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Amtrak

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Amtrak

Article

Amtrak is a recurring organization in the Collected Agenda archive, appearing 4 times across 4 issues between May 28, 2024 and November 05, 2025. The archive places it in contexts such as “Amtrak to the ocean tonight”; “David cuts the Amtrak line”; “The Amtrak lost power”. It most often appears alongside New York, New York City, Soho.

Metadata

  • Category: Organizations
  • Mention count: 4
  • Issue count: 4
  • First seen: May 28, 2024
  • Last seen: November 05, 2025

Appears In

Source Context

Recovered passages from the original issue text. When the raw archive preserved outbound links inside the source passage, they are listed directly under the quote.

COLLECTED AGENDA #2
May 28, 2024 · Original source
Amtrak to the ocean tonight. Then I’m in the car leaving Providence with my dog and my dad and I’m making everyone roll up and down the windows so that I’ll catch the breeze at exactly the moment when you first smell salt. Full moon over the dock. Too cold to swim and then walk home, so we’re driving the van a quarter of the mile down the road to jump in. The sharks allegedly haven’t arrived at Buzzards Bay yet and there’s no light that isn’t moon and there’s nobody else here. Actually, everything is more beautiful than I could have ever possibly imagined.
Florida, Massachusetts
December 03, 2024 · Original source
Before I go away for Thanksgiving, I go to dinner at Decibel with Madelyn. We go to Pardon My French for a martini. We go to KGB. I go to the Lower East Side, I go to a going away party, I go to the bodega, I go home. At a party in the Lower East Side, a girl is talking about censorship, the age of censorship, how liberated she feels by the passing of This Terrible Era. "So what do you want to say?" Her friend is asking. "What?" the girl says. "What were you waiting to be free to say?" The girl rolls her eyes. "It's the principle" "Yes," her friend is saying. "The principle is important, but you can be free to do whatever you want and still be entirely uninteresting." At a party in the Lower East Side, people are talking about The Internet. "Everything you say is regurgitated from The Internet," the girl is telling her friend. Before I leave New York for only a few days, I go to Franz Kafka at The Morgan Library. It's not a very nice exhibition. They've put pop up walls and bright colors and crowded superfluous exhibition text all over the whole place. I write a review, but then I think it's kind of snarky. It's ok to be mean, but it's not ok to be cheap. "Why are you afraid of being mean," someone asked me a few weeks ago. "Because I don't want to say things that hurt people close to me," I said in response. What I should have said is - because what if I'm mean for nothing? What if I'm mean and I'm wrong and it's cheap. I get a martini at Moynihan Station. David cuts the Amtrak line. “What are they going to do?” he says. This infuriates a woman near us. Afterwards, I think I see this woman everywhere. She's sitting next to me at The Tunnel Cafe. I book a dermatology appointment for when I'm back in New York City. Select any provider, I say. I receive my confirmation email shortly after and I swear to god - the doctor they assigned me is the woman from the train. I cancel the appointment quickly. If this is fate, then it stems from nothing good. God‘s hand has nothing to do with it. Someone is simply playing tricks. the Amtrak Some things that happen in Massachusetts are: I behave very badly. I can't find my keys. It's raining. I can't go outside. I'm in an airbnb where I have never been before and It's so cold and these walls are gray, nothing like home, a lot like the kind of walls that one could imagine closing in. I start shaking by the window and I think about how I could probably be someone who does something like punch a hole through the glass. I wouldn't do this, but it's strange to feel capable of it. I think about how I should probably just go outside. It's objectively strange to spiral. I never crash out. I don't know why gray wall to wall carpeting and people talking too loudly and vicinity to an unknown suburban street freaks me out so much. I wish I could scream at the sky and the rain would stop just like that. I calm down. I don't actually wish I could control the weather. That would be no kind of a life. I go to a hotel I can't afford and I try to break into their gym to use the treadmill. I can't get into the gym, but no one stops me in the lobby. I drink their lemon water. I drink almost the whole pitcher. I call my dad and I say can you please come pick me up now. In a different house, a house that is familiar, a house that I have always known - I sit by the fire, I sit by big glass windows, I watch Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008), I drive to the snow. "I'm driving to Florida to drive to the snow," I say. Welcome to Florida, Massachusetts the sign on