Autumn passes and one remembers one's reverence
Collected Agenda #19
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WHAT I DID
Monday, November 10
It feels very important to parse through things very carefully today. I write down what I value: truth and beauty. mental and physical clarity. But then, there are other things, too. I don't experience life as this ethereal. Making big lists. Having big fun. Making big points. I write down: This is the thing I dislike about myself most; not experiencing things as this ethereal and wanting to make things like big points. I write down: when was the time you felt most transcendent?
Remember: I'm not writing auto fiction. I'm writing my diary. It's weird - picking up the pieces of things. I feel disdain when I see people exercising bad habits. You cannot imagine my horror as I self destruct.
Picture This: on the Upper West Side, things are quiet. The stone walls on the edge of the park are lined with trimmed hedges in the summer, but the branches are bare now, and so, you see, now, that the skeletons have always been jagged. The subway has been nicer lately, better to step inside when the warm air is a relief and nothing is steaming. I like the uptown F, the cars with the orange seats, the stations where there's no one there so you can hear the doors whoosh. Picture this: you go to The Central Park Zoo, you wear a Christmas dress, you go to Sarabeth's for lunch, pancakes, toast. After, you don't go window shopping but you do walk home. Not your home, it belongs to someone else, but it's familiar. You make tea by big French windows. The trees are bare already, remember, and so picture the precision with which you can watch the people on the street below. They don't look like little ants, you aren't that high up, they just look as they are - little people in and out. People looking for something. It’s like they are on a little treasure hunt. Imagine you would wish them the best. You wouldn't close the windows - not for a while, at least
David told me I smelled like winter when I got home today. I didn't. I smelled like eucalyptus. You would too after a few minutes in that steam room in SoHo.
I can’t stop spending money the instant that I make it. I can’t stop spending money like I have it.
I have stopped purchasing stuff. I like to wear the same thing most days. I like to sort TheRealReal Black Blazers prices low to high and buy five at once, eight dollars each. When they arrive, they are still nice material and still from places like Armani or at least Theory and you spend little and you can sell them for more when it’s time to declutter.
It’s been so wonderful to declutter lately. I’ve gotten rid of almost all of it - stuff, I mean. In the new place, there are no closets. I’ve gotten rid of all my storage space. I’ve gotten rid of all my streams of income. My Stuff is still in storage somewhere. Not in New York. I’ll sell it soon. You can have some but not all my earthly possessions if you want them. You can have the ones I’ve packed away.
I like this idea – “Autumn passes and one remembers one's reverence”
Tuesday, November 11
My new favorite blog is this - Health Gossip. It’s an old school newsletter. The health advice is very Pure and True, but more than this, it is beautiful to consume. Health Gossip is my favorite thing on the Internet this week. Very rarely does something in digital form elicit a real sense of calm in me. Usually, things in digital form make me feel kind of manic and bad. I’m not sure why this project strikes me so profoundly. Today, I spend multiple hours reading Health Gossip.
A writer texts me after last week's letter - “your writing is always “good” ie flashy/ineffable… but this one bummed me out.”
I’m not sure if he’s referring to the happenings of the week, or to the passivity, lethargy, dare I say gluttony and sludge… with which I’ve been diluting my descriptions of it all. I don't ask him to clarify. Regardless, his assessment of the piece in some sense parallels my own, and an attempt to dredge out an opinion from an acquaintance I admire that might placate my own sense of shame does not feel like an endeavor of any significance. “it bummed me out to write… ”, I say.
We’re at a large group dinner at Olive Garden Times Square tonight. The host picked this place with a genuine fervor, nothing snidely ironic about it, and so I am more good humored in this venture than would be my usual inclination. It's less kitschy here then I l expected, anyways. Wall to wall carpeting, lots of families, lazy susan’s, the color schemes of muted Americana. I have a healthy appreciation for Times Square Charm. I have a healthy Relationship With Capitalism. I can't really eat the food here but isn't some of it just so fun to look at.
I'm drifting in and out of focus at dinner - preoccupied by unrelated concerns of wavering integrity and petty betrayal, not important, not interesting. When I do tune in, a girl across the table is talking about Politics.
“My grandma is spending her time so worried about school shooters because it's an obsession of the news,” she says. “It makes me angry and so sad for her. She shouldn't be spending her time thinking about this.”
I get her sentiment a little bit. A sensationalist sense of doom that makes my skin crawl at some family dinners. Sometimes, there is frost on the grass just outside the window and when it catches my eye during these conversations - look at the dew, look at the mist, there are fawns in the field - then I just want to scream. But then, I worry sometimes that I am not very empathetic. I am envious, sometimes, of people who become utterly consumed by suffering that for the most part, they could simply look away from.
Nihilism is something I am trying to avoid for the main reason of - its been breeding cruelty more than healthy removal, lately.
Walking through Times Square after, David asks me if I am ok. I guess my eyes have glazed over. I realize this now, that it's been called to my attention.
