Matthew Gallaway

Our Interview with Rudy Giuliani

As part of our ongoing series this primary season, we met with Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani, who came all the way up to Washington Heights to discuss one of his favorite topics: correct service for the formal and informal table.

The Gay Recluse: Rudy, as mayor you were associated with a hard-nosed approach to table service. How has your position evolved, if at all, now that you're reaching out to a national audience?

Rudy Giuliani: I'm not sure I would say it's evolved at all. I've long claimed that the charming thing about table setting is that it is more and more coming to be creation of one's individual taste. Indeed, many a woman unable to get domestic help has found a new delight in her table through handling her fine linens, china, glass, and silverware herself and in making them express her inborn love of beauty and good taste.

TGR: And how strictly to you plan to adhere to the rules of construction?

RG: Today, in place of one set of rigid rules for table setting, I would say there have grown two distinct types of usage. One is for the formal affair -- breakfast, luncheon, or dinner. This usage is still based on formal rules, yet still allows for more personal latitude than before. The other usage is homey and intimate -- nicely ordered rather than formal, and always individual -- the sort of thing that makes the guest feel instantly at home. The main difference is that in this more informal table service everything is left to the taste and convenience of the hostess.

TGR: That sounds great in theory, but how does it play out in the real world?

RG: All the silverware except that for the dessert or sweet and the demitasse is placed on the table at once; and the several dishes are served by those at the table, or passed from hand to hand. In short, the woman of position who serves her own table follows two main principals: her table setting is planned to make the service as expeditious and unobtrusive as possible, and she is very careful to serve each course with its appropriate silverware.

TGR: Now for the hard question: what is your favorite meal of the day?

RG: Like many, I tend to think dinner is the pleasantest meal of the day. Whether guests are entertained or the family dines alone, the table should be as charming as it can be made. I recommend a white damask cloth be used, with large dinner napkins to match. Unshaded candles give a most delightful glow to the polished silver and sparkling glassware. The centerpiece, of course, is of flowers.

TGR: I know you're dying to tell me, so please --

RG: (Laughs.) The silverware! Let's see--if oysters are served, the Oyster Fork is generally placed at the extreme right. Then follow the Soup Spoon and, nearest the plate, the Knife for the roast, with the cutting edge toward the plate. Tea Spoons, when used, are placed to the right of plate -- just outside the knife. The glass for water stands just above the knife. On the left is the Meat Fork and, next to the plate, the Salad Fork. If fish is served, the Dessert Fork is used for it and this is placed to the left of the Meat Fork. If additional forks and knives are needed they are put on the table during dinner.

TGR: You've been involved in some pretty heated exchanges on the butter dish -- where exactly do you stand on that?

RG: My view is really quite simple: the bread-and-butter plate, when used at dinner, occupies its customary place above the fork. Across the right side is placed the Butter Spreader. At formal dinners butter is not served and, consequently, the plate and spreader are omitted. But as few families care to observe this rule except on ceremonious occasions, the butter plate with its spreader is found on most dinner tables. End of story!

TGR: That seems clear. I know time is running short, but perhaps you could leave us with a few words about breakfast? Is it true that you like to skip it completely?

RG: Hardly! It's true that breakfast is usually the least formal meal of the day, but this only means that it should be made one of the the most enjoyable! Obviously, the table service at breakfast necessarily depends upon the courses served. Instead of a large white cloth, mats and runners of plain or embroidered linen or crash are used. The usual order of service is the fruit course first, followed by cereal, and then by the main course, consisting of eggs, fish or meat, with coffee, and a hot bread or toast. But remember: if the hostess serves the coffee on the table the coffee service is placed before her together with each cup in its saucer, and the Tea Spoon is laid on the saucer before it is passed.

TGR: Thanks so much for your time, Rudy, and good luck with the rest of the campaign.

Rudy: Thank you -- as always, it's been always a pleasure.

