Chloe Pingeon is a recurring person in the Collected Agenda archive, appearing 31 times across 31 issues between May 19, 2024 and August 28, 2025. The archive places it in contexts such as "Thanks for reading Chloe Pingeon!"; "Thanks for reading Chloe Pingeon! Subscribe for free"; "Thanks for reading Chloe Pingeon's Substack". It most often appears alongside Collected Agenda, New York, Sovereign House.
- Article page
- Chloe Pingeon
- Mention count
- 31
- Issue count
- 31
- First seen
- May 19, 2024
- Last seen
- August 28, 2025
- Instagram handle
- @idontreallyexistokay
Outbound links
Issue trail
- COLLECTED AGENDA #1
- COLLECTED AGENDA #2
- COLLECTED AGENDA #3
- COLLECTED AGENDA #4
- COLLECTED AGENDA #5
- COLLECTED AGENDA #6
- COLLECTED AGENDA #7
- COLLECTED AGENDA #8
- What Are You Doing In The Fall?
- Statues Of Critics.
- I wish I had more to say about fashion week.
- Ways to be sincere.
- Mimetic Theories of Doing Nothing
- October in America
- Everything I Wanted
- Collected Agenda with Vivien Lee
- Indulging in the Eschaton
- Counterculture in America
- Collected Agenda with Lydia Sviatoslavsky
- Autumn passes and one remembers one's reverence
- Collected Agenda (lite)
- Moral Framework
- Christmas Stories
- The End Of The Year
- End of the Cold Front
- My Glass House
- Your Favorite Grifters Favorite Grifter
- 52 Notifications From Hell
- Rules for Clarity
- A supposedly fun thing I’ll never do again
- Arrowhead expert
Related pages
Source context
Thanks for reading Chloe Pingeon! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
Jack Skelley’s new book Myth Lab: Theories of Plastic Love out July 2 from Far West Press and available for pre-order Thanks for reading Chloe Pingeon! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
Inline links: Jack Skelley’s, Myth Lab: Theories of Plastic Love
Thanks for reading Chloe Pingeon! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
Transcribing my planner and my plans - events, screenshots, restaurants, exhibitions, party flyers etc Thanks for reading Chloe Pingeon! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
A Note: Thanks for reading Chloe Pingeon's Substack! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. I Solemnly Swear I Will Never Write Another Late COLLECTED AGENDA Ever Again
Thanks for reading Chloe Pingeon's Substack! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
I always worry that things that are new will be sterile and awful but the new apartment isn’t. The new apartment is magical. I’m on the roof looking at both the Empire State Building and the One World Trade Center and a big billboard that says CHLOÉ. I’m looking at the outlines of people’s windows glowing yellow far away, and the outlines of people’s curtains glowing brighter past the fire escapes close by.
Inline links: CHLOÉ
Chloe Pingeon is a writer and arts publicist based in New York.
Inquiries: chloegpingeon@gmail.com
Thanks for reading Chloe Pingeon's Substack! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
Chloe Pingeon is a writer and arts publicist based in New York
What I did: Dienst & Dotter, SARA’S at Dunkensthalle, Knickerbocker Bar & Grill What you should do: Devil’s Workshop, TENSE, Blade Study, Jack Skelley Myth Lab Thanks for reading Chloe Pingeon's Substack! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
Thanks for reading Chloe Pingeon's Substack! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
WHAT I DID Thanks for reading Chloe Pingeon's Substack! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
Later on Sunday at 10pm - there’s The Right Side of History: A Comedy Show at The Stand, featuring Ivy Wolk, Chloe Troast, and many others.