“Of course,” I say.
“I worry that everything in my life is going to very suddenly fall apart,” I say.
I am reassured. The night passes peacefully.
Thursday, November 14
I take the Q to the end of the line today. It's something I've always wanted to do - take the train until the cars stop and I'm the last one left on board and a voice comes on and says please exit the train for cleaning, this is the last stop on this train, please exit the train so the train can be cleaned.
I'm in Bay Ridge to shoot a music video today. To be an extra in a music video, that is. I'm exceptionally bad at acting. I'm bad enough that I am even bad as an extra. I'm not particularly bad at lying, but I am bad at having an expressive face.
The neighborhood at the end of the Q is nice. I've been taken to other places in New York like this before. Places where you feel like you're by the seaside, where you're under the bridge, where the architecture is more brick, more limestone, more instances of art deco. The Hudson widens into the open ocean somewhere not too far from here and so of course the air feels different. It's strange, even if anticipated, to take the subway ninety minutes to a place where the air feels different, to walk down strange streets and into an unfamiliar gothic building, to open the door to a room where I have never been, and to find it filled with people I mostly already know. The past few years have given me many instances like this. This is something I am very grateful for.
The music video is for DDM / Uncensored New York. It's a cool concept. It's cool to watch things come to life. The shoot is outside, and I am the coldest I have ever been. I'm still having fun. I'm thinking about things like how monks orient their consciousness and focus towards the cause of their suffering, and then I am trying to think only about the cold. I am not able to transcend myself, but even freezing, I don't wish I was elsewhere.
In the afternoon, I sit in a warm car and I thaw my hands. I have miso soup, tea, and cheese sticks. There is still a chill in me even once inside, which is simultaneously unpleasant and cozy. I'd been wanting a day like this very badly.
Friday, November 15
Beckett's Tense comes together with serendipity. There was a crisis with the headliners, Lucy Sante was sick. Beckett ran into Penny Arcade outside of Madame Matovu on 10th. Now, Penny is the headliner. The unsalvageable is always salvaged. The bar can serve real liquor tonight. There's a lot of people here and it's a different crowd than usual. Tense is back in Manhattan. Penny says she’s here because she wants to see what the new New York is doing.
I give Beckett a hug at Sovereign House. I say hi to Chris and Adeline. Chris and Adeline are drawing big Tense bubble letters on the chalkboard. The seats are already mostly full. I climb to the top of a ladder and I sit up there. From up there, I have the best view in the house.
Tense is not just a reading series, Tense is a show, and this distinction is important. There is a program, an order of events, a flow of new and old. The serendipity with Penny’s arrival lies in this - she seems to understand exactly what Beckett is doing, and while she didn’t write her piece specifically for TENSE (she describes it as “cultural criticism you can dance to”), it speaks with exaction to the spirit of things.
Here are some things that Penny Arcade says:
I’d rather put a stick in my eye than go somewhere where everyone is the same age. When I was young, if I went to a party and everyone was under thirty I thought... I'm at the wrong party.”
“I’m going to read from my show that a lot of people think is a criticism of young people, but is actually a criticism of what's been done to young people.”
“All the documentaries are about dead artists. They wouldn't recognize a living artist if they sat on their face.”
“Community is a different word for lineage. the people that are still here tonight... that says a lot about you.”
Beckett reads about The Providence Hotel, Chris reads about The Circus, Adeline reads poems.
Afterwards, I stick around for a while. Ellie arrives. I try to get late dinner but there’s no one seating diners at this hour. I walk back to Sovereign House. The UFC fight is playing now. On a split screen, Mike Tyson is telling a small child that he doesn’t dream of legacy because when you die, your ego dies with you.
When I get home, I have a text from a number I haven’t saved yet. It’s a photo with Ellie and her friend that I don’t remember taking.
“The Three Graces,” it says. “Loved meeting you xoxo Penny”
WHAT YOU SHOULD DO
Tuesday, November 19
In her Substack, Natasha Stagg recommends The White Ribbon screening at Metrograph this afternoon at 3:30pm. I imagine you might find a strange appeal in luxuriating in a weekday afternoon theater experience that will leave you feeling as awful as this film is sure to. Natasha also recommends the new menu in the commissary, but Shannon recently told me it's fallen far from its glory days. I'll have to stop by soon (maybe tomorrow, at 3:30pm) to see for myself.
For menswear enthusiasts - Richard Press (grandson of J.Press founder) presents his recent book on a life in American tailoring and the history of J.Press. Hosted by The New Criterion at the J. Press shop on 44th Street. (RSVP)
From 6:30pm at Tibet House — Arden Wohl presents another installment of the reading series “The Relentless Shadow Where The Light Surrenders”; featuring David Rimanelli - one of my favorite writers (and also my favorite Instagram account to follow). As supplemental reading, might I recommend his 1994 piece in Frieze on Mike Kelley and The Career Retrospective (here)
From 7pm at Principles — August Lamm wants you to throw out your smart phone! Like a true addict, I feel vaguely nauseous every time I see August’s get-your-life-back propaganda. I’ve been seeing this a lot lately, because I am on my phone a lot, and because said propaganda is uneasily compelling. August says that the one thing you know to be true about your life in a decade is that You’ll Probably Still Be On Your Phone. Well isn’t that a depressing thought! Your phone won’t save you, but the You Don’t Need Your Smartphone Pamphlet Launch might.
