Archive for the ‘Resignation’ Category
Each morning we turn the corner onto Broadway and are newly amazed by the cataclysmic arrangements of trash and debris on the streets and sidewalks. Plastic bags and dead leaves circle south in violent little eddies, while chicken bones, boxes, mannequin torsos and car batteries can be found heaped up on the curb. A barren, […]
Filed under: Decay, Gay, Good Rock, New York City, Resignation, Washington Heights | Leave a Comment
Tags: Broadway, Dead Leaves, Litter, Parking Meters, Plastic Bags, Saturnine, Washington Heights
In yesterday’s Times, we were told that Italy has sunk to new depths of despair on many fronts, “struggling as few other countries do with fractured politics, uneven growth, organized crime and a tenuous sense of nationhood.” There is widespread malaise, or malessere. Quoted is Walter Veltroni, the mayor of Rome: “It’s a country that […]
Filed under: Capitalism, Decay, History, Nostalgia, Resignation, The Gay Recluse, Travel | Leave a Comment
Tags: Economy, GNP, Italy, Schopenhauer, The New York Times, Turin, Venice
To the brave soul who trapped a mouse in a gluetrap and left it in the hallway, bravo! We would like to commend you for digging so deep and summoning the courage to carry such a ferocious beast — did you use your bare hands? — to the elevator, where we and countless others were […]
Filed under: Government, History, Philosophers, Resignation, Washington Heights | Leave a Comment
Tags: Compassion, Courage, George W. Bush, GOP, Karma, Mice, Mouse, Schopenhauer
On Beatrice
When the russet hues of the setting sun stream through our western window, as happened today, it is quite possible to imagine Beatrice in the distorted, filtered light, contemplative and hovering as if she were still there, peering into the distance, longing for something to take her away. The first time we saw her, however, […]
Filed under: Drag Queens, Dream, Drivel, Good Rock, Memory, Orchids, Resignation, Sickness, The Russian Blue, The Times, Writers-French | Leave a Comment
Tags: 9/11, Animal Medical Center, Baudelaire, Beatrice, Candy Darling, Cannanes, Cats, Dante, Daphne Merkin, Death, Lipidosis, Love, Robert Moses, Russian Blue
Stark and imperial, during the day the white travertine facade of the Metropolitan Opera seems as inviting as a walk across a desert, but at night glows like a beacon to the modern, urban spirit in which it was conceived. The cloud-like apparitions of Chagall’s paintings hypnotize us and soften the disdain of the high roman arches through which we pass […]
Filed under: Drag Queens, Good Rock, Memory, Opera, Resignation, The Gay Recluse | Leave a Comment
Tags: Aida, Amneris, Chagall, Giuseppe Verdi, Lincoln Center, Luciana D'Intino, New York City, Opera, Rademes, The Metropolitan Opera
We leave work and walk the long blocks from Madison to Sixth Avenue. We hurry down the stairs into the station, where we mindlessly extract our card from our wallet and slide it through the reader. In the distance we can sense the deep, subterranean rumble of what is surely an empty uptown D-train approaching […]
Filed under: Infrastructure, Longing, Resignation, Subway, The Gay Recluse | Leave a Comment
Tags: D-Train, Fate, God, Homophobia, Karma, MTA, New York City, Pessimism, Proletariat, Schopenhauer, Subway
Like Ann Coulter, the ailanthus tree is noxious, unsightly and invasive, and can be found almost everywhere in the United States, not only in vacant lots and highway meridians, but in once pristine forests, where it wreaks havoc on local ecosystems. It does not favor diversity or nuance, but — and with just the most […]
Filed under: Drag Queens, Landscape, Resignation, Sickness, The Autumn Garden, The Gay Recluse, Washington Heights | Leave a Comment
Tags: Ailanthus, Ann Coulter, Bronx Tree, Death, Fire, Invasive Species, Vermilion
On Autumn Dreams
In winter we had no dreams; it was too cold to consider anything but the brittle landscape outside and the frozen tributaries of our past within. In spring we were nervous and agitated, our thoughts scattered like cherry-blossom petals in the wind. Summer came and we were boldly confident, perhaps even arrogant; who could not […]
Filed under: Dream, Landscape, Resignation, Washington Heights | Leave a Comment
Tags: Autumn, Books, Dreams, Fog, George Washington Bridge
One day on the street in Washington Heights we passed an old man who invited us into his garden. Though barely the size of three parking spaces, the garden contained a vast array of unusual trees, including columnar varieties of a blue atlas cedar, a purple beech (the most magisterial of all trees), a Norway […]
Filed under: Dream, Longing, Resignation, The Autumn Garden, The Gay Recluse | Leave a Comment
Tags: Art, Beech, Blue Atlas Cedar, conifers, Dawn Redwood, Gardens, Hellebores, Life, Norway Spruce
Although we admire the spirit in which Andrew Sullivan — inspired by Nietzsche’s timelessly apt tirade against moral crusaders — compares America to a “very insecure adolescent” we feel the analogy is nonetheless somewhat off the mark. We by contrast would prefer to compare America to a brittle (but dangerous) old man, unwilling to resign himself to the inevitable fate that awaits us all.
