Archive for the ‘Writers-German’ Category
In which The Gay Recluse becomes increasingly obsessed with orchids. The truth is often painful and difficult to acknowledge, particularly when there’s no way to change it. Those who try to deny this do so at great cost. If you ignore what’s ugly about life, how can you possibly see the beauty?
Filed under: Decay, Disease, Dissonance, GWB Project, Orchids, Pessimism, Writers-German | Leave a Comment
Tags: Beauty, orange, Orchids, Schopenhauer, Truth, Ugly
In which The Gay Recluse finishes reading Roberto Bolaño. Through the fourth part of 2666, Roberto Bolano’s epic treatment of many things, we were extremely forgiving of the many tangents and digressions that permeate the work; not only were we impressed by the obvious genius of the writer, but we marveled at his ability to […]
Filed under: Capitalism, Communism, Conspiracy, Gay, Landscape, Literature, Memory, Nostalgia, Writers-Chilean, Writers-German | 1 Comment
Tags: 2066, Archimboldi, Bolaño, Letdowns, X-Files
On Senso
In which The Gay Recluse loves Luchino Visconti. After scouring the globe, we were finally able to obtain — from South Korea! — a copy of Senso, Luchino Visconti’s 1954 film about the Austrian occupation of Venice during the war for Italian independence. In what is arguably the most operatic of Visconti’s films, we follow a […]
Filed under: Dissonance, Film, Gay, Longing, Obsession, Pessimism, Resignation, Ruins, Writers-German | Leave a Comment
Tags: Communism, Gay Film Directors, Luchino Visconti, Senso, Walter Benjamin
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 remembers sitting at the airport. Just last week we were sitting at the airport. At the time it seemed painfully boring, but now we kind of miss it. Even though we know that if we went back we’d be painfully bored again. This is also why George Bush was elected […]
Filed under: History, Memory, Nostalgia, Pessimism, Philosophers, Politicians, The Gay Recluse, Writers-German | Leave a Comment
Tags: Airports, George Bush, Ronald Reagan, Walter Benjamin
In which The Gay Recluse scores selected opinions in The Times. Bob Herbert/Here Come the Millennials The Short Version: The youngs are seriously fucked, which is why they should vote for Obama. In his words: “This is a generation that is in danger of being left out of the American dream — the first American […]
Filed under: Drivel, Government, Philosophers, Politicians, The Gay Recluse, The Times, Writers-German | Leave a Comment
Tags: Arthur Schopenhauer, Bitchy Queens, Bob Herbert, Boomers, David Brooks, Generation X, The New York Times
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
In reading great works of literature, we are sometimes struck by the presence of what could be termed a “gay voice.” It is a voice that resonates with perspective of the sexually-oriented “outsider,” so that we come away with an understanding (and it does not have arrive by way of a literal representation) that “heterosexuality” […]
Filed under: Capitalism, Drivel, Gay, Infrastructure, Sickness, The Gay Recluse, The Times, Writers-American, Writers-British, Writers-French, Writers-German | 1 Comment
Tags: A.O. Scott, Gay, Henry James, Herman Melville, Marcel Proust, Michael Kimmelman, Peter Nadas, Susan Sontag, Thomas Mann, Toni Morrison, Virginia Woolf
We turn again to New York Times critic Edward Rothstein — who today wrote about the “irrelevance of gayness” with regard to the fictional wizard Albus Dumbledore –and shake our heads in wonder and dismay: how did such an arrogant, presumptuous blockhead get a PhD? a job with the Times? We must conclude that it […]
Filed under: Drivel, Gay, Obsession, Philosophers, The Times, Writers-German | Leave a Comment
Tags: Albus Dumbledore, Edward Rothstein, Gay, Nietzsche, Schopenhauer
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
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
The Gay Recluse 