(cont.) "I didn't even see the ocean until I was in my twenties, but when I did, I knew I couldn't ever leave."
"It's horrible that we're killing so many of the beautiful things that live in it."
"But that's what we do, right? We can't stop. We're addicts."
"And as any addict can tell you, eventually you're going to have to stop or you're going to die."
"I bet I know what the ocean wants to happen. (Laughs.)"
"But there are other creatures in the ocean who aren't so docile, who aren't waiting to die."
"I don't know where they live, I just know they've been coming ashore."
"If you know where to look, you'll see the signs. Very faint, but there."
"They're like human footprints but not as heavy."
"They come out of the sea and then they go back."
"Eventually they're going to stay, though. I really believe that."
"How do I know? I don't. If you want pictures or videos, I don't have them. Like I said, it's what I believe."
"But I saw them once, too, so I believe in my eyes."
"It was after I moved here. I was probably in my early 30s because I was working at a bar and when I got out I used to go to the beach. This one night I fell asleep in the dunes and was woken up by some rustling and the sound of voices."
"There was a group of them walking by."
"They looked like people but they were glowing."
"They didn't have any clothes on, which is how I knew they came out of the water."
"It hurt my eyes to keep looking at them, but I couldn't stop, either."
"They were like shadows come to life, if shadows were made of light."
"I could hear them talking, but I couldn't understand any of the words."
"It just sounded very old. It was like being in an ancient forest or in the desert. You don't need a scientist to tell you that these parts of the earth are much older than we are or ever will be. We're interlopers compared to a lot of things."
"And these beings -- whatever or whoever they were -- came from this time. They were old, maybe immortal. I sat there for a few hours until they came back and gathered on the edge of the shore. The sun had turned the horizon red and they disappeared into the mists."
Pictures of the Atlantic Ocean taken in July, 2016. Text excerpted from The #Gods Project: A Training Manual (Section 2, "Interviews with the Institutionalized.")
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09/10/2016
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.