To celebrate Christmas Eve, I went on a run through Fort Tryon Park, which in the early light -- it was only 8:15! -- looked like a coral reef.
I accidentally took a picture of a squirrel and am now further invading its privacy by posting the picture here on the internet, where it will live for eternity. Sorry squirrel!
The heather, impervious to the heat, continued to flower.
I don't know why I'm always a little surprised to see yucca plants growing in the north, considering my family had one in our front yard for many, many years when I was growing up in Pittsburgh. As you can see in the above picture, they were clearly (and justifiably) a little annoyed at my oblivious disregard of their presence, but they agreed to pose when I promised to do better going forward.
I forgot all about them the second I turned the corner, though.
The path was beautiful in both directions; here's a picture looking back.
And here's a picture looking forward.
I wish I could say that I was employing this walk through the heather garden -- looking forward and looking back and being surrounded by sublime beauty -- as a metaphor for the passage of time, but let's face it: 2015 was a horrible year and 2016 is shaping up to be even worse.
Just kidding: there's plenty of beauty to be found in both directions of time, which is maybe why parks exist, to remind us of this fact.
I offered a prayer of gratitude to the fellow ground-cover obsessive who planted a bank of creeping thyme along the edge of the path. I tried to remember if any of the presidential candidates had spoken about the importance of ground covers, or if they were still droning on about [anything but ground covers].
The pleasure of gnarled tree branches goes pretty high on my list, too.
Closer to the river, the sun broke through and lit up the eastern tower of the George Washington Bridge.
Back home, I took everyone out for a walk. I didn't tell them about Fort Tryon Park, and they didn't seem any the wiser, which was a great strategy until it occurred to me that the same could be said of me. I remembered recently reading something about how non-heterosexuals are notorious for being afflicted by #FOMO. Thankfully, my #FOMO is increasingly outweighed by my #DOAT (Dread of Airline Travel). Recently my mother was telling me about one of her friends who was bragging about taking trips to Singapore and Thailand and other remote parts of the world. "Sounds awful," I said. "I know, right?" she agreed.
Dante: I went outside once.
Zephyr: Was security a 'nightmare' or do you have TSA pre-approval?
Elektra: Is it true that 'global warming' is going to lead to an outbreak of invasive species? Because I already have a 'full plate' dealing with flying snakes. Speaking of which, I wonder if Clio put together that report I asked her to do. Clio: I'm working on it.
After being upbraided by Elektra, Clio took her assigned position among the cold-hardy camellias. "My job is to make sure they don't bloom until spring," she said, "as if I can control the weather."
Clio, now approximately fifteen months old, was beginning to understand one of the great conundrums of being an adult.
The dwarf conifer I planted in the spot where I removed the tree stump seems to be doing quite well. Unfortunately we bought it many years ago -- before we had instituted a rigorous plant-identification system -- so I can't tell you what it is, scientifically speaking.
Zephyr: What are you, scientifically speaking?
Dante: I'm a retired cat, which is all I've ever wanted to be.
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12/26/2015
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.