Matthew Gallaway

On the George Washington Botany Project: April 28, 2008

In which The Gay Recluse retires to our garden in Washington Heights.

Date of photograph: April 28, 2008, around 6:30pm

It's hardly a secret that sometimes the spring garden looks better in the rain.

Today was one of those days...

One of our favorite plants is the creeping yellow groundcover, which we bought a few years ago at the Union Square green market.

They had a green market near us in Washington Heights one summer, but not enough people went so it never came back.

It's probably not too smart to ever get your hopes up very high here.

Things change very slowly.

Which is why we always tell people who are considering the idea to move to Washington Heights.

It can teach you a lot about life gardening.

We're pretty sure our groundcover is a golden creeping Jenny -- Lysimachia nummularia -- but we're always open to corrections!

This reminds us of our old friend and bandmate Jennifer, who used to wonder why there were so many dumb bands/movies/books that used this formula (the present participle + girl's name). Chasing Amy -- as in "let's convert the lesbians!" -- is just one obvious example.

Whenever we pulled up to a club and saw one of these bands on the bill, we always had a sinking feeling that they were going to be horrible.

We were never wrong, either!

Not that we were so great, either, of course.

At one point we almost managed to kill the creeping jenny, and literally had only two or three tiny leaves left.

Then we put it the rocks, and like us, it's a bit more settled now.

We think about all the people we hate, and all the people who hate us, and for a moment they all seem very far away.

Is it any wonder we always leave the garden with a heavy sigh?

Pittsburgh: A Trip to the City of Bridges to Our Forgotten Past

In which The Gay Recluse leaves New York.

Last month we went to Pittsburgh for a few days.

Even though we "grew up" there, it was almost like visiting a new (as in unfamiliar) city.

We always lived in the suburbs, and almost never went into the city except to see the Penguins!

This time though, we stayed downtown at a former railway station called The Pennsylvanian.

During the dark ages, they were going to tear it down.

Thankfully they turned it into condominiums!

It's the most beautiful building in the world.

And as far as we're concerned, the real reason Pittsburgh is known as "The City of Champions."

This is the top of the dome when viewed from the inside.

We were reminded of the great cathedrals of Europe.

And how like so many of the great cathedrals, there is something sepulchral about The Pennsylvanian; its grand spaces are now almost always empty.

We went to the Strip District, which is only a few blocks away.

On the way we admired old signs for dead companies.

In person, you can see the ketchup pouring out of the bottle, which makes this the Times Square of Pittsburgh! 

Heinz doesn't make anything in Pittsburgh anymore, but its corporate headquarters are still here, in the Death Star U.S. Steel Building, which hovers malevolently over everything downtown.

Growing up, we always liked to tell people that this was the tallest building between Chicago and New York!

These companies don't seem to have prospered the way Heinz has.

 

We passed an old church that has apparently been "rezoned" into a gay dance club.

We had our doubts, but the front door of "Altar" seemed to prove it! It made us remember how we watched every episode of the worst series in the history of television Queer as Folk, which hilariously was set in Pittsburgh.

Finally we arrived at the Strip, which was filled with Hillary Clinton supporters people!

The Strip is like "the Queens" of Pittsburgh, but all in a few blocks.

Here's one of two Italian places owned by the Sunseris. When we were growing up, the Sunseris (or at least some of them) lived in our town and we thought they were the richest people on earth because they had a pool in their backyard and columns in front of their house. They have great Italian food though, so they deserve to be rich!

Chipped ham is something everyone in Pittsburgh remembers. Sometimes we meet people from Pittsburgh in other places around the world and they go on and on about how they miss the chipped ham, which is fun for about a second and then gets annoying.

"Wholey's" is a combination fresh-fish market and Zabar's mixed into one well-oiled operation. It pretty much has always ruled the Strip and we can see why.

This is a billboard they have on the side of their building: "Vote for Hillary Clinton or I'll smash you over the head with this pot!"

We ate lunch at Primanti's, which is where they serve the fries and slaw right on the sandwich! We thought it was pretty awesome, but our nephew was like: "Yeah, except now they have one in every mall in Pittsburgh."

