Matthew Gallaway

Sunday in Washington Heights

After a busy Caturday, we woke up and were all still tired this morning.
Elektra stared into space.
Stephen's new orchid looked beautiful in the morning light, though.
This is a cattleya 'trick or treat' orchid, a tropical variety that's obviously quite happy with a western exposure in Washington Heights.
After Stephen finished his weekly watering of the orchids, we ate breakfast at the diner and then went for a walk down 158th Street, where we admired The Grinnell, which is perhaps the grandest apartment palace in upper Manhattan.
Predictably, we walked around it with a mix of envy and exhilaration as we considered the triangular form of the building against the late winter sky.
This is the western facade of the building, which is somewhat reminiscent of the Flatiron Building downtown.
I often tell people that the pre-war architecture of Washington Heights, when combined with the curving streets and hills, makes it the most 'European' of any neighborhood in the city. This is a view looking north on the Upper Riverside Drive from 158th Street. (158th Street, btw, which extends down to the Hudson, was originally an Indian path, so has an even longer history than that of the surrounding buildings.)
The Grinnell is not the only architecturally significant building in the vicinity, as this one -- right across the street -- demonstrates. Someday I'd like to take a tour of the upper floor, which faces south and west, and thus offers views of the river and the downtown skyline.
On the other corner is a smaller brick house from the same era (circa 1900-10) that offers a different kind of charm; the front portion is for sale if you're in the market for something!
We walked through the melting snow, dreaming of distant times but not unhappy to be here in our own.

Saturday: Hawks and Doves

Today was 'Caturday' on Tumblr, which means that I started off the day with a few shots of Elektra, who is not always as excited about internet memes as I am.
Dante and Zephyr were -- typically -- more willing to pose for photographs, particularly after they learned that synchronized sitting is an Olympic event. 
This done, Stephen and I went to the house to check on the garden, where we were relieved to find most of the trees looking relatively unfazed by the heavy snow with which they had been burdened for much of the previous two days.
As I stood listening to the heavy drip of the melting snow, I heard a sudden flapping of wings and a large bird swooped down into the garden before flying out and landing on the fire escape of the building behind me.
It was a red-tailed hawk! (Unfortunately I wasn't able to get the camera to focus through the bamboo leaves, but there's enough there for you to get the idea.) This was the first time we've ever seen a hawk in the backyard, and I was very excited: 'it could eat the cats,' Stephen said, which just goes to show how rare are the things in life that are uniformly positive; still, I felt that the chances of this bird making off with a cat were infinitesimal, so I viewed its arrival as 99.9 percent a good thing, and perhaps even portentous of better things to come, if my friend J___ is to be believed.
The Frank Lloyd Wright sister was wearing a hat of snow.
As were the pots at the edge of the house.
The yellow bamboo reverberated in the gray light.
As did the growing buds of the evergreens.
The Japanese Holly continued to dig out of the avalanche.
The beech tree also seems ready to unwrap its leaves, although experience tells us that this one will wait until mid-May to do so.
In the basement, there was some flooding; fortunately the sump pump worked, but less fortunately it wasn't turning off.
After spending several minutes in the attempt to diagnose the problem, I finally figured out that the entire mechanism had fallen off a stand, which meant that the floating device was not perpendicular to the ground, and hence wasn't shutting off; given how rarely I'm able to repair anything, I felt a great sense of accomplishment after fixing and testing the unit.
Outside the snow continued to melt, but -- for some -- there remained a great amount of work to be done.

