Matthew Gallaway

Fog on the Mississippi (New Orleans)

1. Shortly after the New Year, I went to New Orleans for a work-related conference. The flight down was uneventful but vaguely unsettling: having spent the previous two weeks in seclusion (hiding from Christmas), I had forgotten what it was like to be a modern business traveler, bombarded with corporate branding initiatives.

2. It was a relief to arrive in my favorite weather: fog.

3. Whenever I'm in New York City, I like to tell myself that nothing compares to the Hudson River and the George Washington Bridge, but there's something about the snaking grandeur of the Mississippi that likewise can't be matched. Standing on the banks of the river, I felt very small, but I also felt like I belonged to something historic and important and nonbranded. And maybe even American in a nonpolitical way, which is not an easy feeling to find these days.

4. It made me want to move to New Orleans, even if the summers are brutally hot and even if it's going to be underwater in a few years/decades/centuries.

5. A seagull flew past on its way to Algiers, reminding me that anything is possible in 2019.

The Year in Review: 2018

Best day the Hudson was covered in ice and the city looked like a faraway dream: January 9, 2018.

Best political slogan from the 1970s.

The best upper Manhattan park in winter: Fort Tryon Park (Washington Heights).

Best ‘band photo’ of three cats: Elektra, Zephyr, and Clio.

Best Visconti movie about a gay Bavarian king: Ludwig.

Best most underrated birds that symbolize life in the modern era (with proximity to a new gay bar): the circling pigeons of 159th Street and Broadway, just above 'Boxers'.

Best park on November 1, 2018: Fort Tryon Park.

Most curious cat: Zephyr.

Most least curious cat: Elektra.

Most beautiful day for a snowstorm: April 2, 2018 (Monday).

Best day to run 26.2 miles through Boston in a nor’easter: April 16, 2018.

Hottest gay statue: this one by Rodin in Philadelphia :)

Best ‘cat in the campanula’: Clio.

Best reason to ‘double down’ on your dislike of empty superhero movies and instead watch emotionally resonant literary adaptations that may not be ‘perfect’ but are beautifully shot and acted and remind us how boring and utilitarian so much of the English language has become (via commerce): My Brilliant Friend (HBO).

Cutest cat couple: Dante and Zephyr.

Best remnant of a not-too-distant but still pretty far away creative past that Jennifer found in her garage and texted a few weeks ago: this shot of Saturnine circa 1996.

The best cat + succulents in a picture: Elektra and potted succulents, July 6, 2018.

Best path through a heather garden lined with flowering azaleas in 2018: Fort Tryon Park.

Best trees to remind you of hallucinogenic experiences from your youth, and specifically that one time in a field not far from Stonehenge: the elms of Fort Tryon Park.

Best Frank Lloyd Wright reproduction framed by a Japanese maple (Acer Palmatum ‘Elizabeth’) and a cold-hardy camellia.

Best television secretly about the ancient gods and the people who entertain them: Terrace House.

Best bridge: The GW.

Best reason to hope: today the light will last a little longer than yesterday :)

Best reason to keep reading this blog: I’m taking a short break but will be back on January 12th, 2019 to resume regularly scheduled posts about GoT (jk) and cats galloping across the hibernal tundra.

Notes on Tom Sawyer

1. The morning after the company Christmas party, I staggered out into the cold. I wasn't exactly hungover -- I had adhered to the two three-drink rule -- but I felt beat up and slightly nauseated in a way I associated with drinking too much.

2. I had reached an age, it seemed, when I stayed out past 10:00 pm exactly one night each year, and that night was the Christmas party. As in the previous year, the night unfolded in two stages: the official party (drinks and [self-conscious] dancing with colleagues) and the unofficial one (drinks and [self-conscious] karaoke with colleagues and ~ ten thousand other people, all crammed into a cavernous space found under an otherwise unassuming Irish bar somewhere in the maze of Wall Street). Walking in, I had the sense that everyone present had been trapped here for the entire year, and perhaps longer. It was similar to Подземље by Emir Kusturica, except in this case swapping in New York City capitalism for Soviet-bloc bureaucracy, and with revolutionaries replaced by financiers subsisting on big pitchers of beer, onion rings, and earsplitting karaoke of songs I had never listened to but recognized from my gym.

3. When everyone was getting ready to go from Party A to Party B, the deejay at the first venue slipped into an unexpected zone of music that I associated with 1) my classic-rock dentist, and 2) the kind of 'midwest metal' that defined my suburban Pittsburgh youth: I heard one song from each member of 'the trinity': Zep, Aerosmith, and Rush.

