The sunset as we flew into New York City was intense.
For a few minutes it took my mind away from the dread of flying.
And landing.
And the woman in the seat behind me who wouldn't stop coughing.
Here's a new song I wrote:
Link.
If you like videos of clouds, you're in for a treat :)
This was another year in which the city felt very near (because I live in it, which is a survival technique) and very far (because I stay away from it, which is another survival technique). I did go downtown a handful of times over the course of the year. Mostly I took short-term rental e-bikes (Citibike), which is my 2022 Survival Technique of the Year (TM).
E-bikes should be a survival technique for everyone. They’re easy to ride, they’re relatively fast, but they still feel like bikes (as opposed to motorcycles or scooters). They’re obviously safer and better for the environment than cars. Ranting about cars and the space they take up in the city, while moving (dangerously) and while in storage on public property (aka ‘street parking’) has been another survival technique of 2022.
Back to e-bikes, the infrastructure for biking (and e-biking) remains terrible in New York City, however. Most bike lanes are painted on the road next to parked cars, and protected lanes are often blocked by whoever feels like parking there and especially police cars. Having biked around the city, it’s clear to me that cops like to troll bikers by parking in bike lanes and generally harassing them. Guess what? I get it. There’s a minority of bikers who are very annoying. They have flashy, expensive gear and they go too fast in bike lanes that are shared with runners and walkers. They scold you a lot. They vote for neoliberal politicians, even now. But this minority should not dictate the behavior of the police or the many, many more obnoxious drivers who think it’s fun to drive within inches of a biker (or worse). I dream about having a mayor who can mobilize her (because it will probably be a woman) administration to radically overhaul city streets, so that e-bikes are a viable means of getting around throughout the year.
Also, can we stop spending money on useless advertising campaigns such as this one? Is there a single driver in 2022 who saw this ad and thought ‘you know, I really do need to slow down’? The solution to speeding drivers is enforcement by way of speed cameras and serious penalties against the increasing number of drivers (including 98 percent of cops and firefighters) who bend or deface license plates to avoid detection by speed cameras. Anyway, cars and their drivers are a major problem in New York City, and they should be heavily regulated. I look forward to complaining about them more in 2023.
Moving on from cars, Fort Tryon Park continues to be a big survival technique for me. why aren’t we investing more in parks?
I keep this image on my phone and laugh at it sometimes, which is a survival technique. Which speaking of phones reminds me: another survival technique of 2022 was turning off all notifications (sound and visual) for texts and phone calls, and especially social media apps. I’m not sure I logged onto my FB in 2022, though, which is another survival technique. That and gloating about the demise of IG. I’ll never understand why so many people are like ‘FB is evvvil — I would never! — but oh btw here’s my Insta.’ Ranting about social media is a perennial survival technique.
Let’s return to the park. Its beauty speaks for itself, n’est-ce pas?
Last year at this time, I wasn’t able to get to the park because I injured my knee pretty badly, which brings me to another big survival technique of 2022: physical therapy. Thank you, PT, for getting me back into running shape.
And thank you, Feldenkrais, for making me more aware of how I move. You might be surprised to learn that even if you don’t go downtown all the time like you used to do, you still tend to move around a lot, and there are ways to do it that bring more and less pain to your body. Thank you to my mother for getting me started in Feldenkrais. (Survival technique: listen to your mother — survival technique — sometimes.)
Running is generally a safe activity in the city, with one caveat: there are a lot of bumpy sidewalks that inevitably lead to comical (to observers) but painful (to participants) face plants when your toe catches on the edge of a raised square of concrete. (This is something else that should be fixed when they #bancars.) Feldenkrais has been a good survival technique during these unfortunate moments because in addition to teaching me how to sit and stand, it has taught me how to fall.
Moving on to our next category, gardening continued to be another big survival technique for me (and I’m sure it’s safe to say, Stephen) in 2022. As it’s something I regularly write about here, I won’t talk too much about it other than to say that we recently had a visit to our garden from a hawk, who made a meal of a pigeon while the cats looked on in awe through the window. With condolences to the pigeon, this is peak gardening, and I look forward to more of it in 2023.
I’m sorry, I forgot to post some of the ten thousands pictures I recently took in the heather gardens of Fort Tryon Park during the recent polar vortex.
Parks, gardens, heather: all should be considered survival techniques as we head into 2023 and beyond.
And elm trees.
And cats. I want to make a special mention to Zephyr, who despite having kidney problems turned sixteen this year and has been a critical player in my survival-technique strategy for his entire life. What would we do without cats?