Filed under: Philosophers, Politicians, Resignation, The Gay Recluse, Writers-German | Leave a Comment
Tags: Andrew Sullivan, Morality, Nietzsche, Schopenhauer
On Flight
The bleak and vaguely militaristic atmosphere of the terminal is now behind us; we have endured the stifling tedium of the runway and the paralyzing terror of the lift-off, during which we considered the high likelihood of our imminent death and regretted our many missteps. We thought with great tenderness of Dante and Zephyr and […]
Filed under: Dream, Infrastructure, Resignation, The Autumn Garden, The Russian Blue, Travel | Leave a Comment
Tags: Cats, conifers, LGA, US Airways
Those arriving in Washington Heights for the first time are often surprised to hear splintering, cracking sounds in the distance, sounds which like breaking bones or the felling of ancient trees barely need to be identified to be recognized. “Oh yes,” we nod impassively, but then feel compelled to elaborate. “The shoreline is rocky and […]
Filed under: Infrastructure, Resignation, The Gay Recluse, Washington Heights | Leave a Comment
Tags: Gay, George Washington Bridge, Hudson River, Washington Heights
It is not only that the C delivers us to Washington Heights, while the B veers east at 145th Street to the Bronx; there are, most notably, the seats; on the B they are oddly flat without the slight trough that allows us to lean back, to settle in and resume our contemplations. And is […]
Filed under: Infrastructure, Pleasure, Resignation, Subway, Washington Heights | Leave a Comment
Tags: B-train, C-train, Ergonomic Design, MTA, New York Yankees, Washington Heights
We were recently informed via e-mail of the fait accompli retirement of Glitza Gardenia, a woman who had labored in the administrative trenches of our organization for over three decades. Despite efforts of her manager — the author of the e-mail in question — to honor these years of unflinching service, Glitza refused to consider […]
Filed under: Capitalism, Drag Queens, Pleasure, Resignation, The Autumn Garden | Leave a Comment
Tags: Commuter, Gardenia, Glitza, Midtown, New York City, Retirement, Work
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
Of all the outer boroughs, Brooklyn seems to offer the least potential for the gay recluse in search of refuge and contemplation. Having once lived in Park Slope — there, we admit it — we remain mystified by the unceasing torrent of adulation heaped upon the borough — and in particular, we address these comments […]
Filed under: Decay, Resignation, The Gay Recluse, Washington Heights | Leave a Comment
Tags: Boerum Hill, Brooklyn, Cobble Hill, Heath Ledger, Park Slope, The New York Times, Washington Heights, Williamsburg
In the elevator today, we were asked by an acquaintance what book we were reading, and in response displayed Emile Zola’s Nana. Noting his blank expression, we elaborated: “It’s an old French novel.” “Is it good?” Not wanting to digress into our true reasons for reading the book — namely, to better understand the context […]
Filed under: Capitalism, Resignation, Writers-French | Leave a Comment
Tags: Alfred Dreyfus, Emile Zola, Halo 3, Joris-Karl Huysmans, Marcel Proust, Microsoft, Nana, The New York Times
To those who complain about our subway station, we will not dispute your claims regarding the legions of rats who live on the upper platform, the large underground cavern now filled with trash that has long been closed off to riders; nor will we deny that the smell of piss is pervasive, and that at […]
Filed under: Decay, Infrastructure, Pleasure, Resignation, Washington Heights | 2 Comments
Tags: Andy Warhol, ESPN, Michael C. Hall, MTA, New York City, Sarah Silverman, Washington Heights
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
On Washington Heights
Of all the Manhattan venues available to the gay recluse, Washington Heights is undoubtedly the preferred. Here we live among extremes of material decadence and breathtaking neglect, apparent in the crumbling cornices of Ft. Washington Avenue and eroding limestone facades of St. Nicholas, not to mention the tiled mosaics in the entrance foyers of the […]
Filed under: Resignation, Washington Heights | 2 Comments
Tags: Marlene Dietrich, St. Nicholas Avenue, The Alhumbra, The Cloisters, The Morris-Jumel Mansion, Washington Heights
The Gay Recluse 