4. I heard the opening drum beat and synthesizer/laser effect from 'Tom Sawyer' and was back in eighth grade, afraid and intrigued. Kids who listened to Rush were 'freaks' who lurked in the smoking area and wore jean jackets. I was friendly with a few of them -- one played hockey with me (goalie) and another was in my math class -- but I never hung out with the freaks. They were too dangerous and I -- like many young gays of the time -- was very rule-bound in the attempt to compensate for not adhering to the biggest rule of all. But I also remembered going to the arcade where the freaks gathered to play video games and how Rush was pretty much a soundtrack of those nights. There was something transgressive about the arcades; video games were entertaining, mindless and possibly self-destructive in a way that no adult understood, not that any were around. The music was always punishingly loud, which made the dystopian repetition of feeding coins into the slots and playing the same games over and over that much more rebellious and satisfying, even for an interloper like me.

5. Later -- in both my life and that of Western society -- as indie rock became more popular, Rush was fun to hate; their songs defined the kind of decrepit, bloated arena-rock that inspired punk and hardcore and everything truly excellent that defined underground music through the 1980s and into the Smells Like Teen Spirit era, when a new kind of bloated, arena rock inspired a new kind of underground.

6. I wasn't expecting to hear Rush on the Night of the Christmas Party, even during the transitional phase between parties. As I waited for a few of my colleagues to find their coats, I played some 'freakin' huge' (air) drum fills. Was I being half-ironic or half-serious? It didn't matter. I looked around and wondered if anyone else could relate. It didn't seem like it. I felt very alone, but not in a bad way. As a Gen-Xer, I was used to being overwhelmed by boomers and millennials. But then, walking out, I passed three old-school (Gen X) goth/punkers at the bar dressed in black leather jackets and with Siouxsie Sioux levels of teased hair and black eyeliner. Where they had come from? It didn't matter: Manhattan was still capable of surprises. One of them liked Rush; she was nodding along to the odd meter of the song in a way that conveyed serious familiarity with it. She caught my eye and we each smiled a little, the way you do when you see someone with whom you share something in common but have no intention of ever talking to.

7. 'Freak,' I whispered below the din of the laser synth, not sure whether I was describing her or me.

Notes on Balancing Techniques

1. We had entered a period of cold, clear weather that would have been temperature-appropriate in the pre-Anthropocene. It felt good to be somewhat 'colder than average' in December without the theatrics of a weather calamity.

2. To pass the time, I had made up a fill-in-the-blank game, which goes like this: How are we supposed to solve global warming when we can't even figure out how to _________________? (Fill in the blank.) Here are four five possible answers: 1) end the plague of stickers on fruit, 2) fix the subway, 3) reform our democracy, 4) stop cars, 5) save the giraffes.

3. I thought about how I had recently learned that it's much harder to balance on one foot with your eyes closed than with them open, especially if you're trying to do it while brushing your teeth.

3.5 And how Jennifer B had sent me some old tour pictures of Saturnine she found in her garage. I admired the 'sweet '90s style' but found it a little jarring to see a version of myself that I hardly recognized. Had I really spent my twenties 'rocking out'? Once the shock wore off, it felt good to remember having done things that now seemed inconceivable.

4. I also thought about a corporate reorganization I read about last week in which a person involved in a vicious attempt to destroy my second novel was 'sent packing,' as so often happens in the Game of Thrones machinations of C-level suites. This particular senior vp had tortured me for the better part of two years, asking for insane (and seriously unwoke) rewrites while holding out the promise of a book contract that never materialized. I wondered if it was wrong to hope that this person was suffering (despite probably receiving a huge 'package').

5. I decided it wasn't :)

6. But mostly I felt relieved not to be degrading myself with 'market-friendly' rewrites of my novel and biting my fingers off waiting for a response. But notwithstanding the memory, I appreciated having endured this trial, because it taught me important lessons about the arbitrary nature of publishing and, by extension, the world; lessons I wouldn't have learned had I not done things that now seemed inconceivable.

7. I had moved on to balancing on one foot with my eyes closed (while brushing my teeth) and trying to capture the dawn light as it reached through the twisting elms. The passage of time, in combination with existence in the Anthropocene, felt like enough of a challenge without subjecting myself unnecessarily to the whims of corporate overlords.

8. I focused on breathing perfectly chilled air.

9. In another century, I imagined, it will be bottled and sold with the waning December light as an inconceivable remnant of a beautiful past.

Notes on the 2018 Philadelphia Marathon

1. I arrived in Philadelphia on Saturday with high hopes: for once, the forecast for the marathon was perfect (high thirties, no rain), the course was relatively flat, and I felt like I was in pretty good shape after dealing with some foot issues over the summer.

2. I spent the afternoon wandering around the museum area, where I admired the young gays stretching out before the race.

3. Meanwhile, runners like me in the ‘masters’ category were afflicted with the usual doubts: what had we gotten ourselves into?

4. The next morning, I made it to the starting line, on the Ben Franklin Parkway in front of the art museum. The gun went off and I settled in a little ahead of the 3:10 pacers, which I thought was conservative after running a similar time last April in Boston during an 'epic nor'easter.'

