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Forgetmenot

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Forgetmenot

Article

Forgetmenot is a recurring venue in the Collected Agenda archive, appearing 2 times across 2 issues between January 19, 2025 and February 27, 2025. The archive places it in contexts such as “Ruby and I go to Forgetmenot”; “there was dinner at Forgetmenot, and there was never returning to the Strange Grift Party”. It most often appears alongside David, accelerationism, Ada Antoinette.

Metadata

  • Category: Venues
  • Mention count: 2
  • Issue count: 2
  • First seen: January 19, 2025
  • Last seen: February 27, 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.

January continues
January 19, 2025 · Original source
WHAT I DID Sunday, January 12 Ruby and I go to Bar Belly for dinner. Can we move to a table away from the bar, Ruby asks the waitress. Sitting at the bar is bad for your posture and alignment, she explains. This is another thing she's been learning at witch school. It seems that at witch school, you learn to sit and stand and then by proxy, to eat and sleep and breathe and think. Fruit and honey for breakfast, feet on the ground when you are seated with an unsupported spine. I am craving spiritual guidance, and so I soak this up like a sponge. I want to be taught how to be. This is how you wake up. This is how you shift your feet out of bed, this is how you land on the wood floor, toes first, the arches of your feet, then heels. The truth of it is my movements are products of my best but often misguided judgment. Guesses, really. For all I know, you should wake up in the morning upside down. Palms on the ground first. Heels then arches then toes. I want to learn how to be divine, but there are so many shamans and they all know best. God forbid I become sacrilegious. I certainly know myself to be fringing on this at times. Even the mention of shamans.... Ruby and I were going to go to El Salvador on Tuesday, but then I’m thinking about how I should read more before I continue my research on the ground. I visited El Salvador this summer. Later, halted my story about crypto-charter-state-red-light-therapy-benevolent-dictatorship etc etc etc. A result of overstimulation and laziness - I should deepen my roots before I return to them. Later, I'll go later. David sends me an X Post: “Wish we lived in 1970s media economy so esquire or playboy could fly me to El Salvador and publish my 10,000-word marginally-coherent slice-of-life coverage of the crypto convention that ends with a guy in a hot tub saying something accidentally zeitgeisty.” Ruby and I go to Forgetmenot. There’s a dog behind me, a big white husky, I hold out my hand to pet him and he gives me his paw. He does this a few times. He’s trained, I’m sure, to expect a reward in response but we’ve ordered a grill plate, there’s only halloumi left, I don’t want to poison the poor thing. Ruby posts a picture of me with the dog, but I’m in my big puffy jacket, and it mostly becomes just a picture of the dog. She tags my name on the screen. David sends me a screenshot of the picture. “DID YOU TURN INTO A DOG???” he asks. I order David ice cream from Figo when I get home. I ate half his bread and butter even though I've been so Ray Peat and even though after, I’ve been so Keto. I've been drinking again, hence the bread. Not a lot, but I was sober for a week, and the three drinks feel jarring. I've decided to stop causing problems. I've decided to get a job at a restaurant. I like the service industry, because the job is intensely exterior. There are many things so close to me of true significance, and I'm sick of ignoring them in favor of acting like a grasping freak. Monday, January 13 And so, you decide to redecorate again. Look at the layout of this place. There’s so much potential. There’s a big marble table and it’s cramping every corner. It’s cramping the light from the window. It’s cramping the yellow golden light that is framing our mirror. I go downstairs quickly, the light will be gone soon. I want to get a flight tomorrow, leave with my friends and find clarity in the hot humid heat, but it doesn’t feel like I'll be absorbing myself in something more - it feels like escape, and I haven’t earned this decadence. I’ve been deliberating all day. I’ve been clutching my evil eye in case I do decide to travel. All my friends wear evil eyes, too. It’s a strange coincidence - something most people I'm drawn to share, not intentional. I'm not religious, but this is different. Adele keeps a drawer in her apartment full of evil eyes, stocked to the brim in case one charm coincidently shatters. She'll never have to go unprepared. I take a test today. Sent, received, complete, returned. It’s so thrilling to do something I’m supposed to do. If we got rid of the marble table…. If we lined the walls with floor pillows below the windows, their tufted fabric landing well lower than the horizon line even when stacked…. I can imagine the furniture gone. Me, staring clearly across the room, one wall to another. I'm imagining all the clutter dissipated. I imagine it would erase some sense of static. I can imagine my hypothetical week in El Salvador, but I need to learn how to think about something