Walking down Broadway, we admired the "Broadway Malls" (or medians) efforts of the Parks Department, which has slowly been renovating every island in the stream of traffic, filling them with landscape roses and other perennials that live under the oak and cherry trees.
As usual, others did their best to wreck the effect.
Washington Heights, I noted as we walked up 157th Street, remains a neighborhood of great architectural promise and compromise.
Which is better, I suppose, than living in a museum. Of the one million trees that Mayor Bloomberg planted before leaving office, approximately fifty percent of them died, leaving the local streets lined with skeletons. Apparently nobody thought about the fact that street trees often die and need to be replaced; there was a frenzy of planting and, now, silence.
The ones who make it are very lovely, however.
Sylvan Terrace looked like a movie set in the afternoon light.
We walked the paths of the Morris-Jumel grounds, which thanks to the roses spilling over the walkway resembled an English cottage.
Given the decrepit conditions of the grounds even ten years ago, the improvement was astonishing. Somewhere the ghost of George Washington is smiling (or frowning) as he remembers wandering these same paths and contemplating the future in which we would be ruled not by England, but by multinational corporations and communication surveillance programs. In any case, he likes the roses.
On the other side of the railing, a spire of foxglove reached for the light.
Recently I've seen a number of LOL videos of children being "confused" by once-popular but now outdated technology such as cassette tapes and sundials, which were popular in the 1980s.
On 162nd Street, we admired the brownstones, one of which was just listed for $2.5 million if you want to live around the corner from the Morris-Jumel Mansion.
Down the block, we visited the community garden, where a few years ago we donated an apple tree and a cherry tree. They're both thriving, as Scott, the head gardener, pointed out to us, along with an heirloom rose.
The cherry tree even has cherries!
The gardeners, a group of non-whites and/or non-heterosexuals discussed plans for the Gay Pride march later this month.
The feral cat colony has a shelter in the garden.
Scott offered to give us some hostas for a shady spot around our fountain.
As we waited for him to dig up the plants, I couldn't stop admiring the roses.
So many colors, all in full bloom.
It had been a perfect afternoon in Washington Heights.
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06/08/2014
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.