1. On first glance, the landscape was pallid and bleak. Maybe, I thought, this would be the year that the plants, tired of being taken for granted, decided not to come back. It would be hard to blame them. But then I looked down and saw a clump of snow drops, and then another, forming a stream of green and white.
2. And then I saw a haphazard mound of spring crocus. Things were maybe not as bleak as I had thought.
3. I arrived in time to see the last of the glaciers melting into the earth.
4. I always feel grateful to see the heather in bloom. It's something I think about to calm down when I'm stuck in a tunnel on the A train with a screaming preacher. Soon, I will be far away from this noise and much closer to the heather, who never preaches, and especially not to a captive audience.
5. I might even say that heather is my favorite plant, but I can't forget the hellebore. Any plant that flowers with snow on the ground -- and manages to do it with such unassuming elegance -- deserves high praise. Imagine having to wake up and spend most of your life in the bitter cold. I'm not sure I could it.
6. It's nice to live in a culture like the United States circa 2018 that emphasizes the quiet strength and beauty of these late-winter flowers.
7. I sometimes can't imagine how we're going to get from where we are now to another, better (or not-worse) place.
8. But the snow drops remind me that there are hidden rivers, just waiting to be taken, if we know where to look.
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03/17/2018
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.