And finally, in addition to Clio being cute — another survival technique for both of us — here’s my final DeathCulture@Sea survival technique (aka ‘song’) of 2022.
Link.
Like every song I’ve ever written, it’s about getting through another year and finding some beauty along the way :)
What happened in 2022? In the garden, we planted a new Japanese maple to replace an azalea (RIP). I'm old enough to feel some momentary sorrow planting trees in the garden, knowing that I probably won't be around to see it at the height of its powers, but it's also true that, so long as the tree lives, every year is better than the last. Let's just say this tree had a good year in 2022, and I'm looking forward to seeing how it does in 2023.
Here's our other Japanese maple, which is probably thirteen or fourteen years old (assuming it was one or two when we bought it from a mail-order nursery in Oregon). It doesn't turn red until December.
Our statue had a good year in 2022.
Statues and trees share a few things in common that make them different than people: they look nice in gardens and they tend to grow more beautiful with age.
Beyond the garden, my favorite record of 2022 was Once Twice Melody, by Beach House. Does everyone listen to Beach House? I feel like they should be bigger than the Beatles, but I don't think that's the case. Their music falls somewhere between synth pop, chill wave, and psychedelic drone rock. Their records are beautifully arranged and produced, the songs tuneful and catchy without being insipid. The music is comfortable and interesting, but not too demanding. I can play Beach House in the background when I'm working on something rote, and I can imagine seeing them at a concert if I ever start going to concerts again. (Maybe.) It's comfortable and interesting music. I love having Beach House songs stuck in my head.
For books, I already wrote about my favorite book of 2022, My Dead Book, by Nate Lippens. When we look back at literature of the Covid pandemic, My Dead Book should be at the top of the list. Otherwise, I've been reading novels by Doris Grumbach, who recently died. I think my favorite is The Ladies, about a lesbian couple in 19th-century England (it has a very Gentleman Jack vibe, if you saw that show on HBO), but Grumbach's other novels are also very interesting. Her characters tend to lead sad, desperate lives before they are abruptly killed off, which may not sound very entertaining but reflects a reality of life -- especially gay life -- in the twentieth century that I don't believe we as a culture have come to terms with. Doris Grumbach writes in a very clear, erudite manner that recalls other celebrated writers of her era, specifically jerks like John Updike and Philip Roth. As time passes, let's hope their books sink into the sand as the work of Doris Grumbach -- more truthful to more kinds of people -- lives on.
If playing Spelling Bee and Wordle count as a reading books, I spent a lot of time reading this year. Note Clio's reaction to my dumb joke. As usual, I watched some television, but I don't remember any of it, so I have no recommendations beyond a plea to write to Japan and ask them to resurrect Terrace House, which will always be my favorite television show.
Back to the garden, I wanted to mention another highlight of 2022, which was that our woodland peony flowered for the first time. The flowers were pleasant enough but -- wow -- the seed pods were amazing, and they opened up in the fall, when every garden needs a splash of blood red.
We planted the seeds, but they take several years to germinate. Be sure to check back in 2028 for updates!
As usual, December arrived with a lot of dread. Another year gone, the world in disarray, non-stop coverage of the corrupt and pointless World Cup, the knowledge that we have three-four months of snow and cold before actual spring starts (unless we have a warm winter, a perverse but undeniable hope in the global-warming era): these are just a few of the terrible things we must endure in December 2022.
In the park, most of the plants have entered winter mode, which means a lot of naked tree branches and brown leaves, but as I looked a little closer, I was pleased to find trees already budding. December has a silver lining, perhaps.
And while this isn't a sign of spring, the absence of leaves gives the beautiful architecture of the elm trees a chance to shine.
I've been listening to the new Weyes Blood album, which is called And in the Darkness, Hearts Aglow. It's a perfect soundtrack for December. I first became obsessed with Weyes Blood three years ago, just as the pandemic was unfolding. Titanic Rising (from 2019) and her previous album (Front Row Seat to Earth, which might be my favorite) were on constant repeat in 2020. Her songs are always sad, but are too beautiful and strange to feel hopeless. As many reviewers have pointed out, she often seems like the sonic and spiritual descendant of Karen Carpenter. I remember getting a notification from [the corporate music streaming service to which I subscribe] saying that I was one of the most avid listeners of Weyes Blood. I felt a little embarrassed about it, like I was stalking her. This year, Weyes Blood was third on my most-listened-to list, after Beach House (who I can now feel embarrassed about stalking) and Cemeteries (who isn't new, but I didn't know about until this year).