Thanks for reading Chloe Pingeon's Substack! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
WHAT I DID Thanks for reading Chloe Pingeon's Substack! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
Saturday, August 31 from 1pm - 6pm — Mars Review of Books celebrates the end of summer with a white party in Connecticut, hosted at the estate where Ernest Hemingway wrote one of his earlier works. Drinks and catering provided, musical entertainment, bring your swimsuit. Tickets for the party, as well as for a more intimate vip dinner, are available here. Thanks for reading Chloe Pingeon's Substack! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
Inline links: Mars Review of Books, here
Thanks for reading Chloe Pingeon's Substack! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
WHAT I DID — San Salvador, Lago de Coatepeque, El Zonte Thanks for reading Chloe Pingeon's Substack! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
Saturday, August 31 from 1pm - 6pm — Mars Review of Books celebrates the end of summer with a white party in Connecticut, hosted at the estate where Ernest Hemingway wrote one of his earlier works. Drinks and catering provided, musical entertainment, bring your swimsuit. Tickets for the party, as well as for a more intimate vip dinner, are available here. Thanks for reading Chloe Pingeon's Substack! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
Inline links: Mars Review of Books, here
Thanks for reading Chloe Pingeon's Substack! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
WHAT I DID Thanks for reading Chloe Pingeon's Substack! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
To mark your calendars: Beckett Rosset will be hosting the biggest TENSE yet on Friday, September 27. More details forthcoming. Thanks for reading Chloe Pingeon's Substack! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
Inline links: Beckett Rosset, TENSE
WHAT I DID Thanks for reading Chloe Pingeon's Substack! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. Monday, September 2 I’ve been freelancing this summer, going back to school for a degree in cultural criticism. I'm hesitant to share any of this, I’m hesitant to share any purpose I have in mind for myself. I would like to tell people I spend my time lying listless in the sun. I tell a friend I’m getting my master’s in cultural criticism and he rolls his eyes. God, people like you need to be put out of your misery, he says. He’s a crude man, prone to social faux pas often intentional and sometimes not, and so I don’t take the thinly veiled death threat personally. I do balk in the face of the fact that I worry he might be right. I’ve been suspecting this for a while, actually. There’s a neurosis in my specific brand of ambition that turns it sordid when given too much thought. There’s a vulgarity in anything that too smugly equates fact and opinion. There’s a vulgarity in voyeurism. They don’t build statues of critics. Etc, etc, etc. I go to dinner late at The Knickerbocker. It’s my favorite restaurant, a better restaurant in winter, but my favorite nonetheless. Fall is in the air. You can really feel it here, where everything is dark wood and heavy steaks. I’m so sick of talking about the seasons. I woke up unhappy, but by evening everything is good. Tuesday, September 3 Evening, I’m at VERA’s panel on alternative art spaces at GONZO’S. Conor is moderating, and the alternative gallerists are talking about their alternative galleries. I’m familiar with most of the speakers, but there was only one seat left when I arrived, a bench in the corner and I probably shouldn’t have taken it but I did. From my corner, I can’t see the panel, but enjoy the anonymity afforded only to me. I can hear perfectly, but I have no idea who’s talking. The crux of the conversation centers around the morality and the logistics of these alternative spaces. Given my usual sensibilities, I am surprised that I am most interested in the economics of it all. A commercial gallery can be more interesting than a museum now, because a museum is beholden to its institutional backing. A commercial gallery is beholden only to the market, which has broader interests than a tastemaker on the board of the Guggenheim. An alternative gallery is beholden to… the artist, a different market, the same market but they’re a bit less beholden? A crime reporter turned Artnet reporter poses the question after the panel- besides a difference in commercial scale, how is an alternative gallery different from a blue chip gallery? He’s met with a slew of solid responses; different in the work they show, in the degree of risk taken on emerging artists, in the literal space they operate out of, which might be entirely unconducive to sales and profit. Afterwards, I try to smoke a cigarette on the Gonzo’s balcony and I’m asked to go outside. I go to a bar, I’m not drinking tonight, my friends go home and so do I. When I tell my boyfriend about the reporter's question, he rolls his eyes. Alt is a word you use to make obscure things relevant, he says. If you’re alt till you die, then you just never really made it. In the case of the artist, I think his point is often true. For a gallery, though, the things on the edges are always changing. Technically, one could champion the periphery forever, although longevity matters less with these things. Technically, too, everything one touched could turn to gold. Wednesday, September 4 Every gallery on Henry Street is having an opening tonight. I get there on the late side but it’s still like a block party outside, like Time Again this summer, like these are all the tiniest galleries in the world so there’s a few people milling inside but mostly everyone is on the street. In terms of the work, I like the Laurie Simmons show by far the best, but that isn’t really the point. There’s probably something to be said here about alternative galleries and about how these openings are actually fun and about how the crowds from each space here are spilling into each other and overlapping, but I can’t think of a point that’s not painfully obvious. These openings are actually fun. That’s kind of the thesis. Thursday, September 5 I’m reading at Confessions on Sunday. I write myself some prompts: I AM OVERFLOWING WITH GRATITUDE
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I have my eye on Literary Sport; a new activewear line inspired by poets coming September, 2024. There’s an increasing emphasis on the artistry of the body and the art of fitness in health and wellness branding recently. I honestly think this is a welcome departure from GymShark, QuestBars, GNC, etc… It's long been an aesthetic wasteland for Girls Who Like Splenda. Literary Sport is particularly chic, but I’m also intrigued by David's; a new protein bar brand inspired by Michelangelo’s David that unabashedly promises to make their consumers beautiful. I’ve been seeing the FKA Twigs 'The Body Is Art' Campaign for OnRunning all over Manhattan as well. I might be working on a longer story about this trend, so send me thoughts – chloegpingeon@gmail.com
Inline links: Literary Sport, GymShark, QuestBars, GNC, David's, Michelangelo’s David, FKA Twigs 'The Body Is Art' Campaign, OnRunning
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WHAT I DID Thanks for reading Chloe Pingeon's Substack! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
Sunday, September 29 at 7:30pm — Seth Price reads “BEFORE AND AFTER WRITING” at earth. Thanks for reading Chloe Pingeon's Substack! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
Inline links: earth.