outside of myself, even when I’m here. It would be better there. I can picture the airbnb in San Benito, the eight or so bedrooms, the open air layout that big homes in warm climates often share, arches bleeding into courtyards, steps built into hills, unclear where one room becomes another, wind and heat lightning swirling around you and raising your hair as your walking, even through the kitchen, even ostensibly inside. I want to swim in a big clear pool over a city that is now vaguely familiar but still, not really mine. I want to finish the story I started. New England Winter. I need to learn how to sort things through while staying put. David and I go to Estela for dinner. It’s our anniversary. He tells me not to say anything online about it. Private life should stay private, he says, but I’m writing it anyway. Estela is nice. It’s the sister restaurant of Altro Paradiso. My friend, Madelyn works there. Estela is smaller, cozier, you have to buzz to get into the building and then it’s up some steps, it feels like you’re in an apartment, it feels like you’re in Berlin. I’ve never been to Copenhagen, but I imagine it feels a bit like Copenhagen, too. “I like more old timey restaurants,” David says. “Me too,” I say. “But sometimes isn’t it nice to be in a restaurant that feels like Copenhagen? David agrees. He’s never been to Copenhagen either. Altro Paradiso is brightly lit, whereas Estela is dim. Stella - Latin for Star. Etc. The distinction feels a little obvious, but then, I’m being a little particular. Estela is small plates. Romantic. You can tell because you have to buzz the door to get in, and because the lighting is really dark. They put us in a little alcove by the shelves and shelves of wine. We order iberico ham, bread and butter, endive salad, crab with celery root (the best dish), squid ink fried rice with little bits of squid, steak with elderberry sauce. I order a Tito's martini, but I’m told they don’t serve Titos here. I’m told they have one martini with vodka that “tastes like smirnoff” ($22) and another with vodka that’s way better and far preferable (paraphrased) ($30). Our waitress is peppy. “We’ll take the Smirnoff,” David says. “She’s nice,” I say, later. “Domineering,” David says. Later, the waitress rolls her eyes a little when she asks me how my martini is. She smiles when I say good. I believe she is sincere in her hope that I’m happy as I guzzle up the fruits of my lowbrow taste. It really is a lovely meal. I don’t mean to be cynical. I tell David he should tell them it’s our anniversary so we can have something free, and he tells them “it’s our anniversary, can we have dessert on the house.” Then, I’m embarrassed, but they bring us dessert (with a price) and champagne (on the house). Tuesday, January 14 I’ve been working on maintaining constant motion. “An object in motion will stay in motion,” I’ve been telling anyone that will listen. I walk in place all day, and then I walk through Washington Square Park at night, freezing. I make sure to do an extra lap to circle under the arch, all sparkling and illuminated and icy. I’m thirty minutes late to the Post-Doomerism talk at Gonzo’s, and this feels like an important one to me because I used to base my entire framework of thought around mitigating dread through a surrender to the inevitability of fates worse than death. It’s a terrible way to view the world - juvenile if nothing else, but also aesthetically and morally barren, limiting, a nihilistic obsession with the present does lead to destruction (yourself and others), no matter how many delusions you harbor about enlightenment, and about time and therefore preservation as false constructs. You can’t be nihilistic if you believe in good and evil, and I do believe in good and evil, so it was never going to hold up. Post Doomerism The lecture is just starting when I exit the elevator. The talk is between Chris Small (founder of Amazon Labor Union), PradaHorseShoe (founder of Russian Cosmism Circle NYC), Joshua Citarella (Doomscroll Podcast), and Geo Yankey (Comedian) “Russian Cosmists think that Marx doesn't take it far enough,” Amana explains. “Marxism wants to abolish capitalism, religion, the family…. but what about abolishing the OG bummer - death.” The point of the talk seems to be to present a sort of leftist vision of tech accelerationism. Capitalist Realism, the parts of the industrial revolution deemed actually good, nuclear fusion (clean and limitless energy which imitates the sun) instead of nuclear fission, fossil fuels , etc etc etc. The audience, on the other hand, is mostly composed of people I recognize from other downtown events - this one taking on an uncharacteristic and somewhat academic sincerity. “Hypothetically, heat death could occur before we run out of fuel,” a girl sitting next to me murmurs at one point, evidently at least somewhat convinced by technology’s capacity for limitless good. I try to conjure a sense of what she’s imagining in my mind's eye - create enough clean energy, and you could be driving your car one day when the whole universe just implodes. This isn’t aspirational to me. Longevity even, has never been particularly aspirational to me, although increasingly moreso, I’m increasingly less cynical. I appreciate