1. The view from my room of the downtown harbor in San Diego, where I had arrived for a work-related conference, was impressive. In this century, we could remake the movie and call it "A Hotel Room with a View."
2. My fears about going to San Diego in this political climate were confirmed at the airport. (Although I wanted to own this shirt, so I could wear it ironically.) It was difficult to be upset, however, given the actual climate (or, I guess, weather, now that we have to be precise about such terminology) in San Diego, which was sixty degrees and sunny or (pleasantly) misty. As I considered the weather here in comparison to what I had just left behind, I had one question: Why did anyone live anywhere else? I needed to move asap.
3. It also seemed portentous that I was randomly assigned a room number that matched the year of my birth. The universe was aligned with my desire. In fact, it was the second time that day I had hit a non-monetary lottery, the first being on the airplane, where I was seated next to the only empty seat on the main cabin. You know how you're always sitting next to an empty seat and filled with dread about losing it as the last passengers straggle in? And how you always lose it? Well, this time I didn't lose it. (Let's not spend any more time talking about airports and flights, however.)
4. Leaving my room, I was excited to resume my ongoing art project, "Hotel Carpets of the World."
5. Did my photograph transcend the corporate functionality of the actual carpet (fake art) and shift it into the realm of (real) art? I wasn't sure, but it seemed like a noble objective. If only, I thought, (nonviolent progressive) revolutions were as easy as taking pictures of hotel carpets.
6. The view of the marina looked good at any time of the day or night.
7. I woke up early so that I could go for a run before my work-related activities and meetings.
8. Have I mentioned that the weather in San Diego was perfect? In New York City, where the weather has been imperfect, I've been logging miles on the treadmill, which gets old even if you like listening to podcasts about the millions of different ways our country is falling apart.
9. In San Diego, there were no treadmills (for me). I ran through the downtown streets to Balboa Park, which at this hour was filled with joggers and (apparently) homeless people staggering around screaming at ghosts.
10. It seemed like a hard existence, but at least it was a hard existence in good weather.
11. It was easy to pretend that problems don't exist when you're contemplating the world from Room 1968.
12. But I was determined to live in denial as long as possible. When my flight home was delayed, I asked for (and received) a noon checkout and resolved to stay in bed until 11:59. I knew that, soon enough, I would be walking around in nine-degree weather in a traffic jam at Terminal Four at JFK, where there were no cabs and the Uber GPS was imprecise as always. "Where are you?" becomes a question of despair as you try to locate your Uber in a parking lot of slowly moving cars (in negative-nine degrees). What I didn't consider, until I was in the car and driving through the frozen, hulking landscape of New York City, which seemed to be imploding and erupting at the same time, was how, despite my dread of coming back, I had actually missed New York City. This gnarled system of half-finished highways and buildings, covered with black ice, seemed like a more appropriate reflection of the society who had made it.
13. With my last thirty seconds, I stood at the window of Room 1968 and dreamed about taking a slow drive across the Coronado Bridge.
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01/07/2018
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.