WHAT I DID Thanks for reading Chloe Pingeon's Substack! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. Monday, September 23 I drove back to the city from Vermont last night, slept early, ran a few miles in an empty gym this morning. I’m freezing. Today is freezing. This week, I vow to show up early. Starting now. It’s early. I’m the only one here. I bold one note in class today - “Aphorism like elegance, telegraphs authority. It creates a feeling of truthfulness, even if it is not actually there”. Later, my boyfriend and I go to lunch at Shanghai Villa. It’s foggy, someone tried to interview me in Washington Square Park but I dogged them with ease. We’re the only people in the restaurant, it’s not a nice day, it’s not the lunch time rush, I don’t think there is a lunch time rush here. We order jasmine tea, pork dumplings, chicken dumplings, soup dumplings, large soups on the side. Review from me is good, great! My boyfriend says fine, worse than average. In the GLOOM, today, I’m listening to the same three songs on repeat: Remember the Heart (Fine)
Inline links: Shanghai Villa, Remember the Heart (Fine)
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From 8pm - 2am at Paul’s Casablanca — Baguette is back. I am intrigued by this party that has received a lot of coverage but remains shrouded in some obscure mystique. Last week, Chloe Sevigny was in attendance.
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I meet up with the host of this very blog (Hi Chloe) at O’Flaherty’s opening of The Bitch, featuring works by Matthew Barney and Alex Katz at a new location on Allen Street.
The space itself is beautiful. A barren tree at the foot of the staircase stretches heavenward, penetrating the second level of the exhibition. The art itself is sparsely scattered, and it’s not entirely obvious where the exhibition begins and ends. Honestly, the most memorable thing I see in there is not part of the exhibition. An Aussie friend of Chloe’s pulls up a security cam video of himself having a seizure and presents it proudly to our small group of onlookers. I watch as he hoists himself out of what appears to be a pool before dropping to the ground and convulsing, violently slamming his head onto the concrete. Within seconds, a woman rushes to his aid. We watch it on a sickening loop. “It looks like you’re possessed,” I observe as I watch him spasm on the small, grainy screen. He turns toward me, suddenly aware of my existence. “That’s what it felt like! I remember thinking, like, ‘Why am I slamming my head on the ground?’”
Later, at Bar Valentina, Chloe tells me the seizure was likely a result of his biohacking experiments. “He buys untested research chemicals on the internet and injects them,” she explains. I’m struggling to wrap my head around this, simultaneously struggling to wrap my lips around my towering cocktail straw. This is becoming a pattern: I manage to unwittingly order some of the most obnoxious-looking drinks available. It’s never a demure, thin-stemmed glass. It’s never something you can grip with a cunty little pinkie in the air. No, tonight my mezcal spritz has arrived in what appears to be a tulip sundae dish, adorned with mint leaves that fan out like peacock feathers. You’d think I’d be able to intuit these things better as a former barback-bartender, but I’m often shocked by the spectacles I’ve chosen for myself.
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.
Inline links: Sovereign House, Expat Press, Curtis Eggleston, Sean Kilpatrick, Forrest Muelrath, Lily Bix Daw, Vivi Hayes, Chloe Wheeler
WHAT I DID Chloe Pingeon's Substack is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. 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.”
Inline links: Health Gossip, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!BqEq!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F8d9f96c9-96e5-4a0b-9813-061226dc9197_3024x3775.jpeg, DDM, Uncensored New York, Beckett's, Tense, Lucy Sante, Penny Arcade, Madame Matovu, Chris, Adeline
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No direct inline source block was recovered for this mention.
No direct inline source block was recovered for this mention.
No direct inline source block was recovered for this mention.
From 11pm - 3am — Cassidy Grady is hosting Paul’s Cocktail lounge in celebration of irlhannahmontana. Thursday, February 27 From 6pm - 8pm — OCD Chinatown presents Michel Auder’s Cleopatra (1970, 126 minutes), standing “as an iconoclastic gesture against dogmatic systems of cinema and its genres”
Inline links: Cassidy Grady, irlhannahmontana, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!NHhR!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F9d194bc7-bbb2-45d1-8408-90846610c844_1108x552.png, OCD Chinatown
From 7pm at KGB Red Room — Ethics celebrates issue 03 release with readings and performances from megsupertarprincess, alice aster, siena foster-soltis, chloe wheeler, and more.