the sincerity of the lecture. I appreciate some of the ideas they put forward, too. It’s an irony-pilled audience and they're sitting in a deeply earnest room. I slip out during the Q&A - overwhelmed, honestly, and I’m late to another function. I’m handed a gin and tonic in the Lower East Side. I’m talking about the Russian Cosmism lecture. “Lenin tried that and 20 million people died,” I am told. “I don’t really know enough,” I say. I’m sent a documentary about The Tyranny of Scientism. I order some things like the books by Nick Zurnig and Mark Fisher. It’s good to be objective. The night slips onward. It’s rude to talk about accelerationism at a party. Wednesday, January 16 It's slightly warmer in New York today. It's still cold, but it's less frigid, I'm walking through Soho typing, I'm walking to Equinox, I'll finish writing this on the treadmill, I had such a fun night last night although I do feel terribly guilty about squandering my health and my beauty and my soul every time I get drunk. I was such a good drunk, though. I adore my friends so deeply. I adore my new friends. I think they are my best friends. I’m trying not to quantify everything. There are names of people I love spinning through my mind, now. Why order things. Some people exhaust me, and then there are other people who don’t. I’ve found new friends who live artfully while occupying a natural state that is absorbed with the physical world, recently. How lucky for me. I don’t want to use my volatility as a bludgeon with which to bend people to my whims. Good thing I don’t feel particularly volatile this week. It’s best to consider these while outside of them. Objective introspection: am I doing a good job? WHAT YOU SHOULD DO Gofundme + LA Fire Resources here. Sunday, January 19 From 6pm - midnight at EARTH — Jordan Castro and Cluny present SILENCE. An evening of silence. No speaking, no phones.
Inline links: X Post, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!C7a6!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F5b47129c-0bc4-49be-9951-68a8a3f58ac6_1179x1372.jpeg, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!RkCJ!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fcb4a64bf-f664-428e-854a-221b40a26109_1536x2048.jpeg, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!XxFb!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F59a8c887-c1bc-4090-9568-92185cc4e0c1_1412x1420.png, Amazon Labor Union, PradaHorseShoe, Russian Cosmism Circle NYC, Doomscroll Podcast, Geo Yankey, Capitalist Realism, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!kDE6!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd7220533-39ee-4944-a185-b7983b1500e9_1600x1066.jpeg, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!abSY!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fcb12cd88-f058-4032-ba7f-a91514034d33_1600x1066.jpeg, here, EARTH, Jordan Castro, Cluny
Your Favorite Grifters Favorite Grifter
February 27, 2025 · Original source
Sunday, February 23 "Whenever I see a guy in a Yankees cap I assume it's a cop," David said, of the clearly undercover officer observing the turnstiles at the Bleecker St station.” At the bar, I was playing journalist. They were celebrating an AI software that marketed itself as undetectable as AI, good for cheating in school, or in screenwriting, code, whatever you want, and it was clear they thought more people would be at the party, they bought raspberry lemon Svedka, I was fighting these Florida tech guys for proximity to the only small space heater in the room. "Do you have any moral qualms about what you do?," Allison asked one of the founders; and he said "no, we're building a tool. you can use a hammer to build a house or to kill someone." Then Alison said something like yes but you aren't building artificial intelligence you are building explicitly undetectable artificial intelligence with the express purpose of cheating and then the founders started talking about the overton window and you're in or you're out and they called my boyfriend over to tell him that he needs to work specifically and only in web app development if he wants to survive the AGI and ASI apocalypse. David was all ehh about it, humoring them a bit but then like oh excuse me I'm going to get a drink and never came back, and then the founder said to me, I like him he's disagreeable and not effeminate unlike most of these N-Y-C guys man, but he needs to listen to me about being a web developer because of the overton window and AGI and ASI coming fast. Then I said why do you work in this industry if you think AI development will only have bad implications and the founder said because it's an arms race and you don't want to land on the wrong side of the glass wall. I didn't ask but thought of this later - do you really think AI will respect its creator? Or, does working on an anti academic artificial intelligence cheating software save you from apocalyptic doom? Later, the founders were telling everyone that the next step of their plan is a pivot to building a game connected to some NFT about mentally ill women called SSRI-wives. Later, a few people kept telling me you should talk to the Gen-Z kid, there's a Gen Z kid here and this program does all his homework, and I didn't meet this kid until