1. All week I was looking at the forecast and dreading this morning, predicted to have a mix of snow turning to ice turning to rain, which is not ideal running weather. The forecast turned out to be 100-percent correct and I resolved to run on the treadmill. But once I was out shoveling, I realized I wanted to see my favorite tree in the snow, and so off I went.
2. In some ways, it was easier than yesterday, when it was sixteen degrees and still painfully windy. (Wind chill minus four thousand.) I wore so many layers and still thought my nose was going to fall off when I was running south along the river. The problem for me -- and, I'm sure, others like me -- is that wrapping up my face means that my glasses fog up. Life is full of compromises, obviously.
3. All pain aside, the frozen colors in the park were perfect.
4. Here's the same view only twenty-four hours later. Weather!
5. "I voted for Donald Trump because he promised to make the weather perfect for me all the time." -- every Donald Trump supporter, more or less
6. Like so many voters confronting the real world, the lamb's ears (Stachys byzantina) wilted when confronted with frigid reality.
7. Other plants, less naive, were better equipped for the cold weather and glowed in the distant sun.
8. Some landscapes look amazing in any weather, although here it's important to remember that the park, an artificial landscape, requires a lot of work and money to keep it looking vibrant and available to everyone.
9. I wonder what the metaphorical park/artificial landscape that is our country will look like in four or eight years, because right now it seems like the metaphorical walls are going up, the metaphorical gates are being slammed shut, and the metaphorical plants are being sold to the highest bidders. (The highest bidders are of course completely literal.)
10. Right after I took this picture, my camera-equipped phone turned off and wouldn't turn on again, because it was too cold. I guess we all have differing ways of coping.
11. And then I was back again. Everything looked the same, but very different too.
12. Running through the snow isn't exactly running, but it's still a good workout. It's like "cross-training," meaning it's good for your balance and "engages your core" because you have to do a lot of high stepping and swinging of the arms and so forth. I only went about half as far as I usually go, which I hope doesn't ruin my half-marathon training schedule. (I'm pretty sure it won't.)
13. I hope Donald Trump gets rid of the plastic bag that's stuck in the tree.
14. Back at home, I took Clio out into the snow. Everyone else turned around, and it didn't take long for her to follow.
15. "I'm young but I'm learning fast."
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12/17/2016
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.