In which The Gay Recluse rather quickly dies of dehydration and sunstroke.

Yesterday’s sunset = today’s heat. But oddly, we have no desire to be at the beach.

In which The Gay Recluse holds a contest. Sort of.

Our country has a lot of George statues, and no surprise — given that he was known to enjoy the company of men in every way possible — quite a few of them are rather gay, although none has proven to be particularly hot. Albany, it turns out, is no exception, as reader John points out:

We don’t have any hot gay statues in Albany, I’m afraid. This one of Geo. Washington is gay (strike a pose) but definitely not hot. (Checking the package, though, proves he has something going on).

Hmm, gay but not hot? We’re nevertheless intrigued…let’s check out the goods, shall we?

Yeah, we agree with John: this guy’s definitely gay, but hardly smokin’.

But hey! What’s goin’ on down there?

Whoas! Check the package! This George, though not exactly hot, clearly has it goin’ on for some lucky gent.

Thanks for the submission, John, which proves that any gay statue is better than no gay statue. Readers in other cities, please don’t be shy about sharing the best gay statuary you have to offer.

We also encourage everyone to check out John’s excellent tree photography on his Flickr.

The Hot Gay Statue Contest Roundup:

In which The Gay Recluse explores a longstanding obsession with moss-covered brick.

Bricks, it seems, are the literal building blocks of civilization, whereas moss is the incremental destroyer. To see them together — and to appreciate the beauty of this — is to understand that you cannot have one without the other, just the way you cannot have spring without winter, love without pain, or Lauren without Heidi. Many are the hours where we have sat trying to figure out whether we are made of moss or brick, and only now and again does it really seem as if both are there equally — so that we are in equilibrium — and for just a second we are filled with a fleeting sense of truth and revelation that is replaced by longing and melancholy as soon as it is gone.

In which The Gay Recluse remembers life 100 years ago.

Well, except for the satellite dishes…

In which The Gay Recluse dreams of the desert.

This year one of our cactus bloomed for the first time.

Apparently it’s very happy!

We admire it, even though it makes us wish that we lived in the desert, far away from everything we hate.

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 regretted it, because we really hated the feeling of our leg touching hers.

But this lasted just until 59th Street, when she got off.

We weren’t sorry at all to see her disappear into the crowd.

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.

–Commenter David

In which The Gay Recluse becomes increasingly obsessed with manhole covers.

Recently we were suprised to learn that cities in Florida such as Ft. Lauderdale also have manhole covers, some of which are pretty freakin’ swank. Reader CBNY sends us the following:

[The first] is a little perfunctory, but I find it offers a rather pleasing, Richard Meier modernism, as well as an interesting study of negative space.  I also like its matter-of-fact announcement of a basic element of Florida life.

[The second] is more traditional, a sister to your stellar, square entry… There’s a lovely yin/yang to them, side-by-side, as well as a surprise sampling of snowflake-crystal structures.

Hey, not bad. Not New York City, of course, but not bad!

Very nice indeed, although the sharp edges make us think it’s probably only a thousand years old or so.

Unsurpassed beauty in this slightly weathered piece (this is the one from New York City referenced above by CBNY), which is already 10,000 years old.

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: A Brother As Significant as Any Other by Lawrence Everett Forbes

Subject: Although we’ve retired from rewriting the ML columns, we wanted to update our tally because — hey! — Daniel Jones ran a piece this week by a real cock-sucking gai! But don’t worry, it’s not about same-sex romantic love between two men, but instead describes a rather unsettling affection between two brothers, one straight and one gay. In short, because from reading Modern Love over the years we have learned that the gays are crazy and incapable of anything resembling real love (by which we mean love between one man and one woman, preferably in a suburb), we are relieved to learn that the author of this piece also sounds rather insane as he unconsciously uses phrases like “too close” to describe his family and then discloses the unsettling fact (in the context of the piece, of course) that neither he nor his brother has ever had a relationship longer than a “brief affair.”

Check out this: “Rather than drive us apart, my admission had bound us closer together.”

Or this: “Our parents recently celebrated their 39th anniversary. Their union has always been one of affectionate gestures and caretaking. You’d think growing up with such stellar role models would help us find healthy long-term relationships, yet neither of us has had a partner for longer than a season.”

OMG, barf! Seriously, is there a 911 for therapy?

Filed under: Gay Man on “Family” (and yes, we’re updating the tally to include the past few weeks, which were two straight women on Zzzzz.)

The updated tally (or why we feel like animals in the zoo): 8 out of 187 columns by openly gay writers; 2 out of 187 on female gay relationships; 0 out of 187 on male gay relationships. In what is arguably the “gayest” section of The Times, more women have written about gay men than gay men have.

Straight Woman on Relationships iiiii iiiii iiiii iiiii iiiii iiiii iiiii iiiii iiii (44)
Straight Woman on Family iiiii iiiii iiiii iiiii iiiii iiiii iiiii iii (38)
Straight Woman on “Looking for Love” iiiii iiiii iiiii iiiii iiiii iiiii iiiii (35)
Straight Woman on Breaking Up iiiii iiiii iiiii iiiii iii (23)
Straight Man on Relationships iiiii iiiii ii (12)
Straight Man on Breakup iiiiii (6)
Straight Woman on Gay Men iiiii i (6)
Straight Man on Family iiiii ii (7)
Straight Man on “Looking for Love” iiiii ii (7)
Gay Man on Family ii (2)
Gay Woman on Relationship ii (2)
Gay Woman on Family ii (2)
Gay Man on Self-Hatred i (1)
Gay Man on Prom Date i (1)
Ambiguous/Nurse on Drugs i (1)

In which The Gay Recluse says great, wtf.

We’ve written before about the vacant house next door, which we’ve been complaining about for close to umm, 10 years. But finally last spring it was declared unsafe, which may mean 1) the city is going to knock it down, or 2) some developer bought it and is going to renovate so that the city won’t force him to knock it down.

Who knows? The good news is that a construction crew showed up the other day and put up scaffolding.

Here’s the bad news:

Thank you, geniuses, for extending your scaffolding all the way over our stoop (without even asking) and putting it directly into the columnar pin oak! We’ve heard that’s really good for trees, especially if you leave the scaffolding up for a few years.

File under: be careful what you ask for, especially when the city’s involved.

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:

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.

–Commenter David

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.

–Commenter David

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.

–Commenter David

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

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.

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.

–Ryan Pissed and Petty (March 31, 2008)

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.

–The New York Times

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.

In which Dante and Zephyr take over The Gay Recluse.

Friends! Have you forgotten?

Not every cat is a lolcat!

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