I'm looking forward to listening to new music this year, and visiting the park many times.
I hope they repair the hole in the path where I recently twisted my ankle! It was a bad sprain, but I've recovered :)
The December light is scarce but magical.
Against all reason, it keeps us coming back for more.
One of the things I've always loved about Manhattan are the many secret places that, if you can find them, will take you to another part of the world. Last week on a long run, I found one of these spots in Inwood Hill Park, which is at the northern tip of the island. I've spent a fair amount of time over the years running and walking through this park, but I had never followed this trail, which curves under the Henry Hudson Bridge and follows the Harlem River (as seen in the above picture).
But on that first run I didn't have a camera, and in my memories, this scene seemed too beautiful to be believed. It sometimes happens on long runs that you see things that turn out to be not quite real. Shark fins in the Hudson, pterodactyls spiraling off the GWB, the old woman with orange hair who limps up and down the West Side in the predawn. It really just depends on how many miles you're into the run and how dehydrated you are.
This past Saturday, I decided to take my phone with me so that I would know for sure.
I followed the same route as before. At the end of Dyckman, I turned north and ran past the baseball fields to the pedestrian overpass that's next to the ruins of what appears to have once been a small skating rink. On the other side of the overpass, I did not go through a scary looking tunnel (a mistake I made years ago that dropped me into a homeless encampment under the highway) and instead followed the path to the left, which just as I remembered from the previous week curved around the tip of the island and delivered me into this oasis of light and autumn leaves.
I'm not quite sure these photographs -- which remind me a little bit of a paint-by-numbers painting you'd find in your friend's basement when you were a kid -- do it justice.
It was also too hot (via global warming) and humid.
But I loved being here for a few minutes.
Now when I think about 'escape' this is the picture that comes to mind.
xxxxxxxxxxxxx
I'm reposting this new DeathCutlure@Sea video as a test of Typepad (the host of this blog) and Feedio (my feed service), which both seem to be a bit erratic these days :( and because the first part of the video features live footage of Inwood Hill Park driving south from the Henry Hudson on the West Side of Manhattan :)
I went to a Halloween party in our garden and it was … scary. I managed to take some pictures, though. Check out these three, who went as lantern moths, which IRL are big and slow and gross.
Props for a realistic costume, though!
Someone else went as Clio.
This grape vine costume was pretty scary and realistic. If you look closely, you'll see one of the people dressed as a lantern moth who got drunk and clingy, which was embarrassing!
A bunch of people also went as toad lilies. They were having a lot of fun in one of the corners. I guess they were all friends in college or something.
This girl seriously went all out:)
A dying fern costume is always a party favorite.
This group, dressed as hardy begonia seed pods, kept to themselves and gave off a moodier vibe.
Someone came as the paint ball that one of the neighbors threw into the garden. #CreAtiVe
Not every costume was scary.
This guy who came as a marigold won first place.
****Note to readers: my blog hosting company (Typepad) was having a meltdown, so you may have missed important pictures of fog and this amazing new DeathCulture@Sea song :) ****
In the park, I knew that I had seen these plants before, but everything looked different and a little strange.
Where did this yellow carpet come from?
The fog made the park look like a dream.
When I woke up and looked at the weather, my hopes were high. I loved the cool, sunny days we had been having, but it was time for a change.
It wasn't like the fog had addressed anything I usually complain about, but I found that I had nothing to complain about. The fog was a filter.
In the actual fog, I forgot that we are living in a metaphorical fog of sickness, death, and destruction. Or maybe we're not. Maybe we're living in a fog of uncertainty, which is a constant.
I've been trying not to worry so much about the coming weeks/months/years.
But dread is very addictive.
I can escape it for a few moments, now and again.
The fog helps.
It's only been overcast for one day, but I already miss the cool, sunny days that we've been enjoying.
Fortunately, just outside our back door, we have a planter filled with marigolds. Stephen planted them in the spring with some basil.
The marigolds stopped blooming during the heat waves of July and August, but when when it cooled down again, it was like they were reborn. And this time around, they were more wild, stretching and cascading over the edge. They are living in the moment.
Some years, we buy chrysanthemums at Home Depot and while I enjoy the color of these plants, I always feel a bit guilty supporting the disposable-plant industrial complex.
It's not like the marigolds are going to last, either, but it somehow feels better having them for the whole season.
With a little bit of time, they have become truer versions of themselves.
Now when I step out the front door, I imagine what my block would look like if the city removed a row of private car storage and replaced it with a long strip of marigolds.
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.