On What Even the Lowest Forms of Life Can Teach Us of Redemption

Like Ann Coulter, the ailanthus tree is noxious, unsightly and invasive, and can be found almost everywhere in the United States, not only in vacant lots and highway meridians, but in once pristine forests, where it wreaks havoc on local ecosystems. It does not favor diversity or nuance, but -- and with just the most trace amount of nutrients -- manages to endlessly replicate, with no regard to the more sensitive and robust beauty offered by the species it so mercilessly replaces. In the past we have tended to view this tree with nothing but disdain, wishing that we could wave a magic wand and erase it from the landscape. But now we are not so sure; at this time of year, there is a vermilion tone in its autumn leaves that speaks to us of fire and the certainty of death. It reminds us that no matter how much we wish to think otherwise, in this final result we are all the same.

Correction: A kind reader possessing serious qualifications in the science department (obviously this was not Ann Coulter) wrote to us and pointed out that the tree featured in the photograph is in fact a sumac (Rhus sp.), a relative of the ailanthus. The sumac is a native species, whereas the ailanthus is orginally from Asia (both are commonly found in vacant lots and on highway meridians); the leaves of the smaller sumac turn red, whereas those of the ailanthus become a "rather bland yellow" (our reader's most excellent characterization). What -- if anything -- this means to the above analysis we will leave to speculation (and beg your indulgence in our poetic license), but we do appreciate the comment/clarification. 

Two Contrasting Explorations of Masculinity and What They Tell Us of the Sad Plight of the United States

In a profile included in this month's Poets & Writers Magazine, Benjamin Percy -- a young American genius said to have written the "story of the year" in 2006 -- tells us: "I am interested in this new masculinity in today's society, what distinguishes us as men and as women besides our biology. No longer do men head off into the wilderness to slaughter large animals. No longer do women stay home and tend to the fire and the vittles. It's more about, I don't know, going to the gym and lifting so many weights that your veins rip out of your skin like pencils and your muscles are the size of softballs. It's not earned muscle in that way but why are you doing it? You do it to sort of remember what it used to be to be a man." By way of contrast we next turn to an extract from Alan Hollinghurst, the British author of the The Swimming Pool Library: "[Bill, a boxing instructor] was looking forward then, building up his body like a store, a guarantee of his place in the future. Now [twenty or thirty years later] the future had come [and] he still hoarded and packed it. It sat opposite me, massive, gathering bullishly at the shoulders, the open shirt showing a broad V of black hair, the thighs splayed ponderously on the slashed and stitched upholstery of the banquette. I knew I could never love it or want it, but it was an achievement, this armor of useless masculinity."

On Autumn Dreams

In winter we had no dreams; it was too cold to consider anything but the brittle landscape outside and the frozen tributaries of our past within. In spring we were nervous and agitated, our thoughts scattered like cherry-blossom petals in the wind. Summer came and we were boldly confident, perhaps even arrogant; who could not succumb to the magical allure our our dreams? Soon we would be crowned king of the world! But now it is autumn: the streets are damp and the sky is gray and heavy; our dreams are vague and distant, specks of fading light on the horizon. We resign ourselves to dim afternoons and dead nights, filled with only the soft whisper of turning pages.