Your weekend New York itinerary is here, updated today with some new additions.
Inline links: here
WHAT I DID Monday, February 24 David's friend wore a shirt that said RESIST COCAINE last night, and he made us steak, spinach, cashews, wine. It was lovely, imbibing on the floor in this smokey room. And there are many grand plans, and I believe most of them will come true, and I was struggling to begin the day but now the evening floats on and on all weightless. "C. said the best thing about living with me was the blade runner type atmosphere created by all the smoke from my steak fixation," David's friend says. And there is a lot of smoke, and it is in a nice way. A cozy night and I was home not too late in truth although it felt later than it was, slipping onto the couch and falling into black sleep the second we arrived back at the apartment. The falling asleep was nice too, and more annoying was waking up at two, four, six am and then you decide it's late enough. The day begins. I was writing by hand during this wistful restless sleep last night - notes of little coherence, notes of: I am so lucky to have been raised in environments of normalcy. not regarding aesthetics even but regarding, having normal fucking morals, seeking to live a life that is good, avoiding the gamble of turning insane or, evil. The guidelines that compose a moral compass are blurrier in general these days, but I should seek more of this, the normalcy that is. I should not crave chaos in this way. I should not resent anyone who seeks tranquility, politeness, who seeks to sleep and wake early. But I like this other thing too, this sense of a fugue state, flow state, whatever. It's utterly consuming. In the real world, I am trying to articulate how detached I am sometimes. Either that, or I'm trying to make sure you don't catch on. I'm not sure if all of this is good or bad. I'm becoming smarter and more Serious and I'm very sincere in wanting to make good works and be conscious of the state of my body and soul and the state of yours too and also, and I hope I'm not becoming too annoying. Tuesday, February 25 I tried to work with video this morning, a return to my roots as a health and wellness vlogger, but it mostly made me want to kill myself. I smoked my last cigarette ever last night by the open window, by the basil plant, David didn’t get home until late and I was having fun with my old canon G7X and with my cigarette and then I tried to film a conversation this morning, and it made the whole conversation so stilted and dull, I think it ruined the conversation, really, and so now I never want to document anything visually ever again. I thought I was going to pass out at the gym, but I didn’t. I thought I was going to scream because David keeps borrowing that wonderful yellow and navy rain jacket that my dad found washed up in the beach, and I don’t want my boyfriend parading all around New York in my special jacket, even though it doesn’t fit me, even though I never wear it, I don’t care, I was feeling possessive. And then the sun comes out, and so Natasha and I spend the morning at Fanelli Cafe in the sun. Coffees until I feel even more sick but it’s not in the worst way, And then at night, there is the birthday at Kenka. Oh, David says, the BDSM Japanese place in the East Village, and it’s true, yes, that when you arrive, there are the automatic shopping mall style sliding doors and the mannequin of the woman bound and gagged and the cotton candy machine. And it's on that crazy street in the East Village with all the halloween stores. The girls next to me are talking about shooting their movie. And we'll need skeletons, they are saying, where are we going to get skeletons? I think about my fathers collections of strange bones, wondering if I can find anything to contribute, but (most) of those bones are not human, and he comes by them in strange and obscure places regardless, and then I think about suggesting the strange halloween stores down the street, but I’m eavesdropping, really, and they come to these conclusions all on their own. Party City, they are saying. We can just get the skeletons at Party City. Wednesday, February 26 I wish I was a bit more consistent in keeping the promises I make. The promises to myself mostly but there are promises to others, sometimes, too. And there is this duality of desire for nostalgia and acceleration and I find them both repugnant on the larger level but then I see them both in myself, so strongly in myself, all these distance edges of extremities so rawly on display within my own mind, which I have been trying to have integrity with, btw. And it hasn't been so bad, really. There was walking eight miles in sunshine today. The schoolyard animal cookie ice cream from Morgensterns and I order it with the lemon jam and sometimes cherries. There have been a few false starts. Which is why, I think, I've been ranting so much about the ebb and flow of it all, but there is equilibrium, too. Some proximity to this equilibrium, at least. Thursday, February 27 Matthew imagines a situation and he tells it to David wherein; David is in heaven, and I am in hell, but in this version of hell, they let me keep my phone. “and she’ll ruin heaven,” Matthew tells David, because she’ll just keep texting you, “it’s so warm down here David, they made it too warm down here!!!” The other part of this joke, Matthew explains to David, is that in this heaven, “you’ll be surrounded by beautiful, adoring, women, but there will just be this barrage of texts from Chloe, constant, never ending, about how awfully terribly warm it is down there in hell.” The cosmic joke of it all, of course, is that our varyingly unpleasant respective situations in this hypothetical story will both, unfortunately, be utterly eternal. Last night was the night for Being Freaked Out. Tonight is the night for Being Calm As Can Be. WHAT YOU SHOULD DO Friday, March 7 I missed the Foreign Domestic opening this week, but I am planning to visit God alone loves all things and he loves only himself before the festivities of the evening. Works by Alex Both, Joan Dillon, Kylie Mitchell, TINMANTIS.
