Archive for the ‘Quotes’ Category

In which The Tsarina takes over The Gay Recluse. On your entry tonight, The Tsarina remarks by quoting Henry Miller (1941):  “There is no salvation in becoming adapted to a world which is crazy.” [Via reader CBNY.]


In which The Gay Recluse becomes increasingly obsessed with the George Washington Bridge. Today I finally read the New Yorker article about David Foster Wallace, which was by turns inspiring and depressing; inspiring because (and this is hardly a surprise) he seemed to genuinely believe in fiction as a means to reflect/analyze/transform currents of our […]


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


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


On Vexed

05Mar09

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 — […]


In which The Gay Recluse is charmed. Reader Lloyd — one of our many 80-something y.o. fans — recently sent us this “mash-up” cover of the New Yorker, and we wanted to share it with everyone. Thanks Lloyd, and Happy Mid-February!


In which The Gay Recluse wonders why David Brooks is still in office. Ohai! We thought we’d play a lil game in which we pull quotes from three pieces about the exurbs, two written in 2k4 by David Brooks in The Times — “Take a Ride to Exurbia”  on the opinion page and “Our Sprawling, […]


In which The Gay Recluse listens with admiration to the new record by The New Year. Recently we went to see The New Year in Williamsburg. It was a great show until we went back to our car and discovered that some frat boy asshole had broken off our side mirror on the car. Goodbye […]


In which The Gay Recluse says wtf, dudebro? Although it’s not impossible to imagine a scenario in which a straight-guy literary critic does not expose himself as a moronic dudebro as he mocks other straight guys by writing 1) “Lev Grossman fellates Updike with a knowing look as Updike cradles his bald head in a […]


In which The Gay Recluse reflects on those who died on 9/10 and 9/12. Every year on 9/11, our thoughts inevitably drift to those who died on 9/10 and 9/12. And whether their deaths were any more or less tragic than those so aggressively memorialized. Those who try to elevate themselves on the shoulders of […]


In which The Gay Recluse becomes increasingly obsessed with the George Washington Bridge. “Love is perceiving and perception is anguish.” — James Baldwin, Just Above My Head


In which The Gay Recluse visits a friend’s garden. “[O]ne can never satisfy the animal urge to escape, since from the chaos of one’s soul there is no place to escape to.” Peter Nadas, A Book of Memories


In which The Gay Recluse remains hidden in the summer garden. “[I]n the end we could choose only between the bleak and the bleaker – that was the extent of our freedom.” –Peter Nadas, A Book of Memories


In which The Gay Recluse talks to his mother about life before the internet. Our mother recently told us about when she was a teenager and used to go to camp during the summer. Usually her family could only afford to send her for one week, which cost $7.50. Then one summer — in 1946, […]


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 becomes increasingly obsessed with The George Washington Bridge. Time and date of photographs: April 3, 2008, wheneverness. Work was difficult this week. It was hard to concentrate. Life felt very distant. We wished we could take a nap. Somehow it never ends. “I, too am obsessed with the George Washington Bridge, […]


In which The Gay Recluse breathes a sigh of relief and encourages everyone to buy a book. Recently we read The Gay Uncle’s Guide To Parenting by Brett Berk and learned that the world is filled with these strange creatures called “children,” which — somewhat alarmingly — are the by-product and responsibility of an even […]


In which The Gay Recluse would laugh at government doublespeak (and the media’s reporting of the same) if it were in a novel instead of the real world. Today Jeff Weinstein sent us the following quote from an article in The Times (of London) about the British government’s decision to reopen the asylum case of […]