From 7pm at Sovereign House — One Man Army hosts Vol 5 of Anthology Film Festival Paradise Shredition
From 8pm at TJByrnes — Patio presents their third evening of reading. Featuring Alissa Bennett, Taylor Lewandowski, Walker Rutter-Bowman, Maya Martinez, Sarah Wang, and Alexander Sammartino.
Wednesday, November 20
From 7pm - 8:30pm — The Brooklyn Center for Theater Research comes to Tribeca for a one-night-only performance of One Winged Dove. – “This probing, philosophical play does not provide answers, only questions.”
From 6pm - 8pm — Russian Cosmism Circle (of which I am a member) hosts their first in person event at TJ Byrnes. Come discuss the cosmos with Amana and Clare Koury. Co-presented by Russian Cosmism Circle NYC, Clocked Out Magazine, and Alyssa Davis Gallery
From 7pm - 11pm — InPulse hosts The Brainrot Symposium - “diving into the surreal, unstoppable world of brainrot”. I am very excited for this event (put on by Katya). DJs to follow the symposium. **addendum - if you’d like to Theme Your Week; follow a Tuesday at the Anti-Smart Phone Pamphlet Launch with a Wednesday spent Intellectualizing Your Brain Rot.
From 8pm — Blade Study presents a solo performance night by jour.ney. - “if you die during playtime you die in real life”
From 8pm - 12pm — Club Chess and Silencio Please Cafe host a late-autumn loft listening room. Music by cz wang.
Later (from 10pm - late) at Jean’s — Teddy Quinlivan hosts another rendition of new house and electronic party series Electric Pussycat
Thursday, November 21
Aimee Armstrong is looking for extras for her new movie – email doll.webseries@gmail.com if you want to spend your day ACTING. I don’t act, but I had tons of fun spending my day in a similar manner for DDM last week. Something to consider!
From 6pm - 9pm at The Front Gallery— Dirty Magazine and Mint&Serf present the Dvashe Launch Party. RSVP here.
From 7pm — Kos Kaffe presents the first installment of Roasting House Reading; a soon to be monthly series
From 7:30pm at Russian Samovar — Cluny Journal celebrates launch ft readings by Ariana Reines, Michael W. Clune, and August Lamm. Hosted by Jordan Castro and Luke Burgis. Solo preformance by LITVRGY.
Friday, November 22
From 6pm - 8pm — IRL Gallery is opening in Tribeca with a solo show by L. Song Wu. The new location (86 Walker) is stacked – also home to Kapp Kapp, The Hole, Tiwa, and Lomex.
From 8pm - late at Sovereign House — Expat Press is hosting an evening of readings and performance. This is another one I’m personally very excited about - lots of very special out of town writers and artists are showing up for the occasion. Ft Curtis Eggleston, Sean Kilpatrick, Nicholas Rall (w/ E_Death), Forrest Muelrath, Lily Bix Daw, Vivi Hayes, and Chloe Wheeler.
Saturday, November 23
From 6pm - 10pm — New Uncanny Gallery celebrates the opening of “an image of your labor hovers over me” in their office room - curated by Qingyuan Deng, featuring works by Gunner Dongieux, Adriana Furlong, Christian Amaya Garcia, and Dominic Palarchio. The story behind the space and the exhibition is interesting, and too complex to summarize in a few sentences. Worth reading here. The official press release will be performed at the opening.
From 7pm at Webster Hall — How Long Gone is hosting a Live Show.
From 9pm — The Brooklyn Center for Theater Research is hosting Friendsgiving. There will be a raffle for free tickets to Doomers and Dimes Square. Bring food to share if you want.
Sunday, November 24
From 3pm — One of you invited me to the Rachel Sennott lookalike contest. We have to put a stop to this. That being said, if you look like Rachel Sennott… The Winning Rachel Will Receive $50 And A Trophy
OF FURTHER INTRIGUE
To read: The Painted Protest, by Dean Kissic
To read: Beckett Rosset's Reading List
To listen: NM Talkcore: Writer Gideon Jacobs on Trump as image
I picked up a copy of the new Whitney Review yesterday, and it’s great. Purchase here.
I still need to try Bridges
CoinBase is hiring a marketing intern. If this is your thing and you are of the Intern-Demographic, apply! If it’s not… well, I hear the markets are roaring.
Chloe you did an amazing job seriously -- one of the best. DDM approved ty for being a part of it.
<3
Love your voice and its continual coming into