turnpike says. It's a white sign flanked by plaster palm trees. A little snowman with yellow hands and feet throws his hands in the air. Troop 76 Pack 76, the sign says. It's a blizzard up the turnpike. It's snowing in thick wet sheets. It's the type of snow that's fast and heavy, almost like rain but it's opaque and it's sticking. Everyone gets out of the car but me. I'm too cold, I say. My sister is throwing snowballs. I get out of the car too. We drive down the mountain. My dad plays Alice's Restaurant by Arlo Guthrie. We play all twenty-five minutes of it and then we play it again. We pick up David. Do you want to hear Alice's Restaurant?, I ask him. Alice’s Restaurant, Album Cover Things are nice, from here. WHAT YOU SHOULD DO Tuesday, December 3 From 5:30 - 7:30pm at Il Bisonte — Yolo Journal celebrates the new Fall/Winter issue. I love few things more than a beautiful travel journal (something that has become few and far between). Yolo Journal, however, fits this bill to exaction. Wine provided by Franciacorta. RSVP to ilbisonte@novellapagherapr.com
Inline links: Decibel, Pardon My French, KGB, Franz Kafka at The Morgan Library, The Tunnel Cafe, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Ir9V!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fbd04dfd6-f357-422e-a521-9d17731dfe1b_4032x3024.jpeg, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Alice's Restaurant, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!WxiA!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fe78658ae-4123-4810-ad03-f0e13a55cd31_316x316.jpeg, Il Bisonte, Yolo Journal, Franciacorta
the Amtrak Some things that happen in Massachusetts are: I behave very badly. I can't find my keys. It's raining. I can't go outside. I'm in an airbnb where I have never been before and It's so cold and these walls are gray, nothing like home, a lot like the kind of walls that one could imagine closing in. I start shaking by the window and I think about how I could probably be someone who does something like punch a hole through the glass. I wouldn't do this, but it's strange to feel capable of it. I think about how I should probably just go outside. It's objectively strange to spiral. I never crash out. I don't know why gray wall to wall carpeting and people talking too loudly and vicinity to an unknown suburban street freaks me out so much. I wish I could scream at the sky and the rain would stop just like that. I calm down. I don't actually wish I could control the weather. That would be no kind of a life. I go to a hotel I can't afford and I try to break into their gym to use the treadmill. I can't get into the gym, but no one stops me in the lobby. I drink their lemon water. I drink almost the whole pitcher. I call my dad and I say can you please come pick me up now. In a different house, a house that is familiar, a house that I have always known - I sit by the fire, I sit by big glass windows, I watch Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008), I drive to the snow. "I'm driving to Florida to drive to the snow," I say. Welcome to Florida, Massachusetts the sign on turnpike says. It's a white sign flanked by plaster palm trees. A little snowman with yellow hands and feet throws his hands in the air. Troop 76 Pack 76, the sign says. It's a blizzard up the turnpike. It's snowing in thick wet sheets. It's the type of snow that's fast and heavy, almost like rain but it's opaque and it's sticking. Everyone gets out of the car but me. I'm too cold, I say. My sister is throwing snowballs. I get out of the car too. We drive down the mountain. My dad plays Alice's Restaurant by Arlo Guthrie. We play all twenty-five minutes of it and then we play it again. We pick up David. Do you want to hear Alice's Restaurant?, I ask him. Alice’s Restaurant, Album Cover Things are nice, from here. WHAT YOU SHOULD DO Tuesday, December 3 From 5:30 - 7:30pm at Il Bisonte — Yolo Journal celebrates the new Fall/Winter issue. I love few things more than a beautiful travel journal (something that has become few and far between). Yolo Journal, however, fits this bill to exaction. Wine provided by Franciacorta. RSVP to ilbisonte@novellapagherapr.com
Inline links: Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Alice's Restaurant, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!WxiA!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fe78658ae-4123-4810-ad03-f0e13a55cd31_316x316.jpeg, Il Bisonte, Yolo Journal, Franciacorta
Autumn Secrets
October 27, 2025 · Original source