And I acted a little crazy last week and there's the tendency to come to gasping for air, make all things new, make all things pure, I'm walking quickly on the treadmill and I am telling you how soon we'll find all things transformed. In the afternoon, in the street, my friend says my name and I jump. We’ve been floating all around hologram world today, you see, and you don’t see me, and I don’t see you, and then so it goes. We begin to walk along, my friend and I, and she tells me about the visions, delusions, the hypothesis, the fish market. My friends are very lucid when they tell me very strange stories. They are very lucid when I respond all high strung. "My Confession is that I removed myself from the organ donor registry," I told my table mates at the Cracks and Pomo dinner. They've seated me with the astrologers, a nice young writer who also knows very few people here, a few friends of David's, a few friends from the orbit of KGB Bar, and they are enthusiastic about my proclamation. This is a good evangelizing cause, one of my table mates says, and I say oh well I'd feel a bit bad if I evangelized people off the organ donor registry, but I was just thinking about the purgatory of the soul and I can't risk it. My table mates reassured me; most people don't think about this enough. Monday Everything was chaos, really, and I got nothing done for days and then I sprung to life on Sunday all I’m-All-New-Like, and what a whirling Sunday it was, stretching gently running fast confessing not at Church but confessing lots at KGB Bar, becoming, no, reverting back to I’m-All-Exactly-The-Same by the time it was past midnight. And I should have gone home earlier, obviously. And there’s some decadence in these worlds I immerse myself in, or not the worlds so much as in me, me within these worlds, the way I react to them. And so there’s no one but myself to blame, really. But I do blame myself. And I am Actually new today. Or, at least, I Know things now. They are talking about songbird soup in my Irish Literature class. I’m zoning out, honestly, and then I zone back in because I hear them talking about “songbird soup” and it sounds so beautiful, I really perk up when I hear this thing about Songbird Soup. But then the next thing they say is songbird soup was where they would literally net three hundred song birds and boil them all up, and it was a symbol of indulgence, it was a symbol of grotesque decadence and a symbol of ounee. Songbird soup was the illness, and wild whimsical lovely Ireland was the cure. And here I was only perking up because I wanted to guzzle down some songbird soup. And here I am thinking about myself again. Tuesday Rules for clarity are: a long walk and methylene blue and if you have vertigo then just go home, because you can’t fight through vertigo, storming through manhattan, all these bright lights will just make you spin. I like alcohol when it is like a potion. You drink an elixir and then things become a bit brighter and more glimmering and shiny and light but, I think how the body reacts to alcohol can be indicators of other things. I’m trying to treat this like a blessing . If I drink alcohol and the potion works opposite and I become sleepy and forlorn and my face turns all red, then it’s like a hack to knowing things about the state of myself. You can know these things by noticing reactions more generally, but I have not been too perceptive. And reactions are only a hack if you act accordingly. I am trying to think of things in very simple terms like, I am reacting to this potion badly these days so, I will try different forms of alchemy, instead. I get to the party early today and the plan is: I will help wash the fruits before the guests arrive. "you going to wash those fucking vegetables or not?" M. says, when I arrive. "very wifey. Is that the most you've ever cooked?" He's right, really. I ordered avocados on this app on my phone right to my doorstep today. You eat foods whole. You try to walk in the sun to collect these ingredients, though it isn't always possible. It really is that simple. Sunday And then, there are other things too. Another party, this one in an Italian restaurant that is far too crowded for the occasion but fun nonetheless. The opera later, the opera this weekend which is good, nice, the set design of the Moby Dick opera is quite impressive but the whole ordeal is a bit much, the ushers and the $27 bad champagne and I was kind of a bitch because David got a double shot of whisky and the opera people thought he said double shot of espresso because who does that at an opera, and then he said no I meant whisky, and then I said oh my god David, in a really bitchy way. Standing in this weird room being weird and judging everyone else. But we stayed for the second act on principle, no one really wanted to, but we can't become people who chug whiskey and leave the opera early. We can't become, in other words, deeply unpleasant people. And it’s deeply pleasant in the morning. And I’ll find myself back at godforsaken KGB Bar in a few days, I presume. I'll find myself back in sparkly sunny strange El Salvador in a week or two. WHAT YOU SHOULD DO Wednesday, March 12 From 6pm - 8pm at Anton Kern Gallery — Love Poems opens; a group exhibition curated by Chris Martin.
