In New York City, the most exciting part of the blizzard was Monday afternoon; the office closed early but before I went home, I took a few pictures of the snowy rooftops.
It seemed like it was going to be a big storm, which made me wish that I owned a penthouse apartment with a roof-deck like the one that was pleasantly illuminated below me. Actually, the snowstorm didn't really have much to do with that wish, which is more or less constant.
Meanwhile, the avenues heading north were covered in snow, turning Soho for a few minutes (and from a great height) into a quaint little village.
On Sunday, when the "media storm" about the blizzard was kicking into gear, reactions were mixed. It seemed unlikely that 12-18 inches could make this one of the biggest storms in the history of New York City, given that we had 3 feet a few years ago.
The irises -- as usual, completely oblivious -- believed it was already spring.
Stephen and I went for a walk through Hamilton Heights and had brownstone envy as we admired the wide facades adorned with beautiful architectural elements. Some of these houses still need to be restored, however, such as the one with the iron gate over the front door. Or at least that's the assumption: it's also possible that the owners, like a certain number of people in today's society, had the gates installed in advance of the coming zombie apocalypse.
Around the corner on Saint Nicholas, we passed the famous mansion built by one of the famous circus impresarios. (I can never remember if it's Barnum or Bailey.)
As it turned out, we only got around 6 inches of snow, but it still looked lovely on the block.
I mean, if you had never seen it before, you would probably be dumbstruck by its strangeness. How can snow be made out of water? It's one of the great miracles we take for granted.
I shook the snow off the branches of the spruce. (This is a "before shot.")
The light fixture was wearing a little snowy hat. As far as I could tell, most of the effects of this storm, at least in New York City, fell into the "cute" category, which made a lot of people who were expecting "mortal danger" very upset. Nobody likes to have their calamitous expectations dashed!
Oh well, maybe the next storm will do better, I thought, as I broke the news to the orange orchids, who were predicting 8-10 feet of snow as recently as Monday night.
"We went to the grocery store and bought cabbage, because it was the only thing left...so annoyed!"
Meanwhile the irises -- oblivious as ever -- continued blooming, as if it were already spring.
It was another improbable miracle that I took for granted because it happens all the time.
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01/27/2015
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.