Archive for the ‘Pessimism’ Category
Bravo, Andrew! Your dismissal of “community” was a pleasure to read, even if it did make us wish you would find a similarly pessimistic lens through which to analyze political regimes and nation building. But no matter, this is an important notion, one that faithful readers of The Gay Recluse will recognize as the foundation […]
Filed under: Longing, Pessimism, Pleasure, The Gay Recluse | Leave a Comment
Tags: Andrew Sullivan, Arthur Schopenhauer, Community, Community-Free Existence, The Gay Recluse
On Norma
Yesterday — what luck! — a final dress rehearsal for Norma at the Metropolitan Opera. The first thing we note, incredibly enough, is that the audience on average is even older than the one into which we immersed ourselves the other night at Aida. Can you imagine it? What a rare oasis from capitalism! How […]
Filed under: Good Rock, Longing, Opera, Pessimism, Politicians | Leave a Comment
Tags: , Bellini, Bernard Kerik, Dolora Zajick, Hasmik Papian, Hillary Clinton, Huma Abedin, Norma, Rudy Giuliani, The Metropolitan Opera, The Odyssey
On Marathons
Good luck, runners! On this day of the New York City Marathon, we remember years ago, when we too joined the tens of thousands who sprinted across the Verrazano Narrows before stretching out into a line of hope and desperation that snaked through the five boroughs. Then of course we were strong and idealistic enough […]
Filed under: Capitalism, Dream, Gay, Memory, Pessimism | Leave a Comment
Tags: Death, Life, NYC Marathon, Past, Running
On Candy Apple Grey
Today we accepted a Halloween gift of a candy apple, which we considered for a moment before we were transported to the last time we encountered one, this just a few days after 9/11 (which is not to say this is a story about 9/11). Like so many others, we had gone down to walk […]
Filed under: Gay, Good Rock, Memory, Obsession, Pessimism, The Gay Recluse | Leave a Comment
Tags: 9/11, Bob Mould, Candy Apple Grey, Gay, Grant Hart, Greg Norton, Hüsker Dü, Music, Post-hardcore, Ruins
On One Important Difference Between Pets and Children and What It Tells Us About U.S. Foreign Policy
Let’s assume for the sake of argument that we have two couples, roughly similar in every indicator of socioeconomic status, and that money is not a determinative factor in this hypothetical. Let’s also assume that both are offered the opportunity 1) to have (or adopt) a child, or 2) to adopt a pet. A further […]
Filed under: Drag Queens, Gay, History, Pessimism, Philosophers, Writers-German | Leave a Comment
Tags: Children, Ethics, Foreign Policy, Iraq, Pets, Schopenhauer, USA, War
On the Cotillion Ballroom
As we descend the wide, curving stairs to make our entrance into the Cotillion Ballroom, we look up and observe six — no, eight! — crystal chandeliers hovering above us, massive structures roughly the shape of upside-down umbrellas, each one magically suspended under the 30-foot ceiling. This is a grand interior space reminiscent of those we have seen […]
Filed under: Capitalism, Film, Infrastructure, Pessimism, Politicians, Travel | Leave a Comment
Tags: Aristocracy, Law, Marriott, The Supreme Court, Visconti
Thank you, Human Rights Campaign, not only for sending us such a meaningful letter this week encouraging us to come out, but for being so discreet about it! There was not a single thing on the plain-white envelope — not even your name! — that could have identified either of us as “gay”! (But thank […]
Filed under: Drivel, Gay, Pessimism, Politicians | Leave a Comment
Tags: Gay, Human Rights Campaign, Junk Mail, National Coming Out Day
According to an article in The Times today, “[h]omophobia directed at the elderly has many faces.” We learn of home health aides who “must be reminded not to wear gloves at inappropriate times, for example while opening the front door or making the bed, when there is no evidence of H.I.V. infection.” We learn of […]
Filed under: Dream, Longing, Pessimism, The Autumn Garden, Writers-American | Leave a Comment
