This week, the fiftieth of the lockdown, Stephen and I started watching a British show called The Repair Shop. The premise is that people bring broken possessions -- usually family heirlooms, not particularly valuable in 'the market' but with great emotional attachment -- to The Repair Shop, a barn in the English countryside staffed by an array of expert craftspeople who repair the item in question, usually with astounding feats of detail and intricacy. Sometimes I get a little frustrated watching The Repair Shop, though, when someone brings in what I consider to be a hideous item, stuffy and Victorian, like a ceramic clock that was recently featured, covered with pastel flowers with broken petals. I think to myself, it's not worth the repair, just get rid of it!
I was joking about this idea with some friends (via text) and we concocted a concept for a new show called The Un-Repair Shop, where people bring in old items and the expert says [in a British accent, of course], 'No, sorry, not worth it,' before smashing it with a hammer and releasing the person from the often-onerous ties of ownership. It's a stupid idea, but we thought it was funny for a few minutes.
It was an idea that returned me, however, when I went to the park and was thinking about how the United States passed 500,000 COVID-19 deaths this week. I was listening to the most recent episode of Death Panel about the 'normalization' of death that is increasingly defining this phase of the pandemic: where, for example, our new president marked this milestone with a candlelight ceremony that looked like a set from The Bachelor and the New York Times represented (abstracted) these deaths with a chart filled with dots; where there's a creeping consensus that most of these deaths were (are) somehow expected and are #actually caused by advanced age or underlying comorbidities of the sort (diabetes, obesity, poverty) that we often use to blame the victim; where there's a lot of discussion about how the virus is becoming the 'new flu,' as if the flu weren't one of the major causes of death in the world, particularly for those who can't afford to take time off of work or see a doctor; where the media has focused a disproportionate amount of its attention on the admittedly disturbing, alienating conditions of lockdown for people working from home who must deal with no childcare, increasingly exploitive employers, cancelled vacations, etc. while downplaying the even-more disturbing conditions forcing lower-income people to leave their homes to go to generally speaking the shittiest jobs imaginable and literally dying as a result; where there's been almost no talk by anyone in a position of power to, for example, shut down everything for a few months (with pay) so that THE GOVERNMENT (and not your local drug store chain) can vaccinate as many people as possible to end this cycle, much less to fundamentally address the structural inequities of a system that at this point is ritualistically sacrificing the poor; where we can't even count on the Democratic party to rally behind the cancellation of a non-trivial sum of student debt or a minimum wage of $15/hour, which doesn't make the prospects of M4A or say, DC statehood seem too promising; where, as I saw someone on Twitter point out, we're only two months in and all we hear are apologies for what can't be done.
And as I considered all of this, it occurred to me that we don't need to create The Un-Repair Shop, because we're already living it. The metaphor isn't perfect, but the people of the United States are the ones being brought into the government with the hope of repair, and the experts are responding with a level of disdain that might be farcical if it weren't so cruel.
Or maybe the people will bring the government in for repair and the show-runners will bring a hammer to it, relinquishing us from the burdens of this antiquated form of ownership.
This week, the 49th of the lockdown, one of our orchids bloomed, which was a welcome respite amid all the snow and ice and news about the ongoing failures of the neoliberal state in which we have been condemned to exist.
Has anyone else been watching It's a Sin, a mini-series now airing on HBO? It's getting a lot of critical acclaim for its depiction of a group of young friends in London during the 1980s as they confront AIDS. There are things to like about the show: its unapologetic depiction/celebration of gay sex is always a welcome antidote to the paucity of such depictions/celebrations in all forms of entertainment these days, and the young cast is fun to watch as they move through cycles of joy, confusion, fear, and grief. I would recommend the show to anyone who's unfamiliar with the basic story of how AIDS swept through the 1980s and 1990s and eviscerated an entire generation of -- at least in the West -- gay men, leaving deep scars on society that are barely acknowledged or discussed. I would also recommend it to those who are familiar with the history, but with several caveats.
