(cont.) "To me, it's okay to believe in something that to most people probably seems impossible, illogical, unscientific, or just stupid."
"As long as what you believe isn't hurting anyone. Like I wouldn't ever condone a 'belief' -- if that's what it even is -- that groups of people are less worthy than others, or less human."
"Because that's a belief that results in discrimination, which at the very minimum is a bummer but more seriously provokes a lot of violence and hatred that rips apart the fabric of society."
"When you look at these things in isolation, it's maybe not such a big deal. Like who cares if some pizza shop owners in Whereversville don't want to serve gays or blacks or Jews or single mothers or whoever else violates their sense of what's right and proper. They might even belong to a religion that says that God disapproves of two men fucking, so being 'observant' means that they don't want to serve pizza to two men who they know are fucking. Am I allowed to say that in here? (Laughs.) I wouldn't want to give them my business anyway, and it's not like pizza is a scarce commodity."
"So anyway, I don't want to get all political, but I'm not a supporter of beliefs that elevate one person above another. Which I think is an important clarification to make these days because so many people -- because of the First Amendment -- think that anything they happen to believe entitles them to act in a way that's possibly illegal, definitely discriminatory, and -- like I said before -- the sort of thing that can fester and accumulate. Like one day it's a shop turning away a customer and the next you have someone slaughtering people in these random acts of violence."
"Because the thing about belief or faith -- and by thing I mean 'double-edged sword' -- is that there's no proving it one way or the other. So if you have someone who believes gays are evil and inhuman, nothing's going to change their mind. Like you can't just show them a slide show of all of the amazing gays throughout history and expect them to be like 'oh wow, you mean Leonardo da Vinci and Abraham Lincoln and Greta Garbo were gay? I guess I was wrong about my beliefs.' "
"It's interesting to think about where these 'bad' beliefs arise, though, and why some people really latch onto them and others refute them. Like I grew up with two sisters -- twins -- and one of them became a 'fundamentalist Christian' and the other one is a lesbian social worker who helps poor people with HIV and AIDS get housing. Guess which one I like better? (Laughs.) But seriously, how could two people with exactly the same DNA be so different?"
"At the same time, though, it's not like all belief is bad."
"I think there's often a lot of arrogance among people who act like believers are idiots. It creates a lot of antagonism."
"And I understand the arrogance, because if you go to school, you learn that for example the earth is billions of years old and life evolved out of a stew of chemicals in the ocean and so forth, which means that when someone says with utter conviction that 'the earth was created by God seven or eight thousand years ago' you want to laugh in their face and be like 'what century are you living in?' "
"But at the same time, if you step back and think about it, chances are -- unless you're a robot -- you probably believe some pretty dumb things too. Or that might not seem dumb now but in twenty years will seem totally crazy."
"Like what? I don't know. Think about asbestos. Fifty years ago everyone thought -- or believed -- it was a great way to insulate your house, but nobody believes that anymore. Or what about cell phones? Now you hear how the radiation is giving everyone problems, which makes you wonder if we should be walking around with something like that pressed against our head all the time."
"Of course these are 'beliefs' that will ultimately be proved or disproved by science, so maybe they're not the best example."
"Okay, but here's one for you. I believe that there are intelligent life forms in the ocean that we can't detect or see, but whose presence we sometimes feel. Or at least I did when I used to go scuba diving. I know it's 'crazy' and there's no 'evidence' that these beings exist, but I don't care. It's not like I'm hurting anyone and it makes the ocean seem that much more interesting to me."
"When I was a kid, there weren't many gay people around either."
"Sometimes you saw one on television or in a magazine, but I didn't know anyone who was gay. So the existence of gay people was for me almost like a belief or a faith."
"And that kind of benign hope is important to people, and if you try to take it away by saying that it doesn't and can't ever exist, it can make someone desperate and dangerous. And for what? So that you can be 'right'? I'm just saying people sometimes need to hold up the mirror when they start criticizing each other."
"So to get back to your original question, I'm not entirely sure what I saw in the forest, but I know I'm not the only one, either. Yes, I believe in the gods. I admit it. Am I stupid? Maybe, but why shouldn't I? I'm not hurting anyone and it makes life more interesting to me. Which isn't that the whole point?"
Pictures taken in Fort Tryon Park on July 9 and July 16, 2016. Text excerpted from The #Gods Project: A Training Manual (Section 2, "Interviews with the Institutionalized.")
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07/17/2016
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.