late in the night when the founder called him over and said "do you know what Urbit is," and the kid said yes, and the founder sighed and said "he's very online." And then they brought in some girls from Miami off the street because they needed more heads, and then these girls on the street were talking about being from Miami and so the founders said want some free drinks and they pulled them into the room, and then the girls were talking to me about Dinner At Kikis and Quitting Her Server Job Even Though She Loves All The Friends She Made. Then, David sent me the company's TrustPilot reviews and it was all things like “TOTAL SCAM” and “took $6000 from my bank account” and he said this is clearly a total grift even from my preliminary research. Then, there was dinner at Forgetmenot, and there was never returning to the Strange Grift Party, and I was going to write a story. I was going to tell you about grifts and technology, but then, well, I am not sure if there is too much left to add. And I’m not sure if I like to think about these things, although the doomerism fades when you quickly find that the cartoonishly evil project was just a hologram all along. Monday, February 24 When I was eighteen years old, I lived in a hostel in Prague by myself in the springtime, and I was so lonely. I would walk to the park everyday and I would lie in the april grass and I would close my eyes and imagine that when I opened them, I would be surrounded by company. I would imagine that I would laugh and grab someone's hand and we would twirl down the streets towards the old town that reminded me of a fantasy land, a true fantasy land because everything there was all made up. McDonalds were housed in historic old buildings and I didn’t understand why the others I worked with would go on runs every morning just to drink more beer on their returns. Prague was a hologram to me too. I liked the people I met and I liked that they were never going to grow up. I had no friends there. Eventually, I did, but in April I was always alone. These days, I am never alone. I was so sleepy yesterday and not in a nice way. I would like to avoid these things. I will drink green tea on the terrace this morning. WHAT YOU SHOULD DO After reading Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu 1872 novella Carmilla for my Irish Lit class last week, I’ve been feeling big on fairytales and magic. My sister Sylvie is the most magical girl in the world, as well as the most well read. She has offered her list of recommended fairy tales for this letter: Fairy Tales (by Sylvie Pingeon) I try to read a section of Lady Jane Francesca Wilde’s Ancient Legends of Ireland: Music Charms & Superstitions of Ireland with Sketches of the Irish Past every night before I go to bed. It’s a truly magic book that brings fairytales into daily life with spells, remedies, and little bits of fairy advice: “People ought to remember that egg-shells are favorite retreats of the fairies, therefore the judicious eater should always break the shell after use, to prevent the fairy sprite from taking up his lodging therein.” A fairytale self-help book, and I love it. As a child, my favorite book was House Above the Trees by Ethel Cooke Eliot. Everything by Eliot is so special: she writes of wind creatures who look like the wind feels and tree girls who wear skirts made from the leaves of their trees (green in the summer, red in the fall), and the humans who can see these forest people have the clearest eyes around. All her books are like this, but House Above The Trees is my favorite: an eight year old orphan follows a Wind Creature into the forest and is taken in by Tree Mother, who lives in the treetops. A wonderful, fairy adventure ensues. Brothers Grimm is also always great, although Bluebeard gave me nightmares as a child that still sometimes come back. My mom gave me a beautiful copy of Aesop’s Fables for Christmas this year. It’s beautiful but I haven’t read it yet. A lot of second-wave feminists wrote retellings of fairy tales, and I’m a little embarrassed to say this, but I found Angela Carter’s The Bloody Chamber to be a truly beautiful read. On the topic of AI Grifts, Gabriel Hollis (of Margin for Thought and Microculture) recommends the following articles on Technology and God and Our End Times. All ideas that fall under near debilitatingly large banners, and all topics which Gabriel explores well. To be honest, I need to dive into these pieces with more intensity before I offer any original thoughts, but I will leave you with the links: Seeking God, or Peter Thiel, in Silicon Valley by Emma Goldberg, for NYT
Inline links: https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!JTRE!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F03385ed5-b5ac-4cc9-8d10-8542c7ed383e_1600x873.png, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Yfjy!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fc2217312-7969-4c84-bcb5-e2f349100218_1600x855.png, Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu 1872 novella, Sylvie, Lady Jane Francesca Wilde’s, House Above the Trees, Aesop’s Fables, Angela Carter’s, Margin for Thought, Microculture, Seeking God, or Peter Thiel, in Silicon Valley

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