Friday

So today my office was officially closed, which was all the more unusual because it was the second time this month.
I went outside and found Broadway almost completely covered.
I said hello to a pigeon that had taken shelter under the new scaffolding.
The wind had carved out a very beautiful snowdrift around an empty box.
There was even more snow on the block than I had expected; I began to shovel in front of the house.
In the garden, many of the trees were weighed down with the snow. Because the beginning of the storm was so wet, many of the branches were encased in a layer of ice, which made it even worse; the good news is that I don't think we suffered any casualties beyond a few broken branches.
I read somewhere today that this was the snowiest month in the history of New York City, which surprised me. But as aggravating as it can be to shovel out, there's an undeniable beauty to it, the way it allows us to ignore the cars and streets and see the city in a more timeless manner, perhaps.
Back at the apartment, I spent some time on the internet and thought about what it means to be an 'asshole.' There were a lot of 'blog wars' this week, and -- I must admit -- I instigated or at least participated in a few skirmishes in which I undoubtedly displayed my own inclination to be an 'asshole'; it wasn't that I didn't have legitimate points to make, but in making them, I regretfully and needlessly resorted to a mean-spirited and 'asshole' tone, which effectively undermined the very points I was trying to make. This is all too easy to do on the internet, obviously, where you can type something up in fifteen seconds and post it, without the protective inhibition that I think often comes from 'real-life' encounters, where (most) people are able to better control themselves and react to all manner of cues that are absent online. In my own case, it's also true that I have to overcome what might be called an 'asshole legacy' that was instilled in me from a very young age, not only as a result of growing up in a very competitive family, where winners were celebrated and losers mercilessly teased, but in a society that obviously values those who move forward at the expense of others; boys in particular (or at least this boy) are taught to 'win at any cost,' and this is something -- like racism and sexism and homophobia -- that I think is so deeply ingrained in most of us that it requires an active and vigilant resolution not to give in to the base quality of such impulses, even after we've recognized how undesirable they are. I think this is why -- like an ex-smoker who despises those who still maintain the bad habit -- I am also quick to lose patience with those who are 'assholes' to me; I recognize something in them that I despise in myself -- and effectively want to outgrow -- and wish that they could do the same; ultimately, however, the only solutions are 1) not to engage, and 2) if we do (and I believe it's sometimes necessary) to do so in a respectful manner that focuses on the substance of the matter at hand instead resorting to 'assholish' (or snide or 'snarky' etc. etc.) personal attacks.
I think all of this relies on a sense of empathy, in which we ask ourselves: 'how would I feel if I were the recipient of such a message?' and then modify our tone accordingly before proceeding. I know I've made progress in this regard over the past ____ years, but this past week has demonstrated that I still have plenty of room for improvement. I also like to visualize my tombstone (even though I don't plan to have one) and think about whether it would say: 'He was a royal asshole' or 'He was a creative writer,' by which I mean someone who preferred to create art instead of needlessly destroying it (or more to the point, those who make it).
When I woke up from a much-needed nap, the skies had cleared, appropriately enough.
I spent some time admiring Stephen's new orchid, which is blooming for the first time.
Outside, the sun had turned the Hudson into a river of light.

Thursday

This morning was the start of the 'snowicane.'
By this afternoon, the rooftops of midtown were covered with snow. I could barely see the Empire State Building through my window.
It was, as it turned out, a rather tumultuous day at work; there were controversies in which I was implicated. Several times I looked out the window, and as much as I enjoyed the sight of the snow, I found that it didn't completely quiet the voices in my head, the kinds of voices on which I fixate almost daily as I sit down in front of a computer terminal and basically sift through the different messages -- both work and non-work related -- that continuously pour across the screen; at times it's frankly overwhelming, and the temptation to immediately respond -- to add my own voice to the mix, as if to shout down the competition, to demand a moment of silence where it couldn't possibly exist -- is too much to reason away. These are the small and vindictive battles that make my life seem exciting for a second or two in contrast to the large swaths of tedium that define so much of the rest of it. In the end, while I'm not sure this is a 'healthy' or 'logical' response, I'm not sure it's 'unhealthy' or 'illogical' either; the key, I suppose, like so much else -- to resort to a cliche -- is to find a 'balance.'
At the end of the day, I looked down and regretted my decision to wear boat shoes.
The sidewalks in midtown weren't too bad, though.
Whereas in Washington Heights -- due to our extreme northern latitude -- the streets were covered in slush and snow.
It was hard work shoveling the snow at the house -- there was also an inch or so of ice on the sidewalk, where ppl had been walking -- but it felt good to do something physically exhausting, and made me wish that I didn't spend so many hours of my day in front of a computer, both screaming and getting screamed at by people (in some cases) or simply always working through the same medium -- the written word -- to express myself, to be understood/misunderstood.
When I was done I admired the glistening trees, which spoke to me in a voice unlike any that I ever hear 'online.'
It was a voice I hoped to remember, given that for the foreseeable future, I have no choice but to spend a large percentage of my life in the virtual reality in which I must work to make a living.
But the night offered the promise of peace, and for that I was grateful.