WHAT I DID Monday, October 20 Autumn storm of the nicest kind outside, and I think I’ll close my eyes and imagine something else. I’ve been letting the clutter pile up for a while now. The intention was to disappear the clutter by simply leaving it behind. Catch a train. The hurricane rolled in early. The Amtrak lost power. The taxi skidded on black ice on Delancey Street. I circled New York City a few times in the car and then on foot and then I decided to stay a while. It was supposed to be something more like; stack clothing miles high on the floor of a small-box-apartment and then leave it all behind. Watch the waves swell bigger and bigger along gray rocky shores. Watch the wooden dock come crashing down like it sometimes does in the biggest winds this time of year. Run around the tip of a peninsula amidst floods and tornadoes and wear a lifejacket when you fling yourself off the bridge and into the ocean because the currents, in October, have a proclivity for sweeping swimmers out to sea. My mother sends me pictures of the fire, the dog, red berries that crunch underfoot and the nice and drafty sort of windows. How many autumn storms of this kind do I really have left in a lifetime to pass by a cool and gray ocean? Seven, maybe, if I’m feeling lucky. Probably less. It was soft dark stormy and O.K. in New York City this weekend, anyways. Because a butterfly flapped its wings, you spent the weekend in New York, my mother tells me, on the phone. Because I missed a train, I say. Because an elephant stomped its feet and things still happen as they happen, actually. I am feeling a bit unduly self indulgent. Thinking about what I want as itemized and limitless. Gold Ciel Chapman A-line dress.
Fever Dreams
November 05, 2025 · Original source
A good nights sleep Monday, October 27 I opened the window to let in the eerie and whistling wind after the reading last night and then I stayed up late, fallen leaves and pollen drifting past my headboard. Called Celia to talk about the same things all over again. Called Celia to request that she confirm my fears and delusions and certainties for the million billionth time. I’m getting a really creepy feeling, Celia said. Like a horror movie, Celia said. In my earliest memories, I recall walking around with this very deep self-assuredness. I would wake up everyday feeling so certain and blessed for the absolute pureness of my heart. So when he said he understood me as perfect, it was like oh someone finally understands me the way that I understand myself, Celia said It is important to always have pure intentions, I told Celia. I like when people share my aesthetic sensibilities and are unfazed about the things I worry hedge towards evil, I told Celia I’m starting to feel so creeped out, Celia told me. Tuesday, October 28 Nothing was so creepy. I was not scared of anything anymore. I could still hear the wind through my open window and in the daylight it was nice. The nicest, really. The nicest thing in the world. I slept through the afternoon half aware of this nice and floating wind and then I donned a black skirt, black top, black Ganni boots and I drifted through orange-hour Washington Square Park and a light fall rain towards the lobby of The Marlton Hotel. Where there was a fire and Celia perched by it, waiting for me. Nothing ever happens. I used to be so arrogant, I told Celia, at The Marlton. Arrogance is a good sort of thing to hold onto, sometimes. Celia told me. Celia said something about our friends being cancelled online, something about moral hierarchies, she was done feeling sorry for herself and love thy god with all thy heart and all thy might and acedia is the only truly mortal sin. The Marlton Hotel and God and Self Indulgence. French fries with garlic aioli and dirty martinis and tuna tartar and writers workshop without too much writing. I was sitting there kicking my feet around and feeling like I might die if I couldn’t break-the-pattern-today-so-the-loop-does-not-repeat-tomorrow. Do you remember what life used to feel like? Do you wish to live forever? Do you wish to never suffer? Do you wish to never suffer, forever? I’m sorry to be cryptic about it. Wednesday, October 29 In my fever dream, I was back on the Amtrak heading towards Florida, Massachusetts and everyone around me was screaming. We were traveling to record something regarding Esoteric Health. It was still October, and I knew the omens we were seeking to be somewhat evil. Everyone was furious at me, and this only bothered me because I did not know why. Woke up in New York City yelling, somewhere between a memory and a fugue state. A recurring dream I used to have where I was driving with my parents over the George Washington Bridge in a winter storm and an old woman was lurching at the vehicle, tugging at the door handles, talking about how it was almost too late. A train ride last winter where everyone was screaming at me because my ex-boyfriend was being abrasive and I was kind of in on the bit. A small faux-thatched-roof apartment in Greenwich Village where no one is angry because no one is here. I paid my dues in apologies and reparations in October, and now God has rewarded me with a real life fever and unpleasant news. A lot of things I loved became shrouded in delusion and vicious self-involvement. A lot of clarity and purity of heart became hard to access because my morning was shrouded in a fever. Kind of wanting to scream. Kind of wanting to take my Brown Prada Boots and Black Fry Boots and Grandmas Suede