(cont.) "For a long time, I followed the campaigns and researched the candidates, trying to figure out which one most closely reflected my values. I argued with people and tried to make them see my position on things."
"If I learned that someone forgot to vote or was too lazy -- say they just didn't bother -- I would tell them they were being irresponsible. They were bad citizens, in my mind, and I wasn't afraid to tell them so. It was the arrogance of youth. Or maybe the insecurity, if there's a difference."
"I even used to repeat that bullshit line about how it doesn't matter who you vote for, so long as you vote."
"In reality I had been brainwashed and one day it was clear to me. What happened? Well, I happened to be leaving a certain kind of establishment and some local toughs had decided they didn't like my stride. Wrong place, wrong time, but I learned something important."
"Which was that my great voting record didn't matter one bit when I was choking on my own front teeth. Generally speaking? Maybe it matters a little -- if you're talking about a life in a vacuum -- but in the real world, I can think of about things that matter more than voting. A lot more."
"Like what? (Laughs.) Well, I guess that depends on the person and your circumstances. But maybe don't go around beating people up because you think it makes you a 'man.' Or maybe if you want to help society, not reproducing would make a greater contribution to the well-being of the earth than voting. I know, I'm 'extreme' but if you care one bit about the future, what possible argument could you possibly make for having a kid when there are probably millions of them you could adopt? Seriously, is your DNA so miraculous that it needs to be passed on?"
"The way I see it, one of our biggest problems -- as a species -- is that we think way too much about the future instead of just focusing on the present, like most animals do. The ability to anticipate the future is too often used as an excuse to avoid addressing problems now."
"So that's why I don't vote anymore. In here, it doesn't matter. I'm not going anywhere. I don't even read the newspapers anymore."
"What most people forget is that we -- like every single one of our institutions -- have an expiration date. We live for a while and then we die."
"Which creates an obligation to enjoy the present. Not in a fuck-you-trash-the-environment sense -- because that creates ugliness now -- but in a way that respects the earth, which is the second closest thing to immortality we have, and is reflected in its natural form, as anyone who's ever taken a walk through a quiet forest understands."
"What's the closest? [Laughs.] You know where we are and why I'm here. You're the one who asked to talk to me. But that's okay -- I don't mind, I can tell you what I'm sure you want to here. It's because I've seen enough to know that everything's mortal except for the gods."
Pictures taken in Fort Tryon Park on September3, 2016. Text excerpted from The #Gods Project: A Training Manual (Section 2, "Interviews with the Institutionalized.")
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09/03/2016
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.