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07/28/2018

When Your Legacy Is a Dahlia You Didn't Even Plant

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1. In the course of my absence, the park had entered a mid-summer phase of suffocating, verdant beauty. I kept asking myself how it was even possible, despite being aware that "it" could mean many things: the landscape, the passage of time (and, more disturbing, my place in it), the russet-tinged flowers of the oakleaf hydrangea.

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2. I regretted the weeks that I had missed while nursing an injury. I felt a little delinquent, as if these flowers were putting on a talent show for a parent who failed to arrive. (I didn't really feel this way.)

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3. Plants (and cats, and my vintage t-shirt collection) are the closest I'll ever get to raising (human) children. The cats depend on me, as do some of the plants in our garden, but I know that the flowers in the park are ambivalent (not to mention unsentient -- probably?) , which is what makes them all the more perfect.

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4. Every few months I skim though a trending article in The Times in which people with children are mystified by those who don't have them, or people who don't have children are mystified by the scrutiny they (we, but especially straight women, and even more especially those who are married) receive from those who do. One of the biggest flaws of our society is the unrelenting desire of those in the majority to get those in the minority to conform. People in the majority have rarely faced scrutiny or hard choices about expressing who they are -- they've never had to check a box that says "please explain" -- which can be a recipe for insecurity and judgment of others who are different. The message of the majority is: "You can see that I'm perfect. Why don't you want to be like me?" And they get confused and angry when someone says, "Actually, I don't want to be like you. And why do you even care?" It's not a question they can answer without resorting to cheap tricks like "God" or "history."

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5. The solution to this problem is clear: everyone needs to spend more time in parks, where it's possible to learn that there are many paths, all different, but equally beautiful and valid.

Posted at 12:58 PM in Expression, Science Projects |

Gods final
#gods

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

The Metropolis Case

'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.
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