Ballet Flats to the cobbler. My Blue Pearl Necklace to the jeweler. My Sue Wang Dress and Red Vintage Slip to the tailor. Kind of have been like a bull in a china shop with all my beautiful things, and now there is so much to fix. Kind of feeling indignant. I should really focus on believing in something. I believe in hotel lobbies, superficially. I believe in other things, too, but I am trying to have a bit more discretion about it. Thursday, October 30 Here is what has happened: I am sitting at The Marlton hotel now where everything is cast in a kind of olive glow and the fire place is roaring and I ordered a cheese board with camembert, comté, manchego, six grapes, two halfs figs, spoon of truffle honey and spoon of jam by myself. Ordered chamomile tea and sat with Rebecca and Dory in the sunroom with my fever, earlier. Now, I am sitting by the fire with my fever by myself. I am not ready to go home. I am not really ready to think or write about the sort of things that have happened. A small beautiful blond child and her brother a bit older just walked in both wearing sweet striped shirts. Their father just finished the marathon. Their mother is all smiles, pulling apples from her canvas bag and polishing them on the hotel napkins before placing the fruit in the beautiful children’s outstretched hand. I am green with envy. I am so overjoyed to be looking in on their Beautiful Life. An insufferable duo on a first date next to me is talking about how much they hate parades and how their work is industry agnostic. Their flirting is so nauseating. Bad voice physiognomy. They are flirting with each other in the most insufferable and sexless way and you can tell, so clearly, that they met on The Internet. I am starting to consider forgoing The Internet. There is a soulless kind of song and dance these people are doing. He is listing out his favorite types of Pasta Shapes and numbering his rankings on his stubby fingers. She is talking about food poisoning. Neither of them are religious. I am trying to stomach my distaste. If you have ugly thoughts they will seep through your skin and stomach and long black sleeves of your long black Brandy Melville dress and they will seep up through your mind and out of your pours and intermingle with the rancid scent of your fever that will become a deeper sort of illness and start to rot and fester in you forever. Your bitter and ugly thoughts will start to turn your face all ugly and ruined. I am trying to wish them grace and good will. I am trying to sip my tea and choke down fruit truffle honey and crackers. Twist my hair into two very tight braids. I want to find myself a little less repulsed. I want to look at these strangers’ pale forms and imagine them replaced by orbs of light. I want to look inside their rich inner worlds. I want to look into strangers’ eyes and not be afraid of staring or back holes. I want to wish them well. I want to hope they find a beautiful life. I want to hope they buy a beautiful life. Friday, October 31 Here is what has happened. Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage. Once; I lived in a glass apartment in the sky. I am not sure how things can oscillate in extremes, to that degree, with that level of hot and cold and up and down and everything cruel, like it became. I used to lie on the floor to feel close to things. Lie on the floor and dream about it. The past has been orbiting in ways that make me queasy along with the illness in the air, today and yesterday, since the eve of Halloween, really. At the Halloween Party in Chinatown I wore a black hat and milled about amongst red flowers, plum tart, candles and courtyards. Went bolting up the stairs to catch a car. Went walking under the Washington Square Park archway where the air was very crisp and I was very feverish. The park was overwhelming me with street performers and noise and light and stimulation. And then in the shadows and the grass and tucked away beyond the benches there are figures in sweatshirts and denim and long sweeping hair and interlaced hands and fallen leaves and everything sweet all around the edges. I was sitting at the edge of the park in June with my fingers interlaced and the beating sun fading into dusk and the summer stretching kind of hazy and breathless ahead. It is strange to try to remember anything. Strange all the stories I am hearing in the wind and the autumn and the fever dreams and another passing season. WHAT YOU SHOULD DO Wednesday, November 5 From 7pm at Night Club 101 — 99 Minutes or Less returns with Maison du Bonheur (2017, 62 minutes). 99 Minutes or Less is a new free film screening showing films that are (you guessed it) 99 minutes or less. This evening’s screening is guest programmed by Elissa Suh of Movie Pudding. After party to follow with sounds by Dj Kyle and Paradise by Replica
Inline links: Night Club 101, 99 Minutes or Less, Maison du Bonheur, Elissa Suh, Movie Pudding, Dj Kyle, Paradise by Replica

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