Archive for the ‘Sickness’ Category
On David Foster Wallace
In which The Gay Recluse remembers David Foster Wallace. When we turned 28 or 29, our friend Marla gave us a copy of Infinite Jest. We spent the next month or so locked in our room reading it, pretending to be sick and not going to work. To say it was Pynchonesque doesn’t really do […]
Filed under: Addiction, Pessimism, Ruins, Search, Sickness, Writers-American | 5 Comments
Tags: David Foster Wallace, Death, Heroes, Infinite Jest
In which The Gay Recluse exalts in the ruins of a scalloped pediment and self-referentially quotes an earlier post. This is where John McCain will be staying when he comes to Washington Heights next week. Lol. In Washington Heights we live among extremes of material decadence and breathtaking neglect, apparent in the crumbling cornices of […]
Filed under: Architecture, Decay, Infrastructure, Landscape, New York City, Ruins, Search, Sickness, The Gay Recluse | Leave a Comment
Tags: Dormers, John McCain, Pediments, Scalloped Pediments, Scallops, Windows
In which The Gay Recluse incurs the wrath of Stephanie. Remember how we took on Milan Kundera for writing homophobic blather in The Curtain, his highly acclaimed book of essays about the art of novel-writing? In which he says that Albertine was “killed” for him when he learned that the Proust character was based on […]
Filed under: Drivel, Letters, Sickness, Stereotypes, The Gay Recluse, Writers-French | 4 Comments
Tags: Anger, Homophobia, Milan Kundera, The Curtain, Unimportant Crap
In which The Gay Recluse reports on monthly traffic whoring metrix to the Board of Directors. I. Summary The month of July was our third best on record, and despite some anemic posting marked our entrance into the Technorati Top 100,000! OMG, when you find out why, you’ll understand why we were such total traffic […]
Filed under: Architecture, Capitalism, Sickness, The Gay Recluse, Traffic | Leave a Comment
Tags: Board Reports, July, Traffic Whoring
In which The Gay Recluse visits a friend’s garden. Sometimes we long for more gardening space, so that we could enjoy exploding swaths of bee balm every July. But then we would have to drive everywhere. And our head would be filled with dangerous little songs. Don’t get me wrong, i think it’s terrible to […]
Filed under: Capitalism, Disease, Drivel, GWB Project, Landscape, Language, Sickness, Stereotypes, The Gay Recluse, The Summer Garden, Travel | 1 Comment
Tags: Bee Balm, Closet Cases, Genuises, Homophobia, Straights, Suburbs, The Pixies, Wave of Mutilation
In which The Gay Recluse retreats to the summer garden. Remember that post we did on that stupid Nike ad? Huge traffic whores that we are, we immediately sent it to Queerty and Towleroad, and they picked it up. And then JoeMyGod and Gawker did pieces, too! And a bunch of other sites we never […]
Filed under: Addiction, Drivel, Gay, Language, Resignation, Ruins, Sickness, The Gay Recluse, The Summer Garden, Traffic | 5 Comments
Tags: Arthur C. Clarke, Feelings, Homophobia, Lilies, Lolz, Nike, Retirement, Traffic, Whores
In which The Gay Recluse becomes increasingly obsessed with the George Washington Bridge. Today on the subway this woman wouldn’t move her leg over two inches to make room for us to sit down. But we sat down anyway, because we were tired and didn’t see why she should take up two seats. Then we […]
Filed under: Architecture, Photography, Sickness, Subway, The Gay Recluse, Washington Heights, Weather | Leave a Comment
Tags: 59th Street, Columbus Circle, Etiquette, MTA, Subway Woes, Sunsets, The George Washington Bridge
In which The Gay Recluse rather quickly dies of lung cancer. It’s bad enough when the smoke is spewing across rooftops in the distance, but it’s quite another thing when it’s blowing right through your living room window. When is the city going to get serious about inspecting these shitty boilers? Plus it’s getting worse, […]
Filed under: Government, GWB Project, New York City, Politicians, Sickness, The Gay Recluse, Washington Heights | Leave a Comment
Tags: 38 Fort Washington Avenue, Asthma, Boilers, Health, Lung Cancer, Rooftops
In which The Gay Recluse takes what he can get. Summer is by far the worst season in Washington Heights. Stereos are constantly blaring, there’s trash everywhere, the elevators and street corners are filled with macho-man drunks. When a woman walks down the street and these geniuses make a big production of staring at her […]
Filed under: Gay, Pessimism, Pleasure, Search, Sickness, Small Pleasure Project, Stereotypes, The Gay Recluse, Washington Heights, Weather | 8 Comments
Tags: Corner Huggers, Drunks, Faggot, Losers, N-word, Shadows, Shower Curtains, Summer, Trash
In which The Gay Recluse contemplates the urge to shit on the world. In our apartment building, trash collection is not exactly arduous: all you have to do is put it out by the elevators between the hours of six and nine, morning or evening. For some, however, this is too much to ask, so […]
