In which The Gay Recluse holds a contest. Sort of.
We’ve been lazy about posting hot gay statues, but it’s time to take care of some local favorites that have been languishing in the submission box. Reader CBNY, who possesses one of the greatest photo collections of hot gay statues in the world, sent these in for our viewing pleasure, along with the following note:
How many among rush hour throngs notice Mercury, and his obviously impressed admirer, presiding over Park Avenue?
We must confess that we had never noticed, but are quite anxious to check these two out. Shall we?
Hey, these guys are hot! Also, is it us, or does Mercury have a hard guy not exactly concealed in the folds of his tunic? Whatevs, these guys need to get a room.
Clearly the lady statue represents the sad plight of so many (straight) women in New York City who must turn to more intellectual pursuits while the men (all gay, of course) are busy chasing each other. But who knows? She may get a book deal out of it — perhaps even a teevee series — and have the la$t laugh.
The Hot Gay Statue Contest Roundup:
- Rules and Guidelines
- Dan Savage Endorsement
- Washington Heights (New York City)
- Washington, DC
- The London Eye Clarifies an Important Issue
- Florence (Italy)
- The Park Avenue Amory (Upper East Side/NYC)
- Murray Hill (New York City)
- Madrid (Spain)
- Los Angeles
- Philadelphia
- The London Eye: “In Your Face”
- The J-Man Inspires
- George Washington
- Georgia (Republic of)
- New Orleans
- Columbus Circle (New York City)
- Two Davids (Florence)
- Franco Harris Statue (Pittsburgh)
- London Firefighters and Other Heroes
- Columbus Circle Mall (New York City)
- Miami
- Paris
Filed under: Architecture, Hot Gay Statues, Infrastructure, New York City, The Gay Recluse | 3 Comments
Tags: Book Deals, Grand Central Terminal, Hot Gay Statues, Intellectuals, Lady Statues, Last Laughs, Mercury, Park Avenue, Writers
In which The Gay Recluse becomes increasingly obsessed with the George Washington Bridge.
Last night we were watching Dante’s Cove, but really, the sunset was much more entertaining.
I too had an obsession with the GWB when I lived in the Heights in the ’80s. Mine was doing as much cruising as possible under that majestic bridge. The “little red lighthouse” was used for a probably unintended use on many an occasion.
Filed under: GWB Project, Television, The Gay Recluse | Leave a Comment
Tags: Dante's Cove, George Washington Bridge, Sunsets
In which The Gay Recluse enjoys “summer hours.”
Today we worked from home, which meant lots of watching the GWB.
I too had an obsession with the GWB when I lived in the Heights in the ’80s. Mine was doing as much cruising as possible under that majestic bridge. The “little red lighthouse” was used for a probably unintended use on many an occasion.
Filed under: Architecture, Gay, GWB Project, Washington Heights, Weather | Leave a Comment
Tags: Summer Hours, The George Washington Bridge
In which The Gay Recluse becomes increasingly obsessed with The George Washington Bridge.
Yesterday morning.
Yesterday evening.
I too had an obsession with the GWB when I lived in the Heights in the ’80s. Mine was doing as much cruising as possible under that majestic bridge. The “little red lighthouse” was used for a probably unintended use on many an occasion.
Filed under: Architecture, GWB Project, Obsession, The Gay Recluse, Washington Heights | Leave a Comment
Tags: 1980s, Cruising, Gay Cruising, Little Red Lighthouse, 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, too, as fuel prices increase.
Oh and every time we try to call 311 about this, they put it through to the fire department, and the next thing you know there’s three big firetrucks wailing on the street, even though the whole time we’re like “Look, it’s not a fire, it’s a faulty boiler.” Wtf.
Thanks 38 Fort Washington Avenue! We were feeling a little too healthy this morning…
Do you like this window treatment? It’s called “toxic smoke.”
Owners (via Property Shark):
Stahl Bros
38 Fort Washington Ave
New York NY 10032-4700
The oily black smoke of 100-year-old boilers disperses daily across the rooftops in Washington Heights, heedless of those who suffer from pneumonia, asthma and tuberculosis. Officials and politicians? Not even footnotes in this story, which is about the aggregation of capital and the relentless rise of the metropolis.
–The Gay Recluse, 9/29/07
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 ass, it’s such a cliche that it makes them all seem like closet-cases.
The little kids in the apartment building next door run up and down the sidewalk screaming “faggot” while the teenagers sit around and call people (and each other) faggots, too. Observing this, we could almost think it’s a word — like that other N-word — that has become too diffuse to carry any real currency. LOL! In your dreams.
