Remember how I went to Florida a few weeks ago and spent the whole time staring at the grass? Here’s the evidence. I sort of think that it looks like a picture of a crowd at an outdoor concert in front of the stage. Okay it looks like grass. What I’m really saying is that I still I can’t believe it’s 2012.
And speaking of dying, I’m on suicide watch because I forgot my cell phone today, which means I can’t get into ANY of my Google accounts. Why do I need my cell phone to get into my Google accounts? I will tell you why: A few weeks ago I had this horrible thing happen where my Yahoo account started spamming the ONE PERSON in the world I least wanted to be spammed, and so I basically instituted the pentagon of security procedures across all of my accounts, which has subsequently turned my life into a wreckage of complicated passwords and verification codes, including the one that was sent to my phone by Google (this of course being the one day where Google resets the account and requires the verification code they send to my cell phone). If by chance you lose your phone, it can take 3-5 days to set up a new verification and access your account. Hence: suicide. My last resort is to call Elektra: “Oh, hello Elektra — can you check my phone — Google sent me a verification code and I left my phone on the desk. Thanks, I know you’re 20 percent smarter than Dante and Zephyr, which is why I called you.”
This is a cool cover of a song that will always be near to my heart because I remember first hearing it when I was a sophomore in high school (1984). I had left Pittsburgh for boarding school in Michigan to PLAY HOCKEY (which should give you an idea about exactly how deep in the closet I was), and somehow ended up becoming friends with some of the new-wave kids, in particular this guy Scott (still one of my best friends), who had all the great new bands from the UK and I remember being at his house (he was a “day student” or more derisively among the boarders a “day gay,” which was a universal term, people just said it without thinking twice: “oh is he a day gay?”) and hearing this song, and sort of being afraid of it/having my mind blown, in part because it was SO GAY (not that we even talked about it in those terms, but of course I knew), but in a serious and sparse but still emotive way (obv) that was very different (to me anyway) than more comical stuff like Frankie Goes to Hollywood, etc. Not that there’s anything wrong with Frankie, etc., but it’s nice to remember that being gay—or maybe more to the point, BEING VERY GAY—doesn’t mean you have to be any LESS serious (or less serious about the art you’re making) than your non-homosexual counterparts, and that others can’t appreciate it for what it is, which in case it wasn’t obvious, I’m now talking about the thing you hear about a lot in publishing where supposedly nobody reads “serious” slash literary gay fiction except gays, which is a bullshit attitude I expect to fight until the day I die.
Smalltown Boy (Bronski Beat)
Electrelane
(via theawl)
YOU GUYS: FREEEEEEEEEEEE BOOOOOOOOOZE NEXT TUESDAY IF YOU COME TO MY READING IN WILLIAMSBURG with Christopher Boucher (HOW TO KEEP YOUR VOLKSWAGEN ALIVE). I’m 100-percent serious about the free-booze part. As for the reading, I’m in that phase where I’m a bit burned out on THE METROPOLIS CASE (is that bad to admit? — sorry!) but nervous as hell about reading something new. But really, who cares because: FREE BOURBON! WE WILL GET DRUNK TOGETHER FOR FREE! How much bourbon can you drink in 30 minutes? Let’s find out! When we are all sufficiently blitzed/wasted/tanked/obliterated/shitfaced/more-than-tipsy-to-say-the-least, I guess we’re going to play some word game called “Apples 2 Apples” because we are NERDS. #battlestargalactica Details below from the kind organizers of this event. See you there! <3 <3 <3
Matthew Gallaway is the author of The Metropolis Case: A Novel, whose four narrators are linked across space and time by their enthusiasm for Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde. In the New York Times, Scott Timberg wrote that “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 characters that it quickly draws you into its worlds.” He lives in Washington Heights and also writes for The Awl and The Millions.
I don’t know if I’d necessarily want to use any of these fabrics, but it’s kind of awesome knowing that they still exist by the thousands in the midtown garment district.
There’s a dingy little canal next to my parents’ condominium in Florida, but thanks to the light and the grass, it was easy to imagine that I was looking at something relatively untouched.
Dante: I’m worried about so many things—global warming, the extinction of animals, the human population crossing 8 billion, the moon colony, unemployment, homelessness, I could go on and on.
Zephyr: Did you say there’s going to be a moon colony, because I want in on that.
The light was seriously amazing this afternoon. I would write more but I’ve been feeling shaky and vulnerable all day after seeing Antony and the Johnsons last night at Radio City, which damn, I wasn’t exactly a fan going in, but I was 100-percent obliterated (in a good way) by the time I left.
One thing I’ve learned over the years is that I am never not drawn to clusters of little red berries on trees, such as this one, which I think is a Dahoon or Florida Holly Tree (Ilex cassine).
