Matthew Gallaway

Every Landscape Is Political

1. As I walked through the park, which in late fall had become a comforting assortment of browns, greens, and grays, I tried to imagine the mindset of a conservative. From what I've gathered, there are millions of them, and their representatives and allies are currently holding the most important jobs in the executive, judicial, and legislative branches of our federal government. Many more can be found running things at the state and local level. But what do conservatives think about as they go through their days? Do they not encounter the same problems as other non-conservative people? Do they not wait for hours on hold with their banks and insurance companies and cable television/internet-service monopolies? Do they not have high co-pays and deductibles? Do they not feel the water on their ankles and knees when the tide comes in or when there's a rainstorm? If so, what is their response? What are the solutions they envision to the problems they encounter?   

2. In some respects, the answers are obvious enough: they would deport, incarcerate, or eliminate anyone who wasn't white or straight (and many who were) or whose net worth fell below a certain threshold TBD; they would allow businesses to operate completely unfettered by environmental, financial, labor, or antitrust regulations; they would build up the army to prevent other countries from invading our lands (or cyber lands) with their armies and to protect companies operating outside of our borders. They would drive everywhere in their Tesla Cybertucks. But then what? In short, what does the future look like for a conservative?  

3. For a test case, I decided to focus on climate change. As far as I can tell, there seems to be one conservative answer, which is to gamble that we can 1) find another planet after we've depleted this one, or 2) engineer a technical solution that would restore some semblance of climate stability. As for the first option, I suppose it's possible, given the size of the universe, that the earth is merely one of an uncountable number of planets, the destruction of which is no more consequential than, say, crushing a little piece of styrofoam. As for the second, it will require a lot of technological wizardry -- and we've seen how well that's going with the internet -- and it also implies a kind of satisfaction with the status quo, namely that if we could 'fix' climate change, we could continue to drive (and park) and fly and consume indefinitely without any serious consequences. 

4. I was beginning to worry that our conservative rulers (who can be found in both parties) were incapable of acknowledging the implicit relationship between the passage of time and change.  

5. Here's what I could say for sure: there are parts of the park that come to life, even as the rest of it prepares for winter. 

6. And the colors are perfect, for all who are willing to behold. 

 

The Architecture of Elm Trees

1. When I got out of the subway station at Amsterdam and 163rd, the sky was filled with pigeons. Perched on the tops of the surrounding buildings, they circled in waves over the intersection of Saint Nicholas and Amsterdam, which served as a kind of parade grounds for the birds. 

2. Earlier that day, I had gone to my office, which is in the same neighborhood as one of the buildings regularly featured in Mr. Robot. I think one of the things that keeps people in New York City is the sense that your life isn't quite real because so often you pass buildings and streets that you've seen on television. As you walk around doing the same things as everyone else -- going back and forth to work, maybe going out for lunch or dinner or drinks -- this odd familiarity and dislocation gives you the feeling that somehow you're secretly on television, too, performing for an imaginary audience, which makes you feel important, maybe a little famous. One thing television never gets right, though, is how long it takes to get from one part of the city to another. In a recent episode of Mr. Robot, Elliot, running away from the 'Dark Army,' sprints into Central Park at 57th Street and two seconds later is running down the steps toward the Bethesda Fountain, and then a few seconds after that is escaping onto a bus on 110th Street. A real show about New York would spend most of every episode sitting on a subway in a tunnel waiting to pull into the next station, but I guess that wouldn't make for very compelling drama.  

3. Back in the park, I found another kind of comforting illusion, the kind where the rest of world doesn't exist. 

4. Looking at the red berries, my mind returned to the recent season of The Great British Bake Off, in which -- several times -- Prue Leith said something along the lines that blueberries have no flavor. It was a potentially alarming idea, given that I've long considered blueberries to be one of my favorite kinds of fruit. I guess they don't have a ton of flavor, but I think they fall on a very subtle line between sweet and tart, and that subtlety is part of the appeal. Maybe the problem is not blueberries, but that we live in unsubtle times. 

5. I always forget how much I love this ancient birch tree until the leaves have fallen off. 

6. If I were running the world, I would shut down every other block in the city to cars and instead have a series of narrow paths lined with garden plots.  

7. The elm trees also look impressive without their leaves. Over the past 100 years, something like 50 million elm trees in North America have died from Dutch Elm Disease. You have to wonder if our country would still be falling apart if these trees were still around, entrancing people with their magical branches. If something vanishes without 'impacting the GDP' has it even existed? 

8. It was time to leave the park, at least for now. I said goodbye to the heather garden, which looked like a tropical reef. 

9. Like the pigeons, I continued my infinite circles around Washington Heights, always under the watch of the George Washington Bridge. 

November Views of the George Washington Bridge

1. After the resumption of standard time, the afternoons became very short and the shadows very long.

2. The light was disorienting but beautiful.

3. I tried not to think about anything except the air, the sun, and my hope that the media would accept the fact that a majority of Democratic voters support the kind of institutional change espoused by the two most progressive candidates, and not the incremental change represented by the other candidates. There is, I thought, only one bridge to the future. And then I stopped thinking about anything but the air and the sun.

4. I parked my bike and walked to the steps, which offered a better view.

5. In the distance, I could see a bridge or the shadow of a bridge, behind which the sun was sinking fast.

Some News about Moss and Ferns

1. It rained most of the week, but on Friday -- the first day of November -- fall finally arrived.

2. Branches and birch leaves littered the ground. 

3. Red berries dotted the miniature cotoneaster. 

4. The ferns grew pale and stretched toward the sun. 

5. The toad lilies hovered like a flock of birds over ragged leaves. 

6. It was easy to pretend that the entire world had stopped, frozen in the sun.