5. The first five miles were perfect. There were classic rock bands, deejays, and a gospel choir. There were enough people watching and cheering and holding goofy signs ('toenails are overrated') to make it feel like a (runner-geek) party. But my favorite stretch, when we were looping back through Center City, was relatively quiet. I listened to pounding feet and the quiet conversation of the pacers, who not being at all taxed by the run were debating the merits of Second Empire architecture as we passed City Hall. We stampeded like a herd of wildebeests through the canyons of the city. It was just after seven in the morning and the eastern horizon still glowed; as I caught a deep breath, the utter pointlessness of the venture was for a few flickering moments transformed into something sublime and almost artistic, but in a way that no art I’ve encountered (except for Terrace House) has ever captured.

6. I knew it wouldn’t last; marathons are almost by definition painful, especially the last six miles. What I didn’t expect, because I was focusing on my form and pace -- and my left foot, right knee, and right hamstring -- was to feel a little twinge in my left leg that over the course of about a half mile became a stabbing pain in my left hamstring. It was sort of a disaster; I had to stop for a bit to get my bearings. Approximately ten thousand runners passed me. After an internal debate and a few tender steps, I decided to keep going; the pain became (somewhat) number and (somewhat) more tolerable, and so I went a bit more and then a bit longer after that, and so on. While it was excruciating to run 20 more miles with this kind of distraction -- my form was Not Good -- I soldiered through to the end. My time (3:20) was disappointing but I was relieved to have made it, and maybe a little proud given the struggle (and notwithstanding my preference not to struggle, at least to that degree). Most of all, I knew I would never forget that golden, hazy stretch through the canyons, when life had seemed magical.

7. Stephen and I spent the next few days exploring parts of Philadelphia that we had never seen.

8. We went to the Rail Park, which is Philadelphia’s version of the High Line. Though it’s only in Phase One, it felt like a perfect secret, the way the High Line did for a few months back when it opened.

9. I’d bet that the Philadelphia version will remain relatively sane, however, even as the next phases are completed. It’s in a depopulated industrial area, meaning it’s not overrun with r>g investors and tourists that have become the downtown hallmark/bane of Amazon HQ2 cities like New York.

10. We ate lunch at the Reading Terminal Market, which is a combination food court and grocery store. It’s a little touristy but in a way that feels charming, mostly because you can get a decent meal here for $10. It reminded me of certain parts of the Financial District in Manhattan, where tourists mix with city employees and construction workers. (It didn't remind me of West Chelsea or the West Village or the East Village or Nolita or Tribeca or Soho or the Lower East Side or Murray Hill.)

11. I spent some time comparing prices and wishing that my supermarket had deals like this. Even the Whole Foods in Philadelphia was cheaper than anywhere I could shop in New York City. Maybe, I thought for the ten billionth time since moving to New York almost thirty years ago, it was time to consider leaving. If so, Philadelphia seemed like a good option.

12. Back near the art museum, we were walking through the Spring Garden historic district when a real estate agent asked if we wanted to see a house she was showing. We told her that we weren’t planning to move anytime soon, but she said we might change our mind if we saw the garden.

13. She was right and wrong about the garden: it was beautiful, but in a way that made us more thankful for our own.

Notes on Western Pennsylvania

1. Somehow I found myself in Pittsburgh, where the views were impressive but -- thanks to the altitude and steep climbs -- hard-earned, at least while I was running.

2. It was also about twenty degrees colder than it was New York. And windy.

3. But there was something familiar about the forlorn woods and overcast sky.

4. I ran through these woods a lot when I was a kid.

5. It's comforting to see the old bridges and creeks.

6. And the oak leaves resting on the gnarled roots.

7. And the ferns that glowed when there was a break in the clouds.

8. The Pennsylvania Turnpike is filled with tunnels. On one side is the west, whose haunted landscape is marked with hills and forests.

9. While the other side is flat, under a sky so blue that it could break.

Notes on When the Meat Puppets Ruled the World (90210)

1. The midterm elections ended, but the underlying dread continued. Possibly, it was even worse. There seemed to be no evidence that Republicans were beginning to understand the grave consequences of their ways; and somehow, half the country (more or less) keeps voting for them. How are we supposed to solve the feral-cat crisis and stop global warming?

2. Part of me want to retreat to the garden and not think about anything but carpet of leaves now covering the path.

3. Somehow I found myself inside watching the pilot of the original 90210.

4. I remembered how everyone hated Brenda, but watching it now, she's the best part.

5. At least among the regular cast. The best part of the pilot are the Meat Puppets, who can be seen playing at a pool party thrown by the richest girl in school. I've always loved the Meat Puppets, but not in a million years would I have predicted (even in the 1980s when they were more popular, albeit in post-hardcore circles) that they would appear in a big Hollywood show. In case you forgot or have succumbed to noxious Ronald Reagan nostalgia, the '80s were also a horrible political era, only slightly worse than now, and somehow the Meat Puppets -- a band whose trademark sound seemed to arise from political anarchy -- made it to network television. It seems even more miraculous now than it did at the time.

