As a member of the human species with a living father, I'm happy to partake in the day's celebration, even if it was 'invented by Hallmark' or something along those lines. I talked to my father today, and he was wearing the Mondrian-style socks I bought him, socks he's now planning to rock in this season's shuffleboard tournaments.
Like me, he was taking a break from tending to the garden, which is one of the ways in which we're very alike, although neither of us probably could have predicted it twenty-five years ago.
I'm happy we're both interested in gardening, though. In my experience, talking about flowers and plants is one of the best ways to relate to other people when so many other topics are fraught with political or psychological unease and judgment.
But then again, if you don't know the difference between a dahlia and a zinnia, I'm going to be severely judging you.
Just kidding! I'll only judge you if, like one of my classmates at a recent high school reunion I attended, you tell me that I'm a 'single-issue voter' because of my lifetime refusal to vote for a single Republican.
I told him he was correct in calling me a 'single-issue voter' because there's not a single issue on which I favor the Republican platform over the Democratic one.
Otherwise the reunion was a lot of fun and I avoided all talk of politics except with those whom I knew to be more or less like-minded.
It was nice to go and nice to come home, where our garden has been enjoying the relatively cool spring weather.
Today the garden, which likes to think in metaphorical terms, wished me and Stephen Happy Father's Day. "We would not exist but for your care and attention," said the garden. We knew the plants were just trying to make us feel better about not having biological offspring (not realizing that we've never pondered the idea, because plants -- like Republicans -- don't always 'get' it), but we appreciated the gesture.
Dante is in some ways a father to Clio. Or maybe a grandfather. "She bugs the crap out of me," he said, "but I guess I like having her around."
Somewhat hilariously, the baby pin oak wished the Japanese maple Happy Father's Day.
"I <3 every holiday!" -- Zephyr
"I don't know where my father is," said Elektra, "but he's out there somewhere, and you can bet he's fighting flying snakes."
"If you see him, tell him I miss him, but that he trained me well."
The garden sighed and welcomed the late-afternoon light.
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06/19/2016
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.