Inline links: https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!q-ME!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F747c6f0d-5593-498d-8eb7-6f0f825aa314_7199x4805.jpeg, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!2_Kp!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb3229aef-8553-47cb-ac33-f6d63ac1938f_1780x1214.png, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!bekJ!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F22c1b498-e1f2-4d4d-b66b-eee5819a1478_1200x1600.jpeg, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!7YdW!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F5e9e1a90-d265-49f9-b56f-d6dced143170_1200x1600.jpeg, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!_0z5!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F907d5a08-6aa8-4ad3-b62c-ae867e723c74_1600x1200.jpeg, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!cDBt!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F70c27da6-5588-4b2c-a1dd-e0113a11f50f_1600x1200.jpeg, Anton Kern Gallery
From 7pm at Seventh Heaven — Language Arts (friend of the letter) is hosting their first reading. Language Arts is a substack by Sophia June and Layla Halabian about “books you actually want to read.” Readings tonight by Rayne Fisher-Quann, Camille Sojit Pejcha, Ryan Peterson, Rob Franklin, Sarah Sharp, and Matt Star. Photos, jelly snacks, karaoke all night after the event. | RSVP here
Sunday, June 1 The flight back from Miami is gray and swift. I spent the evening on the rooftop at The Betsy yesterday. Iris asked me for the list of my favorite foods. Octopus, apples, apple pie, lamb chops with mint jelly, creamed spinach, a certain type of barbeque salmon, a whole roast chicken. The concrete by the pool bar was hot and steamy and we didn’t bring identification and we would not be served. David bought us bloody marys and we drank them behind the tarp where the bartenders couldn’t see. I swam laps up and down and up and down the length of this pool that was mostly for drinking. I found Chanel sunglasses while standing barefoot in the bathroom and I returned them to the French girl. It’s like I’ve been immune to the permanence of ramifications of the things that are really bad, these days. I keep forgiving and I keep on being forgiven. They gave me free Pina Colada samples in little plastic cups. Ok Intense Girl, he was saying, because every time I would pop my head out of the water to say the things I thought, it would be with beady eyes and a determined stare. I like ice cream particularly matcha ice cream and I like lamb, Iris told me. Iris taught me about Gnosticism, and I believe this is somewhat aligned with the situation with me and him, though he thinks it's kind of sacrilegious when I equate my nightmares with mysticism, or when I attribute the interest that people who are kind of half of this world and half of another take in me to anything other than high agreeability and openness. Iris and I walked along Ocean Drive to Kalamata way down South Beach, and then we walked back along the water. A writing retreat, a rave, apocalyptic undertones. You can’t choose solitude and practicality at the edge of an extinction event, is one of many roots of it. I walked barefoot along the boardwalk. I met him for a second dinner. The ribeye was bloody and it came with a gross side of pasta alfredo. I woke up screaming. I woke up all smiles. I took photos of our hands on the plane Just In Case. I showed him a song. The Message. Is this a good song, or is this a secret message, he asked. It’s just a good song, I said. The frat guys in front of us on the plane are reading A Court of Thorns and Roses smut novels and buying tickets to Jake Shane's comedy tour. The guy on my boyfriend's phone intercom is stealing all my LA Apparel underwear from our lobby. I'm eating the Worst Sandwich Ever and Reese's Peanut Butter Cup. I am taking pictures of our reflections in the clouded plane window and I am thinking about how impossible it feels right now, flying like this, to imagine that so often, we become something else. Monday, June 2 I read some GirlInsides on the airtrain back from JFK who I think is just like me if I were more honest and precise about it, or maybe whom my stories would echo more precisely if I did not have this sick need to put my face all over everything. Anyways, GirlInsides was talking about how summer would bring things like long long long hair and farmers market plums eaten over the sink in underwear and writing and reading all over the place, and her ideas made me feel like I was melting and going to cry. Then I wrote what I wanted summer to bring, all - getting off the subway because it's too hot and walking in sandals sticking to my feet until i find somewhere that glows right and then its morning and we're sitting first then lying down on the terrace in sun that becomes