On One Method To Produce Great Works of Art

One day on the street in Washington Heights, we passed an old man who invited us into his garden. Though barely the size of three parking spaces, the garden contained a vast array of unusual trees, including columnar varieties of a blue atlas cedar, a purple beech (the most magisterial of all trees), a Norway spruce, and -- most impressively, for it was already 300 feet tall -- a dawn redwood. These trees provided a canopy through which only the most dappled light could pass, although apparently this was enough for several species of Japanese maple to thrive, and we spent several minutes admiring the intensely variegated leaves of the most unusual specimen. Nor did we fail to note our appreciation for the delicate ferns and mythic hellebores that populated the lowest regions of the garden, or the Corsican mint that crept so luxuriantly among the crevices of the rocks. In the center of it all stood a single white birch, the golden leaves of which -- for by this point it was already October -- fell around us like snowflakes. When we expressed the depths of our admiration at this display, the old man nodded. "I will give it all to you on one condition." "Anything," we said without a thought. "You must pick up each of the million twigs and leaves that fall each season, so that the bricks will stay clean and the moss will not be too invasive." "That doesn't sound like much," we responded, still eager to take him up on the offer. He laughed somewhat wryly. "Yes, well -- neither does life for the first hundred years," he shrugged. "But when the second hundred arrive, you will know the meaning of both tedium and eternity."

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 condition is that the choice of one will preclude the other, which is to say that this is a one-shot deal, i.e., never again will our hypothetical couples be given the chance to add to their families, and there will be no "test-run" with a dog or cat in advance of having a child (although we heartily endorse the idea in principle, so long as the pet is not tossed onto the street or made to suffer any greater indignity than a demotion to second-class citizen). Now, let's say that "Couple A" choose the child, and "Couple B" choose a dog. What does this tell us about our respective couples? Couple A can be thought of as optimistic, whereas Couple B can be viewed as pessimistic. This conclusion is rooted in the understanding that in almost every case, the decision to have a child is accompanied by the expectation -- or at least the hope -- that barring unforeseen sickness or accident, the child will outlive the parents, whereas the decision to adopt almost any pet -- except for certain species of birds, which however much we admire them (i.e., birds) we will leave aside for the moment -- must, unless the prospective owners are very old (and in this case we will tell you that they are not), be accompanied by a certainty that -- again, barring unforeseen sickness or accident -- the pet will die before its caretakers, i.e., no matter how much a pet is loved (and we can attest that many of them are loved very much) and cared for and pampered with gourmet foods and deliciously fishy treats, the day will come when we must close their eyes to the world and consider the stark landscape of our own lives without them. We note in this regard that lifelong "bachelor" Arthur Schopenhauer, patron saint of all pessimists and -- let's be honest -- one of the most formidably bitchy queens of all-time, was extremely devoted to a succession of poodles he owned, and that he bequeathed his estate to disabled Prussian soldiers and the families of those killed in the service of a government fueled by optimism instead of grief.

On the Only Useful Lens Through Which To View the History and Future of Civilization

Poets, pundits, philosophers and politicians, take note! This is not the story of nations or other one-hit wonders, nor is it the story of religion, for which so many millions have died in futile anger and delusion. It is certainly not the history of capital, although this too has been a scourge; no, friends, these are distractions from the real story, which is the slow but relentless rise of the city. Incomprehensible beauty and despair! Inexplicable dissonance and distortion! Inalterable repudiation of all political philosophers and religious zealots who would explain our existence without acknowledging the seething allure of the trains and tunnels, the buildings and bridges of this endlessly mutating labyrinth into which we must cast ourselves to find civilized life! How sorry and sad -- which is to say, irrelevant -- are the candidates -- which is to say, all of them -- who fail to discuss the implications of this truth; how tiresome the critics and commentators who obscure it with egocentric jargon about freedom and community. Is it not immediately obvious who among them has or has not walked the streets, and not only in the tedious safety of the day but in the more barren and remote hours of the night, when we are possessed by creaking gates, distant gunshots and -- most of all -- the pounding, subterranean space we learn to call our heart?

 

On a Conversation about Opera Held in Terminal C

I sat down in Terminal C next to an older woman, who in a long black dress and ostrich-feather hat appeared oddly elegant among all the business suits.

"I hope it's not too crowded," I remarked in a somewhat stilted attempt to engage this mysterious woman in conversation, as if we were both waiting to be seated at an exclusive French restaurant.

"I wouldn't know," she responded archly, but with an exquisite diction that seemed to resonate with years of stage training.