6. It proved that anything was possible, which in turn -- maybe, by extension -- proves that anything is still possible. (And that maybe art is part of the solution to our social and political anxiety.)

7. I wondered if the past seems more benign because it's over. I detested Ronald Reagan at the time, but he doesn't seem so bad now that he's dead compared to Donald Trump. And given that Republicans keep getting worse and worse, I can't even imagine who's going to be leading the party in 2024.

8. It was a lot to consider. I understood the tendency to hide under the ferns on a blanket of leaves.

9. And to think about the Meat Puppets singing 'this is paradise' to the rich, oblivious teens pushing each other into the pool.  


 

Notes on the Changing Color of Leaves

1. Was it me, or -- especially at this time of year -- was there an inversely proportional relationship between the 'badness' of the news and the beauty of the park?

2. Rather than worry about the news, I focused on the park.

3. I always walk this same loop -- as regular readers won't be surprised to hear :) -- and even though the loop is maybe one eighth of a mile long, and even though I find myself taking the same pictures week after week, I always find new things to admire: for example, the branch of the birch tree that cuts through the top of the picture. Why had I never noticed it before?

4. It helps that the perennials -- such as these purple asters -- are always blooming to replace the older ones that have faded away, and these new colors cause other parts of the landscape to advance and retreat.

5. It also helps that the leaves of the deciduous trees are turning yellow, orange, and red.

6. I had never noticed the branches of this elm tree before, but they were hard to ignore when highlighted by the yellow leaves.

7. And while I always admire these elms, the constantly shifting light -- a function of weather and season -- always makes their branches seem otherworldly and shocking. Usually, overwhelmed by the practical needs of life, I don't think about how trees grow, but here it's hard not to ask: how is it even possible that such things exist? (The oakleaf hydrangea is also having a moment.)

8. It's nice to be reminded that not every rose blooms in the spring.

9. I had reached an age where time, as a practical matter, felt somewhat more limited. A person can only live so long.

10. Recently I started (sometimes) thinking about (my) age in terms of adding and subtracting decades, e.g., two decades ago, I was a certain age, which means that two decades from now, I will be a very different age. This calculation -- and its implications -- probably won't make sense to anyone who isn't at least as old as I am. There's a lot to do and see on the earth, and time is the limiting factor.

11. Sometimes, it seems tragic.

12. But here, in this kaleidoscope of perfect light and color, time is irrelevant, which I try to remember when I leave the park and it begins to press down.

Notes on Tree Care in Unforgiving Landscapes

1. The morning, as predicted, was rainy and windy. After listening to the dire weather reports, I half-expected to see a ten-foot wall of water barreling down Broadway, but it was just the usual array of soggy oak leaves and fluorescent light bulbs (not pictured) blowing across the sidewalk.

2. There was something apocalyptic about the birds circling in the sky. I wondered if they were as agitated as everyone else by the political climate. Had they registered to vote? Were the Republicans trying to keep them away from the polls? Were entrenched Democrats belittling this progressive wing of the party? You see how a mind works in these uncertain times.

3. To distract myself, I thought about the Acer pseudoplatanus leaves in the fountain. Did the autumn light make the water more reflective? It felt good to contemplate a politically benign question. I also knew it was a luxury not everyone could afford.

4. Earlier in the week, in related news, we had an appointment with an arborist. He admired the birch but agreed that it needed to be thinned. He turned his attention to the Acer pseudoplatanus. "Is that a variegated variety?" he asked. We assured him that it was, and he nodded his approval. We understood. Clearly the world -- even in the global-warming era -- did not need another Acer platanoides.

5. We have to get the birch trimmed every two years or the garden won't get enough light, even the shade plants.

6. Here's a closeup of the Acer pseudoplatanus. You can see how the shape of the leaf might arouse suspicion, particularly at this point of the year when the variegation has faded.

7. We used to hire a (cheaper) suburban tree company to trim the birch, but subsequently turned to a New York City-based arborist that specializes in small gardens and street trees. They trimmed everything perfectly and added some sort of magic (but organic) fertilizer to the trees that greatly improved their health. It was far from cheap, but we paid (sort of) happily, having learned the hard way that scrimping on tree care creates more problems than it solves (if you want living trees). (Like mass transit and public infrastructure.)

8. We won't do the actually pruning and fertilizing for another month or two, when the trees are dormant. For now, we have a plan.

9. Even the ivy looked happy.

10. As did the toad lily, which is the kind of plant that can make do with a little light but will always relish a bit more.

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