The George Washington Bridge Project

This morning the bridge was shrouded in mist.
At moments, it seemed to completely disappear.
As I contemplated this for the two minutes and fifteen seconds I had at my leisure before rushing out the door en route to a busy day at work, I was reminded of how no matter how beautiful and grand something appears, and no matter how hard we strive to obtain it -- and even when it is in fact right in front of us -- such a thing can seem as distant and unobtainable as immortality or hitting the lottery or world peace.
And how it's sometimes necessary to have such a thing obscured to understand not only how close it really is, but what we would miss if it actually disappeared.
This post was written by Elektra.

The George Washington Bloom Project

Today was pretty much a lousy day on all fronts, so I thought I'd take the opportunity to post some shots I took of the orchids last week in the setting sun.
I haven't figured out how to keep the bridge and the flowers in focus, but I'm not sure I really want to.
(This is a metaphor for one of life's hard realities; namely, that you often have to choose one thing at the expense of another.)
Thankfully, both choices offer different possibilities of beauty, assuming we can let go of any regret that comes from knowing we can no longer have what once seemed so easy to attain.

The 2010 Nominees for Spruce of the Year

(pic by FromMe-ToYou Flickr)

On Friday night I was chosen to announce the 2010 'Spruce of the Year' Awards.

(pic by Tiffany Armant on Flickr)

Below are the three nominees for 2010 Spruce of the Year, based on 'sprucial excellence' in the 2009 gardening season:
Featuring some of the darkest needles of any spruce -- it has been compared to green onyx -- Picea abies 'Hillside Upright' had a stunning performance in the Washington Height garden in 2009. 
With a uniform green tone and a tight columnar growth habit, this Norway Spruce saw exquisite development in the 2009 gardening season.
The duo-toned needles of the Weeping Serbian Spruce -- a celadon green over a gray underside -- is combined with an exceedingly graceful habit that is both narrow and weeping.   

[Seriously, the pix above of me are from the 'Tumblr Reads' event on Friday night, which was a big success and a lot of fun -- click through for a really cool stop-action video of the entire night.]

Les Chats dans l'Apres-Midi

Today was Sunday in every sense of the word.
After battling a cold for much of the last week, I finally made it out of the apartment this afternoon. At the house, there were still roses in bloom from Valentine's Day.
Outside in the garden, there was still a lot of snow.
The helleborus are very close to blooming, though.
The birch tree seems quite healthy, too.
The phlox seems a little beat up, but I'm sure it'll be fine in a few months. One thing about gardening is that, after you've been through a few seasons, you learn not to panic, knowing that most plants are more resilient than you might at first expect, as if you were the one who had just spent three weeks buried under a foot of snow.
The dwarf conifer seemed completely unfazed as the snow slowly peeled away.
The flower store already had potted pink azaleas for sale. I felt a passing regret at the thought that most of these plants -- which might otherwise have a lifespan of years, and possibly decades -- would probably never end up in the ground, but would be thrown away after the bloom faded.
The building on the corner of Broadway looked magnificent against the azure sky.
Back in the apartment, we all promptly fell asleep or -- as Stephen (who took the photo) suggested -- 'Les chats dorment dans l'apres midi.'
I woke up in the amber light of the last rays of the setting sun.

In the Weeds: Fort Tryon in Winter

Please click-through for my latest 'In the Weeds' at THE AWL, on Fort Tryon Park, which is miraculously in bloom this February. Below are some outtakes!
Looking down at the grotto of Eastern White Pines.
The arched entrance to the park.
The heather garden with elm trees in the distance, or my idea of heaven.
I love how the sedum is tinged with red and orange in the winter.
A white birch.
Originally the paths were brick, but now most are covered in pavement.
An ancient (cherry? I'm not exactly sure, to be honest) tree in the late-afternoon sun.
A closeup of the heather.
A black squirrel, which I think is relatively new to the area; or at least I don't remember seeing them in Fort Tryon before this year.
The western edge of the park (note the GWB in the distance!)
A cat who appears rather too-well groomed to be a stray (but why is he/she not inside?)
The cotoneaster berries.
A starling chilling in the bushes.