We had dessert here, which was fucking great. We would pretty much give anything to have one of these within walking distance of us in Washington Heights. (Even if it does make us evil gentrifiers!)

On the way back to the Pennsylvanian we passed the 16th Street Bridge, only one of hundreds in the area, almost all of which are achingly dignified and beautiful.

Here's another shot, somewhat marred by the obnoxious Tequila sign.

And another.

And then we saw this: ha!

And the best sign ever for a dentist.

Back at the Pennsylvanian, we spotted this "DONT WALK" sign: we've met a lot of people in New York who are nostalgic for these more acerbic signals. Guess what? In Pittsburgh they still have them! (Also note the "Purple Belt" sign, which is part of a hidden code to navigate the city that nobody understands, but has existed for centuries!)

We took a picture of the Civic Arena, which is where the Penguins play. (Nobody in Pittsburgh calls it the "Igloo.") They're going to tear it town to put up something with luxury suites. Which makes us a little melancholy when we remember all the games we saw there.

But we suppose we'll be able to relive all those great memories of the Penguins here, once the Sports Museum is finished.

People sometimes ask us why we don't watch sports anymore.

Part of it for us was growing up in Pittsburgh during the 1970s. For us, nothing will ever surpass the Chuck Knoll era Steelers, or -- because we lived and breathed hockey for so many years -- the Mario Lemieux Penguins in the early 1990s.

We see all the rabid sports fans now and we can relate: how desperately we wanted the Penguins to win -- we literally prayed to god for them to win -- and they did! Twice!

But that obsession has given way to new ones, and we don't need to relive the desperation of those years.

When these days, we are happiest finding bridges to the landscape of our forgotten past.

On an Uncommissioned Masterpiece from the 163rd Street Subway Station

In which The Gay Recluse contemplates an uncommissioned masterpiece from the walls of an uptown subway station.

Consider the old panels on the subway platform wall, and observe the finely wrought precision with which each strip of peeling paint has by the hands of time been distressed in the subtlest shades of gold and silver, all displayed in a collage with the glue and paper of generations long deceased. We know there will be many who fail to see the beauty of these forgotten panels, and will respond to our assessment with scorn and disbelief. Yet before you judge, we again invite to you to behold the works in person. Here you have the abstract expression of the city itself, resplendent in decay and neglect, and to observe it for even these few seconds fills us with the transcendent bliss of true insignificance.

-- The Gay Recluse, September 2007

On the City Pattern Project: April 24, 2008

In which The Gay Recluse contemplates an old friend.

Date of Picture: April 24, 2008

Location: Our garden in Washington Heights.

Even as a child in Pittsburgh, we loved this table.

All winter it would sit out on the porch as we stared longingly at it.

Every May, when it was finally warm enough (this obviously before global warming), our mother made the decree: the porch could be opened for business!

Of course we had to clean everything first: the cement floors, the screens, the table and chairs, the awnings. The indoor/outdoor rug was the worst: it smelled like a wet dog.

Our older brother was luckier than us: he got to spray-paint the table.

But then it was done and we could all go out on the porch. (There was even a television!)

As long as it was warm enough, we ate dinner here every night. Our mother cooked and passed everything through a window from the kitchen. (It was our job as the youngest to set the table.)

This was life in the suburbs. It was the 1970s.

Sometimes we look back and ask: exactly what made us so desperate to escape?

On the City Pattern Project: April 23, 2008

In which The Gay Recluse becomes a flaneur.

Date of pictures: April 23, 2008 Location: 35th Street between 5th Avenue and Madison.

We often think about the city streets as we would the surface of a lake.

We imagine worlds beneath us we cannot ever see.

The windows down are beautiful, however.

Looking through them, we forget how much we long to be somewhere else.

On the Dawn Redwood

In which The Gay Recluse works in the garden.

