1. It was a quiet Thanksgiving, spent mostly with the leaves. Millions of people were cooking and traveling -- and writing about cooking and traveling -- which seemed like a lot of pressure. I was happy not to partake. Over the years, even the nondenominational holidays seem to have acquired a sheen of (inauthentic) reverence and tradition, maybe because -- whether we like it or not -- we all belong to the church of capitalism. Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Small-Business Saturday, Buy-Nothing Sunday: it all feels like work.
2. In an attempt to forget about any day related to shopping or not shopping, we went for a walk in Fort Tryon Park, which was perfect. Apparently, it's a micro-climate where "peak leaf season" is now, in case you missed it everywhere else.
3. I learned that, by angling the camera, I could hide the sun behind the tree, creating a dramatic silhouette.
4. Even when you could see it, the sun seemed very far away.
5. Seeing it so far away was a source of sadness and relief. (But mostly relief.) And a little hope, knowing that spring actually wasn't too far away. And a little dread when I considered how many miles I would need to run between now and then.
6. Sometimes I fantasize about moving somewhere not too hot or too cold, a place where I could run outside in shorts year round.
7. But what I really crave is to live in a society where time is marked not by artificial designations like holidays and even birthdays. And the obligation to buy and consume that come with these designations.
8. I understand that such a system would not lend itself to many aspects of modern society, where in order to buy and sell as much as possible we have to be precise in all things, but I like thinking about different options, even if they're hypothetical. You have to be able to tell a story before it becomes reality.
9. On the day after Thanksgiving, we walked on the new path through Highbridge Park, which is on the eastern side of Manhattan, facing the Bronx. As usual, it wasn't very crowded. People are still just discovering this new path and, sometimes, it feels a bit desolate and wild. I often get the sense that strange beings live in the wooded ravine, beings who wouldn't take kindly to any off-the-path exploration. I leaned over the rail and my heart skipped when I saw the silver reflections of eyes staring back at me.
10. Still, it's nice to feel like you have access to a secret, magical landscape in the middle of the city, a landscape populated by ethereal creatures who pay no attention to our society.
11. It was sort how we felt on Thanksgiving, eating pizza and green beans. (And some pie and ice cream.) We had entered a world that was not exactly new, but new enough.
12. And relaxing with the cats, another kind of ethereal being.
13. It's one of the reasons I've always liked living in Washington Heights, which is in Manhattan but not really "of it." It's what I call an "adjacent society."
14. A place that seems less "American" than many -- at least in the superficial, jingoistic, and capitalistic ways that increasingly seem to define the term -- and, for that reason, more American in the substantive (but increasingly theoretical) ways that matter.
15. A place where you can live among thousands of others but, thankfully, find yourself all alone.
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11/25/2017
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.