First, there is the sex (and the men having it): is it possible that London in the 1980s did not have any gay men who weighed more than 135 pounds? It seems unlikely to me. Gay directors: please remember what it feels like to be inundated with images of straight people having sex and note that it's really not that much better to be inundated with images of skinny white boys having sex. It's 2021: MIX IT UP. Second, and more importantly, the emotional impact of the show -- despite confronting a most harrowing episode of history -- feels limited by its adherence to an era whose basic, historical truths, when presented in a fictional context, make it very difficult to offer a corresponding sense of fictional redemption. Characters become ciphers as they are rushed through the stages of AIDS as it unfolded in the 1980s: pre-AIDS partying/1970s nostalgia, disbelief, denial, acceptance (symptoms), political awakening, death or not death. Because I'm aware of the actual history, I don't feel like I'm watching people; instead, I'm watching a lottery in which the question is which of the gay characters are going to die. The show fails capture the true emotional weight of the actual death lottery that occurred because we don't know much about the inner lives of these characters, whose role is to represent the past more than to occupy it. So when the moment of fictional redemption arrives, it ironically enough feels trite, detached from the historical reality.
I believe that one solution to this dilemma (of representing AIDS in fictional works that are both historically accurate and emotionally resonant) is queer futurism (which I've written about before). The creators of It's a Sin would have been well-served to watch and learn from the television show Pose, which used queer futurism to transcend the AIDS narrative. As with It's a Sin, the show depicts AIDS in ways that are historically accurate/expected -- symptoms, fear, denial, hospital scenes, funerals, political activism -- but also has its characters move through landscapes that are exaggerated or fantastical, either in glamorous Harlem ball scenes or in musical dream sequences (which is one of an unlimited number of option: I'm not saying every show needs a musical interlude, of course.) These scenes, which blur the lines between (fictional) life and death bind us to the characters (even, or especially, the ones who are dying) while offering us a sense of hope (and grief) that feels artistically satisfying in ways that so often are lacking in works of art that try to cleave too closely to a reality that for all intents and purposes is emotionally incomprehensible. Queer futurism offers us a way of acknowledging the horrors of the past without being constrained by these same horrors, which in addition to being artistically satisfying is politically potent at a time when our enemies are still trying to oppress us, and when too many works of art -- even when made with the opposite intention -- serve to unconsciously reinforce messages of futility and disempowerment.
There is a path in Washington Heights, not far from where we live, that runs through the woods. It feels like you could be anywhere but New York City.
If you take the path to the end, you learn that it is a temporary illusion. It opens up to a view of the city, which seems that much more harrowing and beautiful after being forgotten for a few minutes.
The forecast of snow always arrives with dread: I worry about the plants in the garden, I worry about shoveling the sidewalk in front of our house (and the shame of doing it later than our neighbors), I worry about the likelihood that the Department of Sanitation, whose primary purpose during a snowstorm is to clear the roads for the minority of people who own cars instead of the majority who use sidewalks, will not pick up the trash and recycling for several weeks or longer, leaving narrow pathways between the leaning banks of garbage bags and the buildings, pathways on which it would be impossible to pass someone in a socially distant manner. This year, I worry about the disruption to my schedule of working and not-working, a schedule that is arbitrary -- there's no reason to do anything at a particular time within any twenty-four hour period -- but whose routine has become a source of comfort, and the potential disruption a source of concern.
But after the snow arrives and I've shoveled and salted the sidewalk and rearranged the garbage bags and shaken the branches of our most fragile trees, I try to go out where I can see it with new eyes.
And as I walk along Riverside Drive, a kind of gratitude gradually replaces my dread. The snow may be disruptive but it is beautiful. This insight is not new, but is one that needs to be re-experienced to be re-understood.
The river has a different personality in the snow, the small waves and ripples spellbound under a blanket of mist.
The glow of a lamplight cuts through the black and white.
In the snow, the bridge seems less real than symbolic, a reminder that we are here but could be somewhere else.
After the snow, everyone was curious but also a bit trepidatious.
As usual, Clio -- the youngest -- was the most intrepid.
But she wasn't as exuberant as many of the dogs who were dominating the online snow coverage.
"Do I look like a dog?" -- Elektra, when I first asked her if she wanted to go out in the snow.
