Archive for the ‘GWB Project’ 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 orchids. It is in the nature of certain people (ahem) never to be satisfied, which — depending on the context — can be a curse or a blessing. For example, I just finished a very delicious chocolate cupcake with chocolate frosting (but not too sweet!) and […]
Filed under: Architecture, GWB Project, Memory, Orchids | 2 Comments
Tags: Focus, Glasses, Happiness, Lenses, Sand, The George Washington Bridge
In which The Gay Recluse becomes increasingly obsessed with spring. The Weeping Colorado Blue Spruce (Picea pungens ‘the blues’) is one of the bluest of conifers. Blue conifers are true beauties. –Andy Warhol
Filed under: GWB Project, Quotes, The Spring Garden, The Winter Garden, Washington Heights | Leave a Comment
Tags: Andy Warhol, Blue Conifers, Colorado Blue Spruce, Picea Pungens
In which The Gay Recluse becomes increasingly obsessed with the George Washington Bridge. There is a pastel hue to the sky today that I haven’t seen since ____, which makes me think that summer is approaching. It reminds me of the sky I saw not too long ago in Vienna, although there the tones were […]
Filed under: Architecture, GWB Project, Washington Heights, Weather | 3 Comments
Tags: Foreshadowing, Pastels, Summer, The George Washington Bridge, Vienna
In which The Gay Recluse becomes increasingly obsessed with the George Washington Bridge. Today, before work. The George Washington Bridge is a true beauty — someone should write an opera about it! –Andy Warhol
Filed under: GWB Project, Quotes, Weather | Leave a Comment
Tags: Andy Warhol, The George Washington Bridge, Work
In which The Gay Recluse becomes increasingly obsessed with the George Washington Bridge. It’s often said that as you get older, time moves faster. This is undoubtedly true, except for when it moves more slowly than it once did. I’m reading a book by Richard Rorty,* who — unlike Plato/Kant/Schopenhauer/Freud/Jung — argues that there is […]
Filed under: Architecture, GWB Project, Health, Washington Heights, Weather | Leave a Comment
Tags: Dark, Light, Literary Criticism, Richard Rorty, Truth
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 orchids. The truth is often painful and difficult to acknowledge, particularly when there’s no way to change it. Those who try to deny this do so at great cost. If you ignore what’s ugly about life, how can you possibly see the beauty?
Filed under: Decay, Disease, Dissonance, GWB Project, Orchids, Pessimism, Writers-German | Leave a Comment
Tags: Beauty, orange, Orchids, Schopenhauer, Truth, Ugly
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
On the George Washington Breathing Project: Good Steam Versus Bad Steam Edition (Includes Roundup!)
In which The Gay Recluse rather quickly dies of lung cancer. Some winter mornings, we wake up and consider the rooftops of Washington Heights, where — thanks to the sumptuous pre-war architecture, the expansive breadth of the Hudson and the gentle rise of the Palisades — we are charmed by the wisps of steam that […]
Filed under: Architecture, Capitalism, GWB Project, Health, Pessimism, Politicians, Science, Technology, Washington Heights | 1 Comment
Tags: Asthma, Boilers, Ghettos, Lung Cancer, Slumlords, Smoke
In which The Gay Recluse becomes increasingly obsessed with the George Washington Bridge. In Europe, it often happens that we stand in front of an ornate building and think: “whoas, that would be a lot of work!” but we can still basically imagine how it was done, even if it took centuries. It’s like one […]
Filed under: Architecture, Conspiracy, Dissonance, GWB Project, Infrastructure, Longing, Memory, Technology | 4 Comments
Tags: Full Moon, Night, The George Washington Bridge, Winter
In which The Gay Recluse becomes increasingly obsessed with the George Washington Bridge. For most of us, repetition is an unavoidable facet of modern life; we might even go as far as to say that it’s been like this as long as we have lived in one village or town or city. When we were […]
Filed under: Addiction, Architecture, Benefits of Being Gay, Capitalism, City Pattern Project, Communism, Conspiracy, Dissonance, Faith, Gay, GWB Project, Infrastructure, Obsession, Pessimism, Resignation, Travel | 1 Comment
Tags: Cities, iPods, Laptops, Powerbooks, Repetition, The George Washington Bridge, The Will, Villages
In which The Gay Recluse remembers old plants. Growing up in the 1970s, there were a lot of plants in our house. Having plants was a sign of liberal thinking: our mother, of course, was involved in the women’s movement, so she had a mix of spider plants, cactus and marginata; our dazed-and-confused sister did […]
Filed under: Animals, Dissonance, Gay, GWB Project, Memory, Nostalgia | 4 Comments
Tags: Cactus, Cigarettes, Dazed and Confused, Houseplants, Joints, Love, Marginata, Philodendron, Ponytail Palm, Terra Cotta, Women's Movement
In which The Gay Recluse remembers art class. Yesterday we read about Alton Dulaney, who won the gift-wrapping championship of the world in a wrap-off at Rockefeller Center. Watching Alton’s performance, we couldn’t help but regret all the hours we spent growing up watching football and hockey and baseball on teevee, when we could have […]
Filed under: Athletes, Benefits of Being Gay, Competitions, Dissonance, Gay, GWB Project, Memory, Photography, Resignation | 3 Comments
Tags: Art Class, Bows, Cocksucking, Daddies, Football, Gift Wrapping, Hockey, Steroids, Teevee, The George Washington Bridge, Tom of Finland
In which The Gay Recluse reads dead flowers. When we first read about The Northern Clemency by Philip Hensher, we were excited! Not only was it short-listed for the Booker Prize, but it was rated the #1 Editors’ Pick for Best Book of 2008 by Amazon.com.* And oh yeah, Hensher is “openly gay” — kinda […]
Filed under: Dissonance, GWB Project, Language, Literature, Photography, Stereotypes, Writers-British | 4 Comments
Tags: Book Reviews, Dead Flowers, Gay Writers, Philip Hensher, Roses, The Northern Clemency
In which The Gay Recluse becomes increasingly obsessed with birds. Today we left work and had to walk crosstown in the drizzle. It was completely dark and we didn’t have an umbrella. Plus we were running late, and had overdressed; we regretted that it wasn’t snowing, as it would have been before global warming. But […]
Filed under: Animals, GWB Project, Longing, New York City, Pessimism, Weather | Leave a Comment
Tags: Cities, Gotham, Rain, Rush Hour, Sand, Time, Walks
In which The Gay Recluse lives in the past. Our favorite part of Thanksgiving this year was not the food, but the table,* particularly after it was set and waited patiently in the late afternoon sun. Accompanied by the cats, we spent quite a few minutes quietly circling the table, observing the way the light […]
Filed under: Architecture, Capitalism, Communism, Food, GWB Project, History, Memory, New York City, Nostalgia, Washington Heights, Weather | 1 Comment
Tags: Bygones, Community Plate, Grosvenor, Table Service, Thanksgiving
In which The Gay Recluse considers the dark ages. So today we were reading about the new Thomas Pynchon novel, which is going to be released next year. Like so many adolescent boys we’ve known, we went through a serious Pynchon phase. His maddeningly complex yet (somehow) crystalline prose managed to resonate with the best […]
Filed under: Capitalism, Conspiracy, Gay, GWB Project, Literature, Memory, Science, Technology, The Gay Recluse, Writers-American | 2 Comments
Tags: Adolescents, Boys, Conspiracy, Dark Ages, Entropy, Physics, The George Washington Bridge, Thomas Pynchon
The Gay Recluse 