Archive for the ‘The Winter Garden’ Category
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 is increasingly obsessed with spring. The garden at the end of winter is not exactly a joy to behold: branches are bent or broken, evergreens are pale, and even the ground — littered with dead leaves and twigs — seems inhospitable. But a closer examination reveals signs of life: the […]
Filed under: Longing, Photography, Resignation, The Spring Garden, The Winter Garden | 1 Comment
Tags: Climbing Hydrangea, Sycamore Maple (Acer pseudoplatanus "Eskimo Sunset"), Tree Peony
In which The Gay Recluse becomes increasingly obsessed with bamboo. We planted bamboo a few years ago in a cement planter we constructed along the back of our garden. The concept is that it’ll grow about 100 feet tall and block out the apartment buildings behind us. It’s also hardy to Zone 4, which means […]
Filed under: City Pattern Project, Gay, The Winter Garden, Washington Heights | Leave a Comment
Tags: Bamboo, Laughter, Snow, Views, Zone 4
In which The Gay Recluse watches teevee. There are times when we cannot believe how long we’ve been alive, and concurrently, how long — assuming a regular life span — we still have to go. Though admittedly it’s a thought that most often arrives during an afternoon meeting at work, it also crosses our mind […]
Filed under: Conspiracy, Decay, Dissonance, Dream, Drivel, Landscape, Ruins, Search, Sickness, The Winter Garden, Washington Heights, Weather | 6 Comments
Tags: Cats, Depression, Fears, February, Layoff, Meetings, Recession, Snow, Tedium, Teevee, Work
In which The Gay Recluse maybe becomes slightly more technically adept. Yesterday we took some footage of the snowstorm — or actually the aftermath — and made two vidoes with commentary. We had some technical diffs, though, so wanted to post them again in case anyway tried to click through and was harshly rebuffed! 1) […]
Filed under: Architecture, Subway, Technology, The Winter Garden, Video, Washington Heights, Weather | Leave a Comment
Tags: Housekeeping, Snowstorms, Technical Diffs, Vlogging
In which The Gay Recluse vlogs. It’s been almost a year since we posted any video, but we decided to give it another shot: after all, we now have a Powerbook, which we were planning to use for all sorts of clever and witty entertainment. As you’ll see, we still have a long way to […]
Filed under: Obsession, Technology, The Winter Garden, Video, Washington Heights, Weather | 2 Comments
Tags: December, Ice, Snow, Trees, Vlogging
In which The Gay Recluse retreats to our garden in Washington Heights. As it has done for thousands of years — and not just in our garden — the hellebore has sent forth the most beautiful, delicate blossoms at this improbable juncture, as if to taunt winter into sending one last storm. (Let’s hope nobody […]
Filed under: History, Landscape, Memory, The Spring Garden, The Winter Garden, Washington Heights | 4 Comments
Tags: Alexander the Great, Black Flower, gardening, Hellebore, Hellebores, Mythology, Pink, Spring, White, Winter
In which The Gay Recluse is inspired by a classic. Of all the French photographers who documented Paris at the turn of the last century (and we don’t mean 8 years ago), we are most obsessed with Eugene Atget. Who can resist his urban streetscapes, his ghostly renderings of the city of light? And his […]
Filed under: Dissonance, Memory, Nostalgia, Pessimism, Photography, Pleasure, The Winter Garden, Washington Heights | Leave a Comment
Tags: Eugene Atget, Litter, Paris, Roots, Trees
In our daily travels, we are regularly confronted by some of our more clever but literal-minded critics with the question of why we would ever want to publish our thoughts and observations, if in fact it is our unending desire to be reclusive, or to obtain — in our own lexicon — a “community-free” existence. […]
Filed under: Gay, Infrastructure, Philosophers, Resignation, The Gay Recluse, The Winter Garden, Weather, Writers-German | Leave a Comment
Tags: Best of 2007, Community, Corsican Mint, Deserts, Gy Rclus, Gy Rcluse, Gy Recluse, Kant, Schopenhauer, Search Engines, Site Meter
Though we’ve long planned to honor the genus Picea — or more commonly, the spruce — for playing such a pivotal role in the continuing drama that is our backyard garden, we felt that it would be even more appropriate to offer a special acknowledgment to three of these trees who have graced us under […]
Filed under: The Autumn Garden, The Gay Recluse, The Winter Garden | Leave a Comment
Tags: Norway Spruce, Picea Abies Cupressina, Picea Abies Hillside Upright, Picea Omorike Pendula, Weeping Serbian Spruce
On the Blue Atlas Cedar in Snow
The first snow of the season in our Washington Heights garden, and naturally we are drawn to that most unnatural of colors: the electric slate blue of the atlas cedar (Cedrus atlantica). Suddenly — are you with us? — we are on a train in northern Italy, watching the countryside drift past; here, it seems […]
Filed under: Communism, Landscape, The Gay Recluse, The Russian Blue, The Winter Garden, Travel, Washington Heights | Leave a Comment
Tags: Blue Atlas Cedar, Cedrus atlantica, Columnar, Fastigiata, Saturnine, Snow, Turin, Venice
The Gay Recluse 