The first thing I noticed walking through Cambridge (Boston), where I had gone for a work-related meeting, was an abundance of flowering Chinese or Kousa dogwoods; unlike the one in our garden, which had only three flowers this year (but which was three more than last year), these were mature trees, covered in thousands of white blossoms.
There were also some late-blooming rhododendrons, which are not common in New York City (unlike Berlin, where they fill the parks), or at least not at this time of the year.
The houses I passed in west Cambridge were both stately and charming, but without being austere or cute, which let's face it is a nice balance.
Roses spilled over the fence over the narrow red-brick sidewalk. Except for the car (and maybe the asphalt), it could have been 1914.
A fellow obsessive had apparently been inspired by the narrator of JK Huysmans' masterpiece Against the Grain to paint his or her house in tones of blue and orange. I mentally awarded this house the World Cup of architectural restoration.
Most of the houses with mansard roofs have been torn down in New York City, but there are still quite a few left in Cambridge, all of them filled with ghosts peeking out of the windows.
I passed yet another perfect dogwood. And another, even more perfect. Next year, ours is going to look like this. (In the garden, there is always hope.)
I took the train home, following the foggy coastline. I sat in the "quiet car" and did not hesitate to look with great scorn at the woman across from me when her phone erupted with "Venus" by The Shocking Blue (even though I -- like everyone else in the world -- like the song).
Back in the garden, the leaves of our dogwood glowed in the sun, which is another kind of perfection.
We enjoyed the light while we could, knowing that some big storms were rolling in from the west.
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06/14/2014
ORDER HERE
A RADICAL NEW MYTH ABOUT SEX, FAITH, AND THOSE OF US WHO WILL NEVER DIE
A young boy wanders into the woods of Harlem and witnesses the abduction of his sister by a glowing creature. Forty years later, now working as a New York City homicide detective, Gus is assigned to a case in which he unexpectedly succumbs to a vision that Helen is still alive. To find her, he embarks on an uorthodox investigation that leads to an ancient civilization of gods and the people determined to bring them back.
In this colossal new novel from the author of The Metropolis Case, the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice collides with a new religion founded by three corporate office workers, creating something beautiful, illogical, and overwhelming. Part sex manifesto, part religious text, part Manhattan noir—with a dose of deadly serious, internet inspired satire—#gods is a sprawling inquest into the nature of faith and resistance in the modern world. With each turn of the page, #gods will leave you increasingly reborn.
Praise for #gods
“#gods is a mystery, an excavation of myths, an index of modern life, a gay coming-of-age story, an office satire, a lyrical fever dream, a conspiracy. One of the most ambitious novels in recent memory—and a wild, possibly transformative addition to the canon of gay literature—it contains multitudes, and seethes with brilliance.” —Mark Doten, author of The Infernal
“Matthew Gallaway’s #gods is a novel so brilliant, so funny, so full of strange and marvelous things, I couldn’t stop writing OMG WTF I <3 THIS SO MUCH in its margins. It’s rare to find a novel that so dazzlingly reinvigorates age-old meditations on faith and f&!*ing, art and eros. Luminous, enterprising, and sublimely cheeky, #gods tells the story, the myth, the dream of the human soul in all its glorious complexity.” —Suzanne Morrison, author of Yoga Bitch
“Matthew Gallaway’s storytelling manages to be both dreamy and serious; lean and luxurious. His words carry an incantatory power of mythic storytelling where beauty and savagery wrap around each other like bright threads in a gorgeous tapestry.” —Natasha Vargas-Cooper, author of Mad Men Unbuttoned: A Romp Through 1960s America
“If the ancient gods were just like us, only more so, then the same could be said for this strange, wonderful book, in which the mundane sorrows and small triumphs of very ordinary lives glow ever so slightly around the edges, sometimes quite literally. At once an oddly romantic send-up of dead-end office culture and an offbeat supernatural procedural, #gods is terrifically weird, melancholy, sexy, and charming.” —Jacob Bacharach, author of The Bend of the World
'It’s to the credit of Matthew Gallaway’s enchanting, often funny first novel that it doesn’t require a corresponding degree of obsession from readers, but may leave them similarly transported: the book is so well written — there’s hardly a lazy sentence here — and filled with such memorable lead and supporting players that it quickly absorbs you into its worlds.'
-- The New York Times
Music: Death Culture at Sea and Saturnine
Listen or download songs and records from my indie-rock past with Saturnine here and Death Culture at Sea here.
Music Video: Remembrance of Things Past
Watch the rock opera Remembrance of Things Past written and performed by Saturnine and Frances Gibson, starring Bennett Madison and Sheila McClear.
Video: The Chaos Detective
The Chaos Detective is a series about a man searching for 'identity' as he completes assignments from a mysterious organization. Watch the first episode (five parts) on YouTube.