unbearable drinking sparkling water out of glass bottles dripping it over my chest opening the door for the blast of air conditioning and to let the friends that come by in and out people floating by in and out and come and go and then at dusk i put on something green and i drink cold cider cold diet coke or spicy watermelon margarita outside at kikis in swan room away from the heat at vol de nuit with fries and garlic sauce on the roof, on my roof, in the backyards and basements and i walk out and walk everywhere when it is time to leave i leave and sometimes it is time to leave and so then I take the train and there’s the coast and then I’m putting laundry on the line in a black bikini and drinking diet coke with lemon in my black bikini and driving to the ocean down the driveway at night headlights breaking through june gloom fog and jumping off the dock where the sharks don't eat us but any summer now they could, or then it's morning and i'm sober writing in my google docs journal walking outside, writing in my greenhouse apartment in new york, writing along the overgrown pond and field and it always smells thicker there outside of boston, writing by foggy shores and rocky shores and sometimes the air becomes thick too and my dad plays dougie mclain and we make pesto pasta mozzarella chicken sausage in yellow china bowls on yellow placemats the meal gets kind of hazy through the sheen of blue hour rain coming through the window and then i'm pacing and writing down ocean drive in Miami because I can't decide where i want to be anymore and i like flashing lights i like coming back to the very nice very cold hotel that we're staying in because he's Sorry but I don't want any more apologies i want this summer to be Being very very very in love because i really have been anticipating extinction events or at least things become robotic sterile i used to think id be pretty good at both being in love like this and at not being robotic and sterile and i have become slightly above average at both these things in practice i guess though, it's nice to have the most human thing in the world, it's nice for me all the time, even then, even when it isn't for him i think it's nicer for me then it would be to not have this all the time and I don't know why i keep sabotaging the only thing i know to be true and human and so i am hoping for a summer of all that, hands pressed against the plane window greenhouse window train window glass mirror glassy water plunging my face underwater no more eb and flow. Anyways, none of that made any sense and then shock of all shocks it did eb and flow again last night. Everyone was so nice to me about my story and I wore the Nasseau, Bahamas shirt he bought for me all Life Is Better In FlipFlops and he wanted me to wear the sunglasses too, to exacerbate the bit but I thought that would be a little bit too far. He said “you know why I’m mad at you” when we got home, and I didn’t know, I had no idea actually, and so then I got sad, but the story was fiction. This is fiction too. I’m not being facetious when I say that. This isn’t even autofiction. This is literally all made up. “they seem lost and completely clueless,” he is saying now, downstairs, on the phone, he is talking about some forty year old woman and an awful charleton and some guy who does RedPill posting online and some guy he personally has a strong dislike for who has a lot of medical malpractice suits against him. Maybe he’s a genius, he is saying. I don’t know, he is saying. These people are so strange, he is saying. Tuesday, June 3 His friend rubs my head like i'm a dog or something when i walk into his stupid fake exclusive evil party that i'm not invited to and then my heart swells with rage. I'm so mad, I was telling everyone. I'm so sorry I didn't mean to say that I guess I had one too many, I was saying. I didn't have one too many, I had just right, I was telling him. I like The Sweet East, he is telling me. I like Yeats and social norms. Yes and, I say; I hope that you get everything you have ever wanted. WHAT YOU SHOULD DO Monday, June 9 A quiet night in the realm of events. Consider; dinner at The Marlton’s new restaurant Chez Nous followed by a screening of Buffalo 66 at Metrograph (10pm). I have historically liked The Marlton because it is vaguely past its prime and also a five minute walk from my apartment, and a place where no one ever tells you that you’ve stayed too long. The food at the old restaurant was terrible (so I’ve heard) (I only went for tea), but the recently refurbished Chez Nous is chic and fun and has maintained all of the hotel's original charm. The shrimp salad is very good, as is the martini. I’ll report back after my second visit (possibly tonight). Otherwise - 10pm on a Monday evening is the perfect time to see a film bar none, besides, possibly 1pm on a Friday.
