpiece from the walls of an uptown subway station. Dear readers: we invite you to submit any particularly inspiring (or any particularly uninspiring) examples of subway graffiti to us at thegayrecluse@gmail.com.


As we have discussed before, some of the best art in Washington Heights is in the subway stations. Here we pause to admire the genius of a delicate, floating (if raw and mildly distorted) line drawing of Jack Nicholson, which miraculously transforms a garish Hollywood poster into something subversive and entertaining, which is to say […]