Tags: Adirondacks, Aging, American Fiction, Death, gardening, Henry James, HIV, Picea Omorika Pendula, The New York Times, Weeping Serbian Spruce
On What Is Confirmed at Auto Tour Stop #9 on The Whiteface Mountain Veterans Memorial Highway
“If you turn around now, and face the mountain, notice how dwarfed the trees just above the parking lot are; small, contorted by the wind, branches broken from the load of ice in the winter, spring growth killed off by late spring frosts, soil so thin and impoverished as to defy definition, the whole scene […]
Filed under: Longing, Pessimism, Philosophers, Travel | Leave a Comment
Tags: Adirondacks, Nature, Schopenhauer, The Smiths, Whiteface Mountain
The Eastern White Pines cover the rolling hills like a sphagnum moss, dotted with patches of silver (the Quaking Aspens, shimmering like schools of fish) and the burned red of the Sugar Maples. A little higher up these give way to spruces — tall, drooping and dignified — hemlocks, birches — whose gnarled white trunks […]
Filed under: Good Rock, Longing, Pessimism, The Autumn Garden, Travel | Closed
Tags: Adirondacks, Maple, Route 87, Schopenhauer, Spruce, White Pine
Today we read about Exit Ghost (Houghton Mifflin, 2007), Philip Roth’s new book in which his alter ego Zuckerman is said to be (ahem) a recluse, which led us to think he might at least be on familiar terms with the sublime metaphorical/metaphysical qualities so critical to the reclusive state. We wondered if it were […]
Filed under: Capitalism, Drivel, Pessimism, Resignation, Writers-American, Writers-French | Leave a Comment
Tags: 9/11, Fiction, Joris-Karl Huysmans, Philip Roth, Technology
In response to the criticism by us and many others of her article on Thelma and Louise, Judith Warner in her latest column in The Times has come back to the table, prepared to admit how “shocked” she was by the reaction, but nevertheless maintaining that “[since] the 1970s and 1980s… I [can] attest to […]
Filed under: Drivel, Pessimism, The Times, Washington Heights | Leave a Comment
Tags: Judith Warner, New York Times, Schopenhauer, Thelma and Louise, Washington Heights
On Twilight of the Idols
Did you not see it? Did you not experience the thrill of David Schwimmer emerging from a limousine to shine his brilliant aura across the travertine plaza to the vaunted Roman arches of the Metropolitan Opera? (How many times have we been enraptured by his finely nuanced work and thought, “If only we could see […]
Filed under: Capitalism, Opera, Pessimism, Philosophers | Leave a Comment
Tags: Abu Ghraib, Dame Joan, Donizetti, My Bloody Valentine, The Metropolitan Opera, The New York Times
Opening the gate that leads from our front yard to the street, we were met by a short, scrawny man with veiny arms that seemed to swell grotesquely at the elbow. He wore jeans and a dingy t-shirt on which the faded outlines of a corporate logo could be seen. His eyes were gaunt, but […]
Filed under: Addiction, Pessimism, The Autumn Garden, Washington Heights | Leave a Comment
Tags: 1991, Beatrice, Crack Cocaine, The Rose Brick Company, The Velvet Underground
On Walt Whitman
On Broadway last night we passed a man, older and bearded, wearing a broad-rimmed hat. We felt his eyes on our back and then — more alarmingly — a hand on our elbow. But the grip seemed far more imploring than threatening, and so we did not protest as he guided us toward the nearby […]
Filed under: Pessimism, Poets, Resignation | Leave a Comment
Tags: 311, Drug Dealers, Gay, Walt Whitman, Washington Heights
We begin by noting that — even more than “freedom” — the word “community” has entered a new and perhaps unprecedented level of (mis)use from which the gay recluse will wish to completely disassociate himself. Particularly noxious are those forms of community — e.g., the gay community, the Irish community, the international community — regularly […]
Filed under: Pessimism, Resignation, Subway, The Gay Recluse | Leave a Comment
Tags: 1984, Candy Darling, Geraldine Ferraro, Hillary Clinton, Jesse Jackson, MADD, MTA, The New York Times, Walter Mondale
The Gay Recluse 