Filed under: Government, Pessimism, Politicians, Sickness, The Gay Recluse, The Times, Washington Heights | 3 Comments
Tags: Civilization, Collective Unconscious, Garbage, Jesse Helms, Psychology, Republican Assholes
On Proof that the Sun Sets Magnificently, Even Over New Jersey: A Story of (Sub)Urban Despair
In which The Gay Recluse contemplates life, on the subway. Today on the subway — this, during the evening rush — we sat down next to a woman, perhaps 25 or so, with long, thin arms and straight blond hair. We noticed because a few seconds later, she leaned over and yelled “Dad!” And it […]
Filed under: Gay, Infrastructure, Memory, Resignation, Search, Sickness, Subway, The Gay Recluse | 3 Comments
Tags: Daughters, Fathers, John Grisham, MTA, Psychology, Sads, Sons, Tom Clancy
In which The Gay Recluse is once again perturbed. Have you heard about Measuring The World, the international bestseller by German/Viennese author Daniel Kehlmann? It sold more copies than any other German-language book since Patrick Suskind’s Perfume, and was highly acclaimed by critics everywhere for its playful use of language and magic realism: according to […]
Filed under: Drivel, Gay, Literature, Sickness, Stereotypes, The Gay Recluse, Writers-German | 4 Comments
Tags: Alligators, Daniel Kehlmann, Dogs, Measuring the World, Naturalists
In which The Gay Recluse resigns himself to the inevitable. When Modern Love first launched in The Times however many years ago, we were initially intrigued by the premise of the column, which like some of the best reality television seemed to offer the potential to break down the stereotypes that are the currency of […]
Filed under: Animals, Disease, Dissonance, Gay, Good Rock, Ruins, Sickness, Stereotypes, Technology, Television, The Gay Recluse, The Times | Leave a Comment
Tags: Gawker, Gay Modern Love, Modern Love, Morrissey, Retirement, The New York Times, The Smiths
In which The Gay Recluse updates his informal but rather telling quantitative analysis of Modern Love, the weekly Style Section (of The Times) column in which openly gay writers almost never appear, and even less frequently describe a romantic relationship. This week’s piece: How My Husband Won Back My Vote by Andrea Neighbours Subject: A […]
Filed under: Conspiracy, Language, Search, Sickness, Stereotypes, The Gay Recluse, The Times | Leave a Comment
Tags: Andrea Neighbours, Daniel Jones, The New York Times, Workaholics
In which The Gay Recluse rather quickly dies of lung cancer. Chronic pollution is a lot like chronic pain. You know it’s there but it’s hard to get rid of. Particularly when everyone’s doing it! Sometimes it blows right in the window. And makes us wish we lived in Vermont. The oily black smoke of […]
Filed under: Capitalism, Government, GWB Project, Health, Landscape, Pessimism, Sickness, The Gay Recluse | Leave a Comment
Tags: Asthma, Dickens, Industrial Revolution, Landlords, Lung Cancer, Polluters, Slumlords, Views
In which The Gay Recluse is like wtf. Ok, The Times has been on board with gay marriage for a couple of years now. Great! What’s not so great, however, is their continuing use of the term “longtime companion” to describe long-term gay relationships, e.g., the following quote in an article about Russell T Davies […]
Filed under: Drivel, Gay, Language, Sickness, Stereotypes, The Gay Recluse, The Times | 4 Comments
Tags: Longtime Companion, Relationship Partner, Russell T Davies, Spouse, The New York Times, Torchwood
In which The Gay Recluse updates his informal but rather telling quantitative analysis of Modern Love, the weekly Style Section (of The Times) column in which openly gay writers almost never appear, and even less frequently describe a romantic relationship. This week’s piece: As a Father, I Was Hardly A Perfect Fit by Tim Elhajj […]
Filed under: Conspiracy, Drivel, Gay, Sickness, Stereotypes, The Gay Recluse, The Times | 2 Comments
Tags: Daniel Jones, The New York Times, Tim Elhajj
On The First Time I Met Frank O’Hara and a Few Thoughts on Whether Gay Culture Is Really Dead
In which The Gay Recluse files a book report and rambles on. Recently we finished The First Time I Met Frank O’Hara by Rick Whitaker, a collection of essays about gay writers culled from the past 150 years or so of American/English literature, ranging from titans such as Melville, Wilde and Dickinson to the more […]
Filed under: Gay, Language, Literature, Pessimism, Philosophers, Search, Sickness, Stereotypes, Writers-American | 2 Comments
Tags: Book Reports, Gay Culture, Rich Whitaker
In which The Gay Recluse updates his informal but rather telling quantitative analysis of Modern Love, the weekly Style Section (of The Times) column in which openly gay writers almost never appear, and even less frequently describe a romantic relationship. This week’s piece: Let’s Not Get To Know Each Other Better by Joel Walkowski Subject: […]
Filed under: Conspiracy, Drivel, Language, Search, Sickness, Stereotypes, The Gay Recluse, The Times | Leave a Comment
Tags: Conformity, Daniel Jones, Homophobia, Modern Love
