Last Sunday, we went to the Hispanic Society, a small but exquisite museum on Broadway and 156th Street. The plaza is sealed off for renovations, but El Cid didn't seem too bothered.
The museum was founded about 100 years ago by Archer Huntington, who not only had enough money to collect some very serious Spanish and Portuguese art, but also to build a Beaux Arts complex in which to house it. Things were different back then; these days, someone with that kind of money would buy a "sweet-ass condo" on Central Park South and put the rest into a hedge fund.
Huntington also commissioned a series of paintings by Joaquin Sorolla y Bastida, who was famous for his landscapes and scenes of "daily life," such as this fishing trip. I wondered if these fishers were dreading a prospective move to an "open office plan" as much as I was.
I guess they had a "Halloween Parade" through the "West Village" of some city in Spain back then, too.
Here's a painting of "Gay Pride" in Spain circa 1894.
I had "serious garden envy" observing this beautiful green planter that was made in Spain circa 1700.
The museum was mostly empty, except for this group of saints with alarmingly long fingers.
Oddly, there was a "management consultant" on site. "It has been established through 'empirical studies' that cubicles and open floor plans increase productivity and collaboration among workers in the modern era." It seemed unlikely to me, but it's hard to argue with 'empirical research'! Here's a series of Spanish tiles from 150 years ago depicting some of the most important inventions of the time. For younger readers, this would have been the equivalent of a Netflix series that you could "binge-watch" in a single sitting.
Outside, we were entranced by the cobblestone streets, another remnant of the past.
The cats convened an emergency session: How Do We Stop the Downward Spiral Implicit in the Passage of Time?
Barred from attending, I went for a run in Fort Tryon Park, which had endured its first cold snap of the season.
On the whole, however, it continued to look pretty amazing!
Was it too late to nominate the Parks Department for the presidency? Maybe as a third party candidate?
How does the heather always stay in bloom? (I know that there are conspiracy theorists in the far reaches of the internet who claim that Fort Tryon Park is made out of plastic, but I refuse to believe.)
I was hoping to win the Powerball, which is now up to $1 billion. I felt my chances were good; if I do win, there will be a lot of happy plants and cats around the world.
The path was clear; all that remained was to take it.
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01/10/2016
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.