Inline links: https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!S7lB!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F14d7d73e-4a99-4bc0-ad57-1dae414e4c21_1018x416.png, GirlInsides, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!grTj!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F0d8950da-492c-4aea-8f52-bfae799e190d_968x440.png, Chez Nous, https://metrograph.com/film/?vista_film_id=9999002294, recently refurbished Chez Nous, 1pm on a Friday
Monday, June 2 I read some GirlInsides on the airtrain back from JFK who I think is just like me if I were more honest and precise about it, or maybe whom my stories would echo more precisely if I did not have this sick need to put my face all over everything. Anyways, GirlInsides was talking about how summer would bring things like long long long hair and farmers market plums eaten over the sink in underwear and writing and reading all over the place, and her ideas made me feel like I was melting and going to cry. Then I wrote what I wanted summer to bring, all - getting off the subway because it's too hot and walking in sandals sticking to my feet until i find somewhere that glows right and then its morning and we're sitting first then lying down on the terrace in sun that becomes unbearable drinking sparkling water out of glass bottles dripping it over my chest opening the door for the blast of air conditioning and to let the friends that come by in and out people floating by in and out and come and go and then at dusk i put on something green and i drink cold cider cold diet coke or spicy watermelon margarita outside at kikis in swan room away from the heat at vol de nuit with fries and garlic sauce on the roof, on my roof, in the backyards and basements and i walk out and walk everywhere when it is time to leave i leave and sometimes it is time to leave and so then I take the train and there’s the coast and then I’m putting laundry on the line in a black bikini and drinking diet coke with lemon in my black bikini and driving to the ocean down the driveway at night headlights breaking through june gloom fog and jumping off the dock where the sharks don't eat us but any summer now they could, or then it's morning and i'm sober writing in my google docs journal walking outside, writing in my greenhouse apartment in new york, writing along the overgrown pond and field and it always smells thicker there outside of boston, writing by foggy shores and rocky shores and sometimes the air becomes thick too and my dad plays dougie mclain and we make pesto pasta mozzarella chicken sausage in yellow china bowls on yellow placemats the meal gets kind of hazy through the sheen of blue hour rain coming through the window and then i'm pacing and writing down ocean drive in Miami because I can't decide where i want to be anymore and i like flashing lights i like coming back to the very nice very cold hotel that we're staying in because he's Sorry but I don't want any more apologies i want this summer to be Being very very very in love because i really have been anticipating extinction events or at least things become robotic sterile i used to think id be pretty good at both being in love like this and at not being robotic and sterile and i have become slightly above average at both these things in practice i guess though, it's nice to have the most human thing in the world, it's nice for me all the time, even then, even when it isn't for him i think it's nicer for me then it would be to not have this all the time and I don't know why i keep sabotaging the only thing i know to be true and human and so i am hoping for a summer of all that, hands pressed against the plane window greenhouse window train window glass mirror glassy water plunging my face underwater no more eb and flow. Anyways, none of that made any sense and then shock of all shocks it did eb and flow again last night. Everyone was so nice to me about my story and I wore the Nasseau, Bahamas shirt he bought for me all Life Is Better In FlipFlops and he wanted me to wear the sunglasses too, to exacerbate the bit but I thought that would be a little bit too far. He said “you know why I’m mad at you” when we got home, and I didn’t know, I had no idea actually, and so then I got sad, but the story was fiction. This is fiction too. I’m not being facetious when I say that. This isn’t even autofiction. This is literally all made up. “they seem lost and completely clueless,” he is saying now, downstairs, on the phone, he is talking about some forty year old woman and an awful charleton and some guy who does RedPill posting online and some guy he personally has a strong dislike for who has a lot of medical malpractice suits against him. Maybe he’s a genius, he is saying. I don’t know, he is saying. These people are so strange, he is saying. Tuesday, June 3 His friend rubs my head like i'm a dog or something when i walk into his stupid fake exclusive evil party that i'm not invited to and then my heart swells with rage. I'm so mad, I was telling everyone. I'm so sorry I didn't mean to say that I guess I had one too many, I was saying. I didn't have one too many, I had just right, I was telling him. I like The Sweet East, he is telling me. I like Yeats and social norms. Yes and, I say; I hope that you get everything you have ever wanted. WHAT YOU SHOULD DO Monday, June 9 A quiet night in the realm of events. Consider; dinner at The Marlton’s new restaurant Chez Nous followed by a screening of Buffalo 66 at Metrograph (10pm). I have historically liked The Marlton because it is vaguely past its prime and also a five minute walk from my apartment, and a place where no one ever tells you that you’ve stayed too long. The food at the old restaurant was terrible (so I’ve heard) (I only went for tea), but the recently refurbished Chez Nous is chic and fun and has maintained all of the hotel's original charm. The shrimp salad is very good, as is the martini. I’ll report back after my second visit (possibly tonight). Otherwise - 10pm on a Monday evening is the perfect time to see a film bar none, besides, possibly 1pm on a Friday.
Inline links: GirlInsides, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!grTj!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F0d8950da-492c-4aea-8f52-bfae799e190d_968x440.png, Chez Nous, https://metrograph.com/film/?vista_film_id=9999002294, recently refurbished Chez Nous, 1pm on a Friday
Email Me! chloegpingeon@gmail.com If you would like to write something about The Jag at BCTR
Inline links: chloegpingeon@gmail.com