For the first time I dared to look directly into her pale, distant eyes, the gray color of which recalled the high peaks of the Bavarian Alps. "Were you by any chance a singer?"

"I was." She folded her gloved hands onto her lap before she responded. "In fact, 100 years ago this very evening, something interesting happened to me -- would you like me to tell you about it?" She paused as if to gauge my interest and apparently satisfied by a vigorous nodding on my part continued, her voice soft but expectant. "It was at the Palais Garnier in Paris, where I had been spent perhaps fifteen years as a cover. I don't say this with pride, but I had probably learned fifty roles and never once performed any of them -- or at least not at the Garnier, which had always been my only dream in life. On this night, I arrived at the theater expecting more of the same; or even more than usual, given that the opera was Tristan und Isolde -- do you know it?"

"Intimately," I confirmed.

"One never knows these days," she sighed and waved her hand in front of her face, as if to clear an unpleasant odor. "So it happened that the lead Isolde -- Greta Glockner, if that means anything to you -- had fallen ill with a sore throat -- there had been a snowstorm -- and so the role was given to me." She lowered her voice even further. "Do you know what happened next?"

I shook my head, not wanting to interject my markedly untrained voice into this unexpected aria.

"It was a triumph! Each of the three acts was more miraculous than the next! I had never dreamed such perfection could be possible, and I could hardly believe it even as it happened! Rockets and bombs could have fallen around me and I would have brushed them away without a second thought! And the Liebestod? Even more sublime than the rest -- I swear to you that some small number of souls in the audience were extinguished that night as a result of my devastating beauty, not that it really belonged to me. With the last note of the last chord hanging in the air, I fainted, and felt sure that I would also die. Not that I cared -- I craved it! -- for I had sung Isolde at the Palais Garnier. What else was there to live for?"

"I'm sorry I missed it," I offered indirectly, and when she didn't reply, impulsively added: "But you didn't die."

"No, but it was the death of my career," she confessed. "And I knew it even as it happened. It was too impossibly grand and terrifying, but what choice did I have? You only get one or two such moments in a lifetime, you know, and sometimes not even that."

"I wouldn't doubt it," I admitted. "Not that I'm a performer."

She responded in a tone I found both cold and thrilling: "Are we not all performers on the stage of life?"

I exhaled, as if to cede the point, even as I countered: "I resist the impulse whenever possible."

This seemed to both appease and confuse her somewhat. "And then what do you live for?"

"I'm afraid I can't offer you anything that won't sound very trite."

She shook her head slowly and ambiguously. "As with anything profound, it's the tone in which you offer it." A few seconds passed and before I could respond, the air crackled with the announcement of my boarding call. The spell had been broken, and I stood up to arrange my luggage. "You never told me where you were going," I noted, wanting to exit the conversation, but with some grace. She threw her head back and laughed, and I was amazed to see that all of her teeth -- except for the ones in front -- were made of gold. "I'm not going to ____, if that's what you mean," she stated, and then narrowed her eyes. "But like you, my final destination is in the past."

On The Leaden Weight of Cats in the Night

We pull and tug at the blanket -- the first cold night of the year is upon us -- but it doesn't move even an inch: it is trapped under the leaden weight of cats in the night. We shiver at the edge of the bed, longing to be covered and warm, to retreat to the bliss of sleep, but are caught in this purgatorial state. The clock chimes and our mind begins to race. Why can't we move the sleeping cats? (During the day, a flick of the finger would be enough to send them scurrying away.) Is it that we have become weak in our sleep, or rather that they have become heavier? Science has once again failed us. We would like to shift a few inches to the right, but feel paralyzed; all of our energy was wasted in the initial effort to gather in the blanket. We have never felt so utterly exhausted. Our throat is parched -- it hurts to swallow -- but the idea of walking even ten feet fills us with despair; we also know that to drink water now would ensure a restless night of up and down to the bathroom, a vicious cycle of insomnia and thirst. In the distance someone turns up a stereo, callously destroying the fragile integrity of the night. Our ears are filled with whispers of rage as we suddenly consider the many failings that have brought us to this juncture. Slowly we resign ourselves to the idea that sleep itself is a fading dream. We gradually awake, still cold but more focused; by now the cats have disappeared into the gray dawn, ceding the territory they had so recently occupied. But it is too late; thoughts of the day have encroached, and we begin to harness the accompanying dread of all we can expect to face. We are used to this, however, and already are enticed by the allure of the following night and the redemption it (inexplicably, given what we have just endured) seems to offer.