She was happy, though, to join me in a Feldenkrais exercise. This week I wrote and recorded a new song, which you can hear below. One thing I've noticed about songwriting -- and which is similar to Feldenkrais -- is that when you try something new (or break a habit), it often feels very radical or outlandish when in reality it's actually a pretty minor shift. For example, I realized this week that I have a tendency while walking and sitting to needlessly and rigidly point my feet directly in front of me, instead of letting my feet angle off to the side, as you learn to do when you're lying on your back and letting your body relax, a home position for most Feldenkrais exercises. This habit, I believe, has led me to put undue pressure on the tendons in my groin, which must be held rigid to keep my feet in this straightforward alignment, and is the reason why -- in addition to running 2000 miles last year -- I've been dealing with some minor but ongoing pain in my groin. When I made this discovery and modified my posture, I felt completely duck-footed and was sure that I must look like Charlie Chaplin, but when I examined my feet, they were only slightly angled, a difference that I'm sure would not have been remarkable even to a careful observer. Yet after a few days of paying attention to this shift, I noticed that my groin was feeling a little better. It made me wonder about other habits in my life, and the radical-seeming but actually-slight changes I might make in order to be more comfortable. I also made some similar discoveries in the process of recording this song, mostly related to different effects and synthesizers, and perhaps just the overall tempo, which seemed kind of radical at the time but on subsequent listening didn't seem like too much of a break from other songs I've written. Still, I like to think it's an improvement, although songwriting is obviously a lot more subjective than body work. (OR IS IT.)
Later, I went down to the river, where the mountains of snow reminded me of the skating-rink parking lots I used to see as a kid, where along with the actual snow they dumped the Zamboni snow.
Everything was very bright, except for the trash can.
When I listened carefully, I could hear the drips of melting snow.
The trees, with no bad habits to break, stretched effortlessly into the blue sky.
As the temperatures dropped, we retreated even further indoors, where the orchids were in spectacular bloom.
One of our cats, Zephyr, has trained us to give him belly rubs whenever he drops to the floor and rolls (Feldenkrais style) on to his back.
The orchids require a strict schedule of watering, fertilizing, and transplanting in order to bloom with regularity. Sometimes I think about the life span of houseplants. We like to brag about owning a plant for five or ten years, but is that really a long time from the plant's perspective? It seems like most of them could be relatively immortal if they receive the right care. A friend recently tweeted about inheriting a Christmas cactus that had been in her family for more than 100 years, which made me wonder where these orchids will be in 100 years. Will I still be able to take care of them when I'm 142?
When Zephyr was a kitten, one of his favorite things to do was to chase shadows, but as he grew older, he seemed to lose interest. Recently, after noting his difficulty in holding down dry food, we decided to change his diet. In addition to helping his digestion, the new diet -- 100 percent canned or 'wet' food -- has led to a (healthy) loss of weight and, apparently, a loss of years, because he's back to chasing shadows like a kitten.
In cat years, Zephyr is probably a bit older than I am, but not nearly as old as this orchid.
Watching him gives me hope that I, too, will soon be younger than I am now.
The weather, as it had done most of the month, continued to be cold and clear, with some morning haze (my favorite part). But this week the days felt lighter, more expansive.
Nothing looked very different. Riverside Drive still curved to the south.
The trees still bent toward the river.
On Wednesday, the track was dusted with snow.
The riverbank was striped with shadows from the tree branches.
I had forgotten what it was like to feel calm, or even sort of calm, or even to have calm on the map of possibilities, even if you weren't feeling it at all.
I had visions of lying in the grass for at least a year or two, feeling the shadows cross my body as the earth turned in circles and moved around the sun.
When I arrived at the park, I tried to remember if it was my first time in the new year. I was pretty sure it was, but I had some doubts, too. Somehow, it was already the middle of January. A big chunk of the new year had already vanished. Exactly what had I been doing, if not going to the park?
As always, the park looked very much the same as I remembered, and very different, too. For one thing, the heather was in bloom.
The landscape was dotted with burlap wind fencing. I remembered a few years ago when the heather was blooming through the snow and I wrote a piece about how beautiful it was for an online magazine. I thought about how the online magazine no longer exists, but how the heather is still blooming. I wondered if I identified more with the online magazine or with the heather.
Lately I've been worrying about what life will be like when the pandemic is over. I think back to my pre-pandemic life -- the one where I sometimes met people and went places -- and I'm not sure how I managed to fit everything in. These days, even though I never meet anyone or go anywhere that can't be reached on foot, I still feel pressed for time.
The thought of adding anything in makes me nervous. How will I manage it? What will I leave behind? How will the cats react?