Sometimes we close the door and watch the shower curtain, which for a few seconds in the dying afternoon light makes our dreams of escape seem almost plausible.
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 becomes increasingly obsessed with the George Washington Bridge.
Yesterday.
Today.
I, too, have an obsession with the George Washington Bridge. However, mine involves a nagging compulsion to complete a football pass from the deck of the bridge to a buddy on the ground below.
Filed under: Architecture, GWB Project, Infrastructure, The Gay Recluse, Washington Heights, Weather | 1 Comment
Tags: Haze, Summer, The George Washington Bridge, Today, Yesterday
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 they just throw it out the window!
We try to imagine what kind of thought process this entails, and how little respect it displays for those like our long-suffering super Leo and his wife Maggie who inevitably have to clean it up.
We are struck by the uncivilized quality of such actions, knowing that if everyone did this, the city — by which we mean society at large, which requires a certain empathy that rises above the written law — would quickly grind to a halt.
This of course is why we also hated Jesse Helms, who said this about gays/AIDS: “It’s their deliberate, disgusting, revolting conduct that is responsible for the disease.”
And this: “I’ve been portrayed as a caveman by some. That’s not true. I’m a conservative progressive, and that means I think all men are equal, be they slants, beaners, or niggers.”
The reason he loved teenagers should be obvious: it’s the age we typically associate with destruction and antipathy (and romanticize and excuse it as such); as a society, we seem to feel that it’s important to taste the uncivilized to understand its opposite, which makes a certain amount of sense, if you think about it.
So yeah, we break shit and party and scream and then — or most of us — grow up and learn to resist such urges, if not for own sake then for others on whom we have no right to inflict our misery.
But Jesse Helms was a teenager his entire life. Which is probably why he appeared so grotesque, like a real monster!
The joy we felt learning about his death, of course, barely lasted a second; it was a more a function of our past, when we did not yet understand that Jesse Helms was merely a symbol of something angry and insolent — and uncivilized — that lives in all of us, wanting desperately to tear down what has taken so long to build.
Evil Jesse Helms quotes from JoeMyGod.
Mr. Helms welcomed teenagers. Even when lobbyists could not get in to see him, high school students could. His office once calculated that he had met with 170,000 teenagers in his 30 years in the Senate.
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
In which The Gay Recluse becomes increasingly obsessed with the George Washington Bridge.
Ding Dong! The Witch is dead. Which old Witch? The Wicked Witch!
Ding Dong! The Wicked Witch is dead.
Wake up – sleepy head, rub your eyes, get out of bed.
Wake up, the Wicked Witch is dead. She’s gone where the goblins go,
Below – below – below. Yo-ho, let’s open up and sing and ring the bells out.
Ding Dong’ the merry-oh, sing it high, sing it low.
Let them know
The Wicked Witch is dead!
“The George Washington Bridge over the Hudson is the most beautiful bridge in the world. Made of cables and steel beams, it gleams in the sky like a reversed arch. It is blessed. It is the only seat of grace in the disordered city. It is painted an aluminum color and, between water and sky, you see nothing but the bent cord supported by two steel towers. When your car moves up the ramp the two towers rise so high that it brings you happiness; their structure is so pure, so resolute, so regular that here, finally, steel architecture seems to laugh. The car reaches an unexpectedly wide apron; the second tower is very far away; innumerable vertical cables, gleaming against the sky, are suspended from the magisterial curve which swings down and then up. The rose-colored towers of New York appear, a vision whose harshness is mitigated by distance.”
– Le Corbusier, When the Cathedrals Were White, 1947.
Filed under: Architecture, GWB Project, Politicians, The Gay Recluse | Leave a Comment
Tags: Holiday Lights, Jesse Helms, Le Corbusier, The George Washington Bridge, Wicked Witch
In which Dante and Zephyr take over The Gay Recluse.
Friends! Have you forgotten?
Not every cat is a lolcat!
Filed under: Animals, Not Every Cat a Lolcat, The Gay Recluse, The Russian Blue | 2 Comments
Tags: Assistants, Cats, Friends, Guest Bloggers, Lolcats
In which The Gay Recluse becomes increasingly obsessed with Corsican mint.
We were worried that our Corsican mint wouldn’t come back this year.
So we bought some more!
But then it did come back, just as we were told it would.
Some obsessions are obviously more benign than others.
