1. As winter approached, the temperatures dropped and the greens gave way to a kaleidoscopic wash of orange, yellows, purple, and brown. The beauty made the cold forgivable.
2. In the world beyond the park, everyone was seething.
3. I kept thinking about the internet from ten years ago, which in many ways was no less angry but -- at least in retrospect -- seemed to offer more nuance.
4. Corporations hadn't yet figured out how to corral us behind their walls. It was not only an age before FB and Twitter but also before 'Tiny Letters,' which I have come to think about as 'Tiny Conspiracies.' What happened to being transparent?
5. I don't want to overstate it. George W. Bush was still presiding over a bellicose, corporate feeding frenzy that was the necessary antecedent to the bellicose, corporate feeding frenzy of today.
6. But the blogosphere felt more 'democratic.' There may or may not be data to back up this assertion, but I don't think it's a coincidence that Barack Obama was elected president in 2008 (or that Trump was elected in 2016, following eight years of increasing constraints on the internet).
7. And when I say 'constraints' I don't just mean the legal kind. Obviously, there's no law against blogging (and, again, I lack the data to back any of this up), but my sense is that a lot of time and energy that used to be spent on blogging is now devoted to Twitter and Facebook and other 'social media venues.' Which I understand; it's easier to join a 'community' -- even a gated one -- than to be a flickering light in an infinite universe. The validation we (sometimes) receive is easier and more rewarding (and more addictive), which is why we rush into these corporate fortresses.
8. But the validation, when it's not forthcoming, is also very sad.
9. When I post to Twitter or Facebook, I feel like a junkie in a crackhouse looking for a fix.
10. If I get it, I feel the rush; if I don't, I wallow in self-loathing.
11. And then I think about the park, which offers a completely different kind of validation.
12. And contains the symbols of every change that's yet to come.
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11/18/2017
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.