I wondered if any of this anxiety would be relieved if I were more optimistic about the external world.
What if, in this pandemic, I've been hoarding time in the same way that the rich have been hoarding money?
As I do most winters, I've scaled back on running because I think it's better for my body (and probably, my mind) to introduce some variety into my routine. In the past, I've done these workouts at the gym -- usually with the elliptical and various machines -- but this year, the pandemic led me to cancel my gym membership, forcing me to think about new and -- it turns out -- better options. In this post, I will describe the track, where lately I've been going to jump rope and to do lunges and burpees and other exercises that will in theory make me stronger and (in my imagination) younger. I don't use the track for these exercises -- there's an astroturfed area to the side -- but I like being in its vicinity, watching people walk and run, admiring some of their outfits -- like the fat man I saw the other day with very short shorts (it was twenty-eight degrees!) -- or, if it's very early, watching the sun cut through the morning haze. Maybe later this year or next, if I sign up for another race, I'll do some speed work on the track. This possibility makes me hopeful.
One of the reasons I like this track (and many others I've known) is that it's democratic. Anyone can come to the track and use it. There's no government official or police officer standing at the entrance asking people if they are able to run at a certain pace or if they've already tried to attain their ideal weight through a variety of other measures before they can step onto the oval. Even when it's more crowded, people follow informal rules to share in its use. Everyone walks or runs in the same direction. Slower people stay in the outside lanes, runners use the inside ones. Or mostly they do. I shouldn't overstate the case: not everyone follows the rules. Sometimes walkers dawdle along in the inner lanes, sometimes people run clockwise, sometimes people walk three or four abreast. Sometimes it feels a little chaotic. But none of these deviations diminish the impact of the track. It's available and, for most people, most of the time, it works as intended.
This track was built and paid for by the government, which is to say us, its citizens. It's also in Harlem, whose residents have traditionally received (and still receive) fewer governmental services than richer (whiter) neighborhoods downtown, and it was given to these residents in what was effectively a bribe: 'If you let us build a sewage treatment plant in your neighborhood, we'll give you a track and some other facilities.' It's not a perfect arrangement. If the smokestacks are on and the wind is blowing in the wrong direction, it makes being at the track unpleasant and -- I have to imagine -- unhealthy. When you live in a poor neighborhood, it's easy to understand why asthma rates are much higher here; poor neighborhoods shoulder a disproportionate weight of garbage transfer, automobile and truck emissions, and other environmental problems that arise for services from which they also receive a disproportionately low benefit. Still, I suppose a sewage treatment plant with a track is better than one without, although it's worth asking ourselves why poor neighborhoods are always expected to make such tradeoffs, whereas their richer counterparts are not. Here's an idea: Let's build tracks everywhere for everyone. (I'm sure you can see where I'm going with this.) Here is evidence, I tell myself when I'm at the track, that the government can provide a benefit for everyone without worrying about exactly who's going to use it, or whether it's too expensive or because some people will 'abuse' it or somehow not pay their fair share in maintaining it. The track is like a park. It's one of so many things the government should give us, its people (i.e., that we should give ourselves) with no strings attached, trusting that, for the most part, we will use it in the way it is meant to be used.
Like the park, the track is also beautiful in the cold winter light.
The new year, it seemed, was beginning with what felt like the opposite of a clean slate. The virus, the vaccine, the need for a new lockdown and the ongoing refusal of the government to pay most businesses (and especially the smaller ones) to shut down and for people to stay home, the potential for sweeping legislation on many different fronts, including but not limited to voting rights, universal health care, and the environment (and the likelihood that corporate Democrats -- which is the majority of them -- will sabotage any of these measures, just as they did a few days ago when Bernie attempted to force a vote on the bill for the $2000 stimulus checks). It was a lot to consider. There's only so close you can get to the rising water, I thought while looking at these trees gripping the riverbank, before you fall in.
It was only the second day of the year and I felt like we were stuck climbing these steps to nowhere, a remnant of a more pedestrian-friendly era that can be found in the tangle of ramps and highways under the George Washington Bridge (in case you also take solace in literal ruins).
I tried to enjoy the grandeur and underlying vision of the George Washington Bridge, but these days even the bridge feels a bit tarnished by the fact that its primary purpose is to move millions of cars and trucks back and forth across the river, and that its bike lane is narrow and dangerous.