Of all the groundcovers we introduced into the garden, Corsican mint (Mentha requienii) has attained a particular affection for us. Although it has thrived in several places in the garden, it is most spectacular in the crevices of our stone wall, where it seems to have grown with a true sense of purpose and deliberation, a quality so often lacking in less disciplined plants (and you know who you are!). Its translucent lime leaves provide a beautiful contrast to the darker hues of the surrounding stone — a warm gray — the deep greens and silvers of the conifers and the burned reds of the brick path. Our only fear is that with a hardiness level of Zone 7, it may not survive the New York City winter; but we will not think of that now, and instead imagine a spring marked by tiny fields of Corsican mint, and the even more microscopic blooms that will hover above it like infinite stars on a clear night.
The Gay Recluse, September 2007
Filed under: Gay, Good Rock, GWB Project, Obsession, The Gay Recluse, The Summer Garden | Leave a Comment
Tags: Corsican Mint, Groundcovers, Mentha requienii
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 was really him, too, just half a car away! She waved at him and we moved over a few inches to make room on the bench so they could sit together. (It was a B-train.)
He was probably in his sixties, short with glasses, kind of pudgy, dressed in “slacks” and a shirt-sleeve dress shirt. On first glance, he looked like a sit-com dad, but one from the Archie-Bunker era.
After he sat down, we (pretending to read) could hear the daughter chirping away on the other side of us. She sounded so happy to see him, and it did seem like a remarkable coincidence, the way it always does when you run into someone in the city.
But then we looked over and noticed that he had already pulled out a book and opened the page, as if he were about to start reading. He kept running his thumb over the bookmark. It was a really shitty softcover — the kind of thing you can bargain down to a nickel at a garage sale — something even worse than Tom Clancy or John Grisham, though it had that kind of cover, silver with an embossed gun on it or something.
Then he told his daughter to be quiet! We really hated him then.
What kind of man, we wondered, couldn’t talk to his daughter for ten minutes on the train? Didn’t he want to know about her day? Or tell her about his? Suddenly these horrible people reeked of loneliness and dysfunction.
Except when we got off the train at 59th Street, we noticed that she was now reading, too. They both seemed engrossed in their books, and not upset at all.
And we couldn’t help but ask ourselves who we really hated, and why.
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 Jane Austen Watch checks in with The Gay Recluse.
So we’re always hassling our correspondents to submit more material and believe it or not, sometimes it works! Today, for example, The Jane Austen Watch filed this report from her beat in Queens:
I took some pictures of the tiles at this diner I was at yesterday — they’re just pretty cool to look at.
Hmm, we’re intrigued! Let’s check ’em out…
Whoas…gold tiles?! Tiny, too. Definitely pretty cool.
Nice!
Monochromatic!
Thanks for that report, JAW, and you were so right: those tiles are seriously pretty cool. Naturally, we’ll look forward to your next dispatch, hint hint.
Filed under: Architecture, Capitalism, City Pattern Project, Communism, The Gay Recluse, The Jane Austen Watch | 1 Comment
Tags: Diners, Just Pretty Cool, Queens, Tiles
In which The Gay Recluse reports to the Board of Directors on monthly traffic-whoring metrix.
I. Summary
June marked our third best month on record, and — in light of limited time investment into the site — represents a promising long-term trend. If we’re ever in a position to start posting with renewed frequency, we feel confident that the market will respond positively. Until that time, sustainable traffic whoring is the objective.
II. Traffic Whoring Metrix
WordPress
Total Views June: 10,540
Grand Total Number of Views: 68,328
Monthly Breakdown
- September: 68
- October: 1959
- November: 3528
- December: 3112
- January: 4591
- February: 6545
- March: 15,033
- April: 13,957
- May: 8995
- June: 10,540
SiteMeter
June Visitors: 7363
June Page Views: 10,300
Monthly Traffic Whoring Charts
Daily Traffic Whoring Charts
Technorati (As of June 30, 2008)
Whoring Rank: 104,744 (up from 136,439)*
Whoring Authority: 63 (down from 67)
*go figure.
III. Feed Stats
Feedburner
54 subscribers (down from 56)
Bloglines
10 subscribers (unchanged)
IV. Major Links
- City Room BlogTalk (June 12) The New York Times
- Early Addition (June 16) Gothamist
- Central Park Hits Up This Washington Heights Place for Case (June 17) Curbed
- City Room BlogTalk (June 18) The New York Times
V. Forecast
Because of some ongoing subsidiary projects, traffic whoring will most likely be maintained at low to declining levels through July and August, with renewed investment expected in September, around the one-year anniversary of the site.
Filed under: Architecture, Capitalism, Communism, Decay, Health, History, Science, The Gay Recluse, The Times, Traffic | Leave a Comment
Tags: Board Reports, City Room, Curbed, Forecasts, Gothamist, Metrix, Site Meter, The New York Times, Traffic Whoring, WordPress
In which The Gay Recluse becomes increasingly obsessed with the George Washington Bridge.
