Posted on January 24th, 2008 by Colin
I got an email in my inbox today from a good friend who had copied a bunch of known homosexuals asking the following question:
What are people’s general reactions to the men in this article? to this lifestyle?
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01
/24/garden/24haverland.html?_r =1&oref=slogin do you feel an automatic urge to tear your face off, or is living a life like this a secret (or not-so secret) ambition?
The article follows the the Galanes-Haverland couple and how expensive things and interior design has drawn them together and made them happy and gay together over the last 12 years.
In my dreams, I am so rich that I hire people like them to design my spaces and then I have a (illegal alien)maid that cleans up after me and helps me bathe so I don’t ever have to be responsible for my own filth. But not everyone is the sort of hedonist I pretend to be. And my buddies had a lot of interesting things to say that are worth sharing.
And now let the feeding frenzy of commentary that can only happen when too many type A personalities are CCed on an email begin!
First — The Lawyer:
When I read this, I never got past the first sentence b/c it kinda bugged me: “Many domestic partnerships are unraveled by a renovation or, at the very least, sorely frayed by one.”
I can’t quite put my finger on it, so I’m sorry if reading this is a waste of time for y’all, but using the phrase domestic partnership irks me.
The author seems to want to access some common understanding among the
readers that many a relationship have been torn asunder over renovations. I feel like the author wanted to write “marriages” but then realized the article was about gay couples. Instead, “domestic partnerships” was used as a stand-in - the author didn’t meant to limit the scope to only gay couples, but expects the reader to include straight couples as well in order to access the common understanding. It retroactively places gay couples within the understanding that developed from straight couples redecorating, but at the same time limits the scope to gays with a catty “You know how those gays are always breaking up over home decor!!” Why not just say “romantic relationships?” Why instead try to claim that understandings of straight couples always had room for gay couples?hmmm… i’m not being very clear. i’ve been researching NYC regs on statutes of limitation for the last few hours, so i think my brain is mush.
Next, The Horny Artist:
I’d like to exploit the rich, clean gays (they shave their armpits) vs poor, awesome queers (we lick armpits) tension by spending a weekend at THEIR place in the Hamptons.
(Ed. note: Ever licked a shaved armpit? It’s the best of both worlds.)
Next in the queue, The Aesthete:
I think Animal Prints are always a mistake. And yet look where the two of them pose:
And finally, The Explicitly Pornographic Response Full of Biting Sarcasm and Mild Hatred with a Marxist Edge
This couple strikes me as the kind so stiflingly bored as to solicit ethnic hustlers online to come shit on them and berate like a master flagellating his overweening red poodles.
Haverland: “Hey, honey. Our lives are so tedious — let’s go buy something expensive. Consumption will fill the void. Just keep buying before I can acknowledge how much I despise both of us.”
Galanes: “You’re right, sweetheart. Beautifully designed objects will make others think we’re interesting.”
Haverland: “So true. And the clean lines and sheer surfaces of our modernist bric-a-brac come clean with ease after Rodrigo trades off penetrating each of us with them.”
Galanes: “My colon still hasn’t fully recovered from taking most of that Herman Miller sunburst clock last week.”
Haverland: (chuckles) “Good times.”
“Starting Over, and Over, and Over”[NYT]
RSS Subscribe
Follow on Twitter
Facebook
January 24th, 2008 at 4:48 pm
Have to weigh in on the side of “the Marxist Edge” commentary as it expresses Pacific NW sensibilities the best. Hope Ed. continues to hold on to some of those sensibilities. Galanes and Haverland appear to be living out some sort of bad parody of Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged” - Uggh - I actually read the whole article.
[reply this comment]