The Saturnine Tour Diaries Project: Bedhead (1995)

December 7 (Boston): This was the first day of our 'mini-tour' with Bedhead. It's sort of miraculous that the whole thing came together logistically -- everyone in Bedhead (except for Matt) had to fly up from Dallas, and they're using all of our equipment. Thursday morning arrived, though, and they all showed up at my apartment -- Matt had picked them up at the airport the night before, and we met here to transfer some of their stuff to the van. We got off to a late start because Jim got stuck in the elevator, but we finally left around 1:30, and after a few stops in Brooklyn, we were quickly mired in heavy traffic in Queens. Bedhead was mostly impressed by how greasy the zeppoles were that Peter bought at the pizza shop in Brooklyn. We lost them in a traffic jam in Connecticut and made it to Boston about 30 minutes before they did. We had dinner at this Indian restaurant called The Globe, which was sort of an icebreaker. Bedhead's manager Josh had managed to detain them at TTs by having Matt and the promoter on separate phone lines at the same time. The show went pretty well -- it was fairly crowded and people were enthusiastic. It was incredible to see Bedhead playing through our equipment, even though they seemed a bit uncomfortable at first. Matt's guitar also had some faulty connections, so he had to use mine. The real fun began after the show, though, when Wheat -- the bass player -- found a party for all of us to go to at a Harvard dorm room where some people from the first band played. First we stopped at Eric Masanaga's to unload the equipment, and while we were there, Wheat gave me some gum that he had bought from a vending machine, and it was so old that it turned to liquid in my mouth. So I followed Wheat outside, except he walked through the wrong door and into someone's bedroom, where we were instantly confronted by 'hey, hey -- watch out!' As Wheat later said, it seemed like there was 'some business' going on in there. Finally we made it outside, though, where I spit my 'gum' out into a sticky mass on the ground and then we went to this all-night pizzeria to meet the people to take us to the party. When we got there, me and Mike and Wheat decided to get some donuts. On the way out, we saw the police chasing this guy up the street, although we never figured out why or even if they caught him. So we finally got to the dorm room, where a lot of pretentious Harvard kids were hanging out; it must be difficult to establish an identity at Harvard. Wheat said that one of them asked him what his 'relationship' was to New Order. We finally left and slept like sardines on two horizontal mattresses that Eric gave to us; before going to sleep, we reenacted the story of Gainesville, where I accidentally farted on Jennifer's head when she switched directions on the couch. Then there was a pillow that was rectangular and flat, and we pretended that it was a piece of toast, a credit card, a computer chip and a cat-bed.
December 8 (Bowdoin): We got up and went to breakfast across from TTs at this Yugoslavian place. Mike got pancakes and they served it with a salad on the side. We got back to Eric's and loaded up the van: from this point on, Wheat rode with us. While we were loading the van, Jim tripped over the curb with my amp and smashed his lip into the loft of the van; thankfully he was ok, it could have been a lot worse. As we made our way north to Maine, the moon came up like a huge orange globe, as it had done the night before. Actually the night before, Jim had said this thing about the moon being 'filled with anguish' and making him want to play sons in 'd-minor.' Even though it was obviously a Spinal Tap allusion, I was like 'huh?' and later on, Trini told me to tell Jim he was a freak for saying it. I said that all drummers were freaks. The other funny thing that happened was that Jennifer lost her pink sweater at the club and she asked Peter if he had seen it, and he told her that Bubba always stole people's clothes, so she accosted Bubba for the sweater, which of course he didn't have. There was this other great awkward moment when Jennifer introduced Ryan (of Car) -- who is a Dean Wareham lookalike -- as 'Ralph Wareham,' Dean's little brother, and Matt was like 'oh, I think I spoke to you on the phone.' Anyway, we got to Bowdoin in time to sit around in the dining hall and feel uncomfortable as all the students filed by and stared at us. Matt Kadane said that 'there must be a nerd convention going on here.' We ate at