Our Interview with Ann Romney

Today, as part of our continuing series of garden interviews in Washington Heights, we spoke with Ann Romney -- wife of Republican presidential candidate Mitt -- about some of her favorite films and "the focus" they have brought to her husband's campaign.

The Gay Recluse: Ann, we noticed in the press materials that you prefer to start off every interview with a few words about the French filmmaker Jean Renoir -- why?

Ann Romney: Renoir is such a huge inspiration to both of us, and he represents a turning point in our decision to run. One night around the time we were first considering it, we watched The Golden Coach, which against all expectation turned out to be our all-time favorite Renoir film. Until then, I had only seen La Regle Du Jeu and La Grande Illusion, which -- OK -- are cocktail-party masterpieces but had always left me feeling a little unconvinced--there's just something a bit plodding about them, you know? (But don't tell anyone I said so!) Laughs. But seriously, there's a pervasive sensuality to The Golden Coach I find intoxicating on so many levels; the politically subversive manner in which Camilla goes from suitor to suitor, the fantastic colors, the constant acrobatics of the performers -- I could go on and on! The point it, all of it moved us more than words can say. It was one of those moments when you cast logic to the side and say "life, I'm here -- take me!"

TGR: Would it be wrong to say that your campaign is really a form of commedia dell'arte?

Ann: No, that's exactly it! And you know, politicians are actors, too. I'll never forget the scene at the end of the movie when the stage manger says to Camilla [Ann later provided us with the exact language]:

"You were not made for what is called life. Your place is among us, the actors, acrobats, mimes, clowns, jugglers. You will find your happiness only on stage each night for the two hours in which you ply your craft as an actress, that is, when you forget yourself. Through the characters that you will incarnate, you will perhaps find the real Camilla."

When we saw that, Mitt and I looked at each other -- we both had tears in our eyes -- and I didn't even have to say it; we both knew that we were going to run! We're really only happy up on the "American stage," forgetting and finding ourselves at the same time.

TGR: You're obviously a big fan of Anna Magnani.

Ann: "Big fan" does not begin to express the depths of my admiration for Anna Magnani and her work! Laughs. When my sons were growing up, I always told them not to fall for superficial beauties -- and sadly there are so many -- but to search for someone with soul, which may sound trite but which I think encapsulates Anna. When I'm First Lady, you can be sure I'll be promoting her legacy in all of the schools.

TGR: Talk a little bit more about your five sons. Is it true that the idea for their Five Brothers blog was inspired by Lina Wertmüller's Seven Beauties?

AR: Did I say that? Laughs. It's funny, I give a lot of speeches and interviews these days, and that's probably the number-one question people ask me.

TGR: And the answer is...?

AR: Well, yes, of course! I know it's become almost a cliche for campaign spouses to mention Lina Wertmüller as an inspiration -- remember how overplayed Virginia Woolf was in 2004? -- but I don't care. These are precarious times in the U.S., and the tone that Wertmüller struck in her harrowing treatment of fascism -- the ridiculous, grotesque quality that sometimes leaves you no choice but to laugh through the tears -- is exactly what Mitt and I want to strike on the campaign trail, and ultimately in office. It's not one of hope, exactly, but an understanding of the human condition and a sort of artistic revelation that springs out of it at our most dire moments.