Of all the trees that populate our dreams and fantasies, the dawn redwood -- a deciduous conifer -- must go at the top of the list. Long thought to be extinct, it was discovered in the 1940s in a secret canyon in China. (And not just on Wikipedia!) These days it comes in many different shades of green and yellow, all of which have the same feathery, prehistoric needles that remind us what forests must have looked like when dinosaurs roamed the earth. Although our longstanding dream is to have enough money to plant an entire forest of dawn redwoods on an estate filled with architectural ruins, we have made do with planting a single dawn redwood in our Washington Heights garden. Here are some pix:

Ours is a Metasequoia glyptostroboides 'Sheridan Spire', a relatively compact and columnar form of the species. (But which can nevertheless be counted on to block out the neighbors!)

These needles will turn yellow and fall off in October, which we hope will be a long time from now. Of all the conifers, the allure of the dawn redwood is perhaps the most ephemeral. Nothing so fragile and beautiful, it seems, could make it through the winter! (Which makes it all the more shocking to learn how old the species is!)

On Miranda

In which The Gay Recluse appreciates Miranda.

Many years ago we had a friend named Miranda. She was the coolest! She wore the smallest backpack ever! It was gold and she used it to carry her cigarettes in it and nothing else, and even that was a tight fit. She was a photographer and a filmmaker and we always loved seeing her at art openings -- and she seemed to be at every single one -- because she was very enthusiastic about everything we did! Some of our other enemies friends hated her, which we never understood. "She just wants to be famous!" they said. "That's what's so great about her!" we always insisted. We have no idea where Miranda is now. Maybe she went back to her notoriously dysfunctional family in Connecticut. Or maybe she's a huge filmmaker in Hollywood! But we think of her often because of a vine we bought last year, which for some reason is also called Miranda. It's a variegated form of the climbing hydrangea. (Coincidentally, we bought it at a nursery in Connecticut.) Here's a picture of Miranda in our garden:

Hello, climbing hydrangea 'Miranda': You are indeed a beautiful plant whose variegated splendor does much to improve our garden! We always wonder exactly who you are named after. Could it be our East Village friend Miranda, who we haven't seen in so many years?

On Unprecendented Strains of Classical Singing in the Spring Garden

In which The Gay Recluse works in the garden.

Time of Photographs: April 20, 2008, afternoon (ish)

Today, a first in the garden! We heard an opera singer.

She was doing scales in a nearby apartment. Her window was definitely open.

She was loud! And she was struggling to hit her high notes. (She was a mezzo.)

There were some kids in another building who were echoing her, which was pretty funny. Until one of them finally screamed: "Shut up you fucking bitch!" We laughed at that, too. (But quietly, and to ourselves.)

She didn't seem intimidated though! She kept singing, even when three stereos came on a few minutes later.

She'll probably forget this afternoon a lot sooner than we will.

On the George Washington Bridge Project (Special Mindblowing Cloudcover Edition!)

In which The Gay Recluse becomes increasingly obsessed with the George Washington Bridge.

Date of Photographs: April 13, 2008

The clouds over the bridge were riveting today.

It made us remember: once we were in Vermont, on tour with the band.

We were eating dinner at a restaurant overlooking Lake Champlain.

(The sixth great lake.)

There was a beautiful sunset.

Some of the guys at the next table were from Burlington.

They were meatheads.

They made fun of some dorky people from the city taking photographs of the sunset.

(They did look pretty stupid!)

We all laughed.

Even though in our heart we wanted to take a picture, too!

We didn't want to seem gay. (Even though we totally were!)

It might be possible to get used to the sunsets in Burlington.

But we would rather die than lose faith in the bridge.

Because we see it every day.

Reader comment: 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)

On the Hellebore in Bloom: The Spring Garden in Washington Heights!

In which The Gay Recluse welcomes the spring garden.

The hellebore is perhaps not the most spectacular flower, but we like it anyway: it's a dependable friend.

We feel reassured. After months of planning, the first guests have finally arrived and they seem to be having a good time!

The hellebore is thousands of years old but decidedly unpretentious.

Imagine being this age and waking up filled with such curiosity!

Washington Heights is where they have always lived, as they are the first to admit.