Meanwhile, a tornado had apparently touched down on the riverbank, somewhere north of 165th Street and south of the tennis courts.
As with the steps to nowhere and the trees on the riverbank, the uprooting of these massive old oaks seemed like a good metaphor for the times, albeit a bit 'on the nose.'
I passed a 'We Can Save the Planet' sign attached to a fallen tree in the woods next to the trail. Maybe we could save the planet, I thought, but will we?
I tried to find some signs of hope and came up with these lichens on the trees next to the river. Is it true that lichen growth is a sign of good air quality? If not, please don't tell me.
Will Joe Biden and his team of (mostly) corporate consultants be able to control the virus and go on to sign comprehensive, far-reaching legislation designed to help a majority of people (i.e., the ones who actually voted for him)?
Or will Joe Biden be viewed as a brief hiatus on an extended stay in Trump World?
I usually try to do a highlights post at the end of the year, and even though 2020 has obviously been more of a 'lowlights' kind of year, I decided to forge ahead. Below I've compiled a list of some of the things that occupied my thoughts (in a good way) as time went off the rails and left us in this strange world that somehow feels extremely normal -- by which I mean habitual, at least for those of us who have the ability (privilege) to work from home and prefer not to go anywhere in light of the pandemic -- and abnormal, given the pandemic and the political extremes we continue to collectively endure.
THE CITY
This week, as I was putting my phone back into my pocket at the entrance of the park, a woman with a dog veered around me on her way out. Given that we were in the forty-first week of the lockdown, we were maybe a little close for comfort, but I didn't say anything: she (and her dog) were both very old, and she was muttering at it in a language that I guessed was Russian. She had a hunched back and a scarf over her head, while the dog, which seemed to be pulling her this way and that, was wearing a coat. As I watched, she surprised me by picking up the dog, which had a bit of a belly and seemed far heavier than her spindly arms could handle, and carried it across an icy patch, all the while talking to it in what sounded like a mix of admonishment and encouragement. Though I knew nothing about this woman except for what I had just observed, I imagined that she lived alone with her dog in a nearby apartment and that this year had been difficult for her, because -- as I'm beginning to learn myself -- age has a way of compounding problems. Seeing her interact with the dog induced a kind of pandemic-induced teariness that was offset or in some ways enhanced by an appreciation I felt for living in the city, which even at peak solitude and isolation gives us opportunities to envision lives that are very similar and different than our own. Later in the run, as I began my ascent up 158th Street, a very steep hill that extends from the river to Broadway, this sense of appreciation for the city continued as I saw in quick succession 1) a graffiti dick that someone had carved into the cement of the sidewalk (stupid but never not a little funny, as long at it's not on a sidewalk I paid for), and 2) two people talking in another language (some kind of Chinese, again guessing). I always like to hear people talking in languages I don't understand, because it reminds me that speaking English (like many things we associate with the lingua franca of capital, finance, and mainstream culture) shouldn't be a requirement for existing in 2020. I wasn't even bothered by the fact that these people had parked their car half in the sidewalk and half in the protected bike lane, which usually makes me furious (because seriously: cars are the worst, and especially in cities). I wasn't in the mood for rants. I ran the last half mile or so up Broadway and felt glad to be in New York, in Washington Heights, on my block. The media this year made a big deal about people fleeing the city for the suburbs or the country, and I can understand the appeal of leaving -- I think about it all the time, and I'm sure that, in many ways, life outside of the city, especially during a pandemic, is easier -- but even though my block was not at finest, thanks to the soot-covered snow and the mountains of uncollected trash, I knew that I would never be one of them.
CITY PARKS: Fort Tryon Park, as anyone who reads this blog knows, is my favorite park in the world, and was no less beautiful in 2020 than it has been every other year leading up to it. But also the Hudson River, where I spend a lot of time. Running through these urban oases is when I'm most optimistic, when I can believe in a higher power that so often seems implausible during the rest of the day.
HIGHBRIDGE PARK: New York City has an unfortunate history of neglecting to maintain public services in lower-income/minority neighborhoods, which is why the renovation of Highbridge Park by the Parks Department (beyond being perfect unto itself) is noteworthy. Stephen has been walking past this park all year on his way to the pedestrian High Bridge to the Bronx (another landmark) and has been giving me glowing reports of the progress. Last week I went on a walk with him and was excited to note that they had even installed a parcourse, which always makes me think about the one we had in the park near my house in the 1970s, when they were popular (and generally more spread out than this one: the idea was to jog a few minutes between stations).