Time/Date: Today, after the rain.
The bridge is named in honor of George Washington, the first President of the United States.
Filed under: Architecture, Government, GWB Project, Politicians, The Gay Recluse, Washington Heights | Leave a Comment
Tags: George Washington, George Washington Bridge, Presidents, Wikipedia
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 the Sunday Times, “[h]ere for once is a popular hit as sophisticated as it is engaging.” There are many more where that came from!
The book is about two eighteenth-century scientists, one a genius mathematician who figures out many mathy formulas and the other an explorer/naturalist who maps the Amazon. At the end, they meet and don’t really like each other! Both are based on real historical figures, and the explorer–Alexander von Humboldt–was gay in real life, which is to say he was a hot guy who never married and was romantically involved with several men throughout the course of his long life.
And because this is the 21st century and Kehlmann is a progressive young writer, Humboldt is gay in the book too! How do we know this? First he can’t get it up for a young girl who is left in his hut by the village chief to pleasure him. Then he doesn’t have sex for the rest of his life with anyone (or at least that is described in the book), even though right at the end we are told his “brother leaned back and gave him a long look. Still boys?”
“You knew?”
“Always.”
Oh and we are told that Humboldt is also really uptight about his sidekick journeyman ever having sex with the locals (which happens a few times in South America) and he’s an emotionally repressed psychopath who spends half the book pining for a small dog he lost in the jungle (the dog even haunts his dreams) but then he locks up a group of dogs in a room of hungry alligators to study “what happens.”
There it is, in a nutshell! What courage and insight! What incredible sophistication! It’s hard to a imagine a more vivid portrait of what it must have been like for Humboldt, one of Europe’s most famous men during his lifetime, to negotiate the waters of same-sex attraction. No wonder critics were astonished!
So you see, this book is a wonderful psychological portrait into a “real” person! You should definitely read it — we can’t wait for the movie! — the end.
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 becomes increasingly obsessed with birds.
It was raining pretty hard, but we still had places to go.
Even if we knew that somewhere, someone was sleeping.
I hope you love birds, too.
–Emily Dickinson
Filed under: Animals, GWB Project, The Gay Recluse, Writers-American | Leave a Comment
Tags: Birds, Emily Dickinson, Rain, Sleep
In which The Gay Recluse becomes increasingly obsessed with The George Washington Bridge.
Time/Date: June 28th, around 7:00pm.
Before the storm.
During the storm.
After the storm.
Othmar H. Ammann designed the bridge with a new theory at the time called deflection theory. This allowed him to increase the span length due to less weight and greatly reduce the cost of the bridge.
Filed under: Architecture, Dissonance, GWB Project, The Gay Recluse, Weather | Leave a Comment
Tags: Othmar H. Ammann, Storms, The George Washington Bridge
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 so many big media/entertainment concerns. While a few columns seemed to deliver on this premise, far more of them seemed to adhere to a formula of suburban, bourgeois complacency, and so we stopped reading.
But when we launched The Gay Recluse last year, we returned to the pages, sensing — and not incorrectly — an opportunity for parody, mockery and traffic whoring that is obviously the foundation of so many successful blogs on the internet. Relatively speaking, we made a splash! Gawker picked up the story and then sponsored its own Gay Modern Love contest, which we happily participated in. Later, as we rewrote the essays, there was an exhilarating exchange with Kayla Rachlin Small. The Times even linked to our quantitative analysis. (Thanks, City Room!) Obviously, our point was made and it did not fail to resonate.
Lately, however, we have found ourselves less than enthusiastic about the prospect of turning each week to yet another tedious, oblivious (if well-intentioned) essay that delivers no truth about the world we live in. So to make a long story short, we’re retiring from Modern Love in The Times. Traffic-whoring instincts aside, we would rather spend the few minutes it takes to (re)write these essays staring at the bridge or the trees or the cats, mulling over the infinite threads of the past and searching for some glimmer of real beauty.
Burn down the disco
Hang the blessed DJ
Because the music that they constantly play
IT SAYS NOTHING TO ME ABOUT MY LIFE
–The Smiths/Morrissey, “Panic”
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 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 president only twelve years after Ronald Reagan left office.
We have to wake up from the existence of our parents. In this awakening, we have to give an account of the nearness of that existence.
–Walter Benjamin
Filed under: History, Memory, Nostalgia, Pessimism, Philosophers, Politicians, The Gay Recluse, Writers-German | Leave a Comment
Tags: Airports, George Bush, Ronald Reagan, Walter Benjamin
The Gay Recluse 