I spent most of the week dreading the snow, but except for a few flurries, it never arrived. I'm also back in "sunset mode" now that I once again have a good place to watch.
Stephen found someone with a tripod taking pictures of the trees in front of the house; when he asked what she was doing, she explained that she was a fashion editor and that our pin oaks matched her outfit. It felt good to know that our choice of trees had made a small ripple in the world of fashion, which usually seems very remote.
On On Tuesday night, I went to see "Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk," which the Met accurately describes as "Shostakovich's towering tragedy of adultery and murder."
I think an equally valid term to describe the opera might be "punk rock," notwithstanding the fact that it was composed approximately fifty years before the term was invented.
It was also interesting to note that the stage -- at least in this production -- featured more homoerotic (or simply homosexual) action in three hours than perhaps the entire history of mainstream network television combined. If you have three hours to spare, I recommend seeing this Graham Vick production in lieu of, for example, the recent movie adaption of the life of Alan Turing (father of the modern computer, NBD), in which homosexuality is apparently a major theme (as it should be, given that Turing was gay and persecuted for it) but is never "depicted" beyond a teenage crush, which led AO Scott of the New York Times to suggest that the film was pushing Turning back into the closet. It makes you wonder how these movie producers live with themselves. "Let's make a movie about Alan Turing, but, wait, how are we going to deal with 'the whole gay thing'?"
The leaves protested by falling from the trees in great numbers.
There was a silent rally.
Inside, Dante and Zephyr relaxed in the red chair.
Elektra pretended to be a pillow and refused to play chess.
At home, it was easy to be thankful for what we have, instead of worrying about what we do not.
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11/29/2014
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.