CULTURE AND ENTERTAINMENT
TERRACE HOUSE: The show has been cancelled following the suicide of one the cast members, but it really helped to pull me (us, since Stephen is also a fan) through the earliest and most harrowing days of the pandemic. Even when contestants are fighting with one another, it's very calming to be immersed in a culture that is distinctly not American.
DRAWING LINKS: Subscription newsletters have replaced blogs (so it goes), and one of my favorite subscriptions is Drawing Links by Edith Zimmerman. Edith draws comics about her life, sometimes veering into magical reality, often walking a delicate line between hilarity and melancholy and sometimes skipping between both. She likes to write about running (and its metaphysical appeal), which is a big draw for me, but I often find myself thinking (and laughing out loud to myself, like a maniac) about her observations of everyday life and the people she encounters -- like this one about a woman early in the pandemic wearing a salad container for a mask (and the imagined dialogue) -- which was a gift in 2020.
TELL ME ABOUT YOUR FATHER: This podcast features a range of guests who talk about their fathers (along with a couple of great episodes in which the podcasters breakdown the archetypal Don Draper of Mad Men). The podcast is lo-fi and thought-provoking, and sometimes very funny. Straight men in this world have a lot to answer for; this podcast takes them to task but in a surprisingly endearing way (surprising because the underlying stories can be quite harrowing and sad).
MARNIE T: I watched a lot of television this year, but tbh nothing post-Terrace House has grabbed my attention as much as spiritual guide Marnie T on Twitter. Why watch two or more hours of a show when ninety seconds can deliver inspiration, mockery, political analysis, crass commercialism, and personal (drug-induced) enlightenment? Marnie T is the gay/post-gay entertainment we desperately need. I will always sign up for her class.
MUSIC
Sometime around the beginning of the year, I finally decided to join Spotify (notwithstanding its horrible revenue model for artists), which has been miraculous (for the music) and depressing (because the music has in some ways never felt cheaper/more commodified). But in the interests of focusing on the miraculous, Spotify has helped to reinvigorate my interest in music -- and especially new (to me) music -- which has felt like waking up from a coma.
WEYES BLOOD: I learned about Weyes Blood from reading Brooklyn Vegan (Titanic Rising was BV's 2019 Album of the Year) and quickly became obsessed with that record and some of her earlier albums, as you can see from my Spotify 2020 Wrap-Up. (Lol.)
INDIE ROCK: Here are some other bands/musicians I loved (and played the most in 2020). One of the last things I did before lockdown was to see Torche at St. Vitus, which was mindblowing (and ear-shattering, even with ear plugs!).
DEATH CULTURE @ SEA: Being in lockdown turned out to be a good excuse to finally learn how to record music with my iPhone, first with GarageBand and now with Cubasis. It's been a steep learning curve, but I'm continually astounded by the technology. Here's my latest, which is an attempt to stretch into the synthier side of indie rock.
For reasons both professional and personal, I sift through a lot of legal (and political) writing (and tweets). Here are a few things I found most compelling in 2020:
KNOW YOUR ENEMY: This podcast is designed to help listeners understand how the conservative/libertarian movement in this country has, over the past fifty or sixty years, and in the interests of corporate greed, private property, and white supremacy, engineered the ongoing assault on democracy that may or may not be relenting as we head into 2021.
LAW AND POLITICAL ECONOMY: I spent a lot of time this year thinking about my own education, particularly at law school, where I, like most law students at the time, was indoctrinated into a belief that the law, generally speaking, was apolitical, objective, and best employed in the interests of market efficiency. Reading this article, which dispels this idea in favor of crafting laws that works for the people, was a revelation to me and a source of hope in a political landscape that can often feel very bleak.
CATS
How can anyone survive a lockdown without pets? It's a mystery.
ZEPHYR AND ELEKTRA: On a blue blanket, in front of a large pillow.
CLIO: Our gray panther in the snow.
2021
In some ways, thinking about 2021 was the best part of 2020. Let's hope we get our collective act together!
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.'
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.