the pub where we played last time and on the way out, Wheat made a big impression by humping the statue of a polar bear outside of the student center. The show ended up being great -- lots of people came and we sold almost $200 in merchandise. The room we played in was a big dining hall, and Gab was there. He told me how he almost got beat up  by a football player at a dance where he deejayed for playing Massive Attack, when the football player wanted to hear 'cheesy stuff, like Soft Cell.' Gab also said it was a miracle that he was able to convince the Student Union Committee to have us and Bedhead up there again. The committee was like 'Bedhead?' Bedhead seemed a lot more comfortable -- they played 'Living Well' and 'Powder' to finish their set, which was amazing. Wheat spent the night with a couple of girls he met -- apparently he walked back through the Student Union (where they had a 'gospel singer, followed by a dance,' as he was informed by this very pious girl dressed in Land's End) and performed the robot dance made famous by Herbie Hancock. Wheat is basically a living legend; one of his nick-names is 'porno-boy' because he slept with two girls at the same time and told everyone in his band about it like the day after he had met them. He dropped out of high school and at one point was picked up by a juvenile delinquent officer in Florida; he managed to push her away and make a run for it, wearing nothing but a punk-rock outfit and a mohawk. As he ran, he decided that he should try to disguise himself as a jogger so he threw away all of his clothes except his underwear and combat boots, and then ran into a store where the clerk behind the counter let him hide in his car, so that he actually escaped. On Bedhead's first trip to Europe, Wheat was nervous about the flight and so smoked a lot of pot beforehand, which combined with a horse tranquilizer and many whiskeys on the flight, led him to become increasingly groggy, so that he fell off the shuttle at the airport in Germany, after which he was wheeled away in a stretcher screaming that he 'couldn't hear himself' and then -- after he was in the medical treatment room -- became convinced that they were going to give him 'shock therapy.' December 9 (Princeton): After breakfast Mike and I made a big impression on Bedhead by doing our 'Beavis and Butthead' for them. We got on the road after stopping at Dunkin Donuts and then had a big donut fight on the highway. The snow started to fall heavier as we went south, which slowed us down. We stopped at a bunch of rest stops and watched Wheat do 'Starsky and Hutch' slides across the roof of their car. Wheat also taught us how to make these bizarre chipmunk noises with our mouths. After getting lost, we finally made it to the 'Campus Club' at Princeton, which is basically a frat house. I found it kind of annoying, but at least they had foosball, which we played for a couple of hours before the show. Our show was ok -- the crowd was very aloof, and we barely sold anything (but neither did Bedhead). Bedhead had an amazing show -- I really felt like we were playing for each other, more than a bunch of 20-year-old meatheads. After we played, everyone went to bed except me and Wheat, who took a walk around campus. We couldn't stay out long though, because we had to be locked in at the Campus Club by the promoter (who looked like Lerch), who kept giving us the evil eye, like we were going to steal something. After we got back, everyone went to sleep except for me and Mike and Trini, who stayed up playing 'war.' We finally went to bed and slept about two hours. The rest of Bedhead went to the airport and we drove Matt back into the city. The day was unseasonably cold, but the sun was bright against the wind.  [Ed note:] In case it wasn't obvious from the above ramblings, Bedhead (and the Kadane brothers' next band, The New Year, in which Mike D plays bass) is/was/are the best (and most criminally underrated) band/s of the 90s/00s, in my opinion. Playing with them on these three nights was one of the best things that ever happened to me in Saturnine, not only because I loved their music (and they were all exceedingly nice and fun and far more courteous and indulgent of our bullshit than we deserved, I'm sure), but because they taught us that it was possible to play with a sense of dynamic without having our amps on 'ten' all the time (or for that matter, ever). Do you yourself the favor and buy all of their records wherever such music is sold these days! xoxo MG

[All pix by Jennifer Baron!]