Sovereign House
Article
Sovereign House is a recurring venue in the Collected Agenda archive, appearing 23 times across 23 issues between May 19, 2024 and February 17, 2025. The archive places it in contexts such as “New Potentials For Psychedelics in Society screening at Sovereign House”; “CHILL MAG Issue 2 Launch Party at Sovereign House”; “I’m at Sovereign House but there’s nothing really going on”. It most often appears alongside Chloe Pingeon, New York, KGB.
Metadata
- Category: Venues
- Mention count: 23
- Issue count: 23
- First seen: May 19, 2024
- Last seen: February 17, 2025
Appears In
- [[issues/2024-05-19_1-collected-agenda_full|COLLECTED AGENDA #1]]
- [[issues/2024-06-06_collected-agenda-3_full|COLLECTED AGENDA #3]]
- [[issues/2024-06-24_collected-agenda-4_full|COLLECTED AGENDA #4]]
- [[issues/2024-07-27_collected-agenda-6_full|COLLECTED AGENDA #6]]
- [[issues/2024-08-14_collected-agenda-7_full|COLLECTED AGENDA #7]]
- What Are You Doing In The Fall?
- Statues Of Critics.
- I wish I had more to say about fashion week.
- Ways to be sincere.
- October in America
- Everything I Wanted
- Indulging in the Eschaton
- Playing With Glass
- Counterculture in America
- Collected Agenda with Lydia Sviatoslavsky
- Autumn passes and one remembers one’s reverence
- Collected Agenda (lite)
- Florida, Massachusetts
- kind of a dud socially
- Moral Framework
- Life before inositol
- End of the Cold Front
- My lame blog
Related Pages
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- Chloe Pingeon (18 shared issues)
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- New York (15 shared issues)
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- KGB (13 shared issues)
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- Beckett Rosset (11 shared issues)
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- Collected Agenda (11 shared issues)
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- Confessions (11 shared issues)
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- Jean’s (11 shared issues)
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- David (9 shared issues)
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- Peter Vack (9 shared issues)
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- Annabel Boardman (8 shared issues)
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- August Lamm (8 shared issues)
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- Chloe Pingeon’s Substack (8 shared issues)
External Links
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- Instagram: https://instagram.com/house.sovereign
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.
Drinking BLUE BEAUTY at Juice Generation and making vows to never have a regret again. There’s a Byline Party at Casetta that my friends who attend describe to me as pretty art world, kind of girlboss. I don’t go because I’m walking so aimlessly at Equinox and I don’t get home until the party is almost over. Also a New Potentials For Psychedelics in Society screening at Sovereign House - don’t go to that either.
Inline links: BLUE BEAUTY, Byline Party
Monday, May 27 - CHILL MAG Issue 2 Launch Party at Sovereign House
Inline links: CHILL MAG
Late evening I’m back downtown and then I’m at Sovereign House but there’s nothing really going on and then I’m drinking two skinny margaritas at Le Dive and then I’m asleep by midnight.
Inline links: Sovereign House, Le Dive
The party is lovely - one of the first parties I’ve enjoyed in a while. I’ve decided I’m back to enjoying parties. There’s an after party for something Tribeca Film Festival adjacent to Sovereign House and so I’m stopping by after TJ Byrnes but not staying long. I do think some things good can happen after 2am, but I’m learning not to linger.
Inline links: Sovereign House, TJ Byrnes
Dinner is nice. Meeting friends briefly at Sovereign House then home early - very good.
Later, I’m at the Norman Finkelstein lecture at Sovereign House and it’s gathered an almost surprisingly mixed audience, which I think is a good sign. There’s no one really comparable to Finklestein. Crumps wrote about the lecture well. I got there late. I struggle to articulate my thoughts on reason, and particularly on ideology and morality. Even those terms are inaccurately didactic. I do think I can discern when someone can parse out reason particularly well, and the hour of the Finkelstein lecture that I listen to is among my favorite events of the year.
Inline links: Norman Finkelstein, Crumps
Also Wednesday, August 14 - Roman D’Ambrosio presents a reading of his new play Homemade Dynamite at Sovereign House. The play debuted at the New York Theater Festival — featuring “intense drugs, sex, violence, and religious fervor”. Doors at 7pm, Play at 8pm
From 8pm to late — Adeline celebrates her 21st birthday at Sovereign House, hosted by Adeline, Peter Vack, Cassidy Grady, and Chris Bray.
Back in New York, at dinner at Hop Kee, my friends are talking about The State Of Things. They're talking about The State of New York in particular. The State Of What People Care About. I say something cynical and boring, but then my friends are talking about an increasing draw towards real life, things in real life, probably live music more than literature as the next main thing, because live music is more conducive to real life than, for example, a reading. Reading is arguably a solitary activity being forcibly thrust into a social sphere when performed. Music might be more inherently visceral. I prefer readings to concerts but I do think one is a more natural concept than the other. I’ve been in El Salvador and I miss hanging out. Tonight: something new - a meet and greet with an infamous explorer at Sovereign House.
Inline links: Hop Kee, Sovereign House
From 7pm at Sovereign House — Chris Gabriel hosts a tarot and memetics party. Not exactly sure what this one entails, but I’ll probably attend on the later side.
Inline links: Sovereign House, Chris Gabriel
I’m going to a meeting in the garden of Sovereign House where it feels strange to be midday and then I’m walking around lower Manhattan like I do most days except today it’s hotter than most and it shouldn’t be because it’s end of summer. Later, in the spirit of things, there’s an end of summer party on my friend's roof. I’m not lingering long because I need to wake up early. Not lingering long because it’s already late.
At Sovereign House on Friday, September 13 from 8pm — Sex Mag hosts their issue launch, featuring material from Ivy Wolk, Elena Velez, David Lucas, Honor Levy, Peter Vack, Betsey Brown, and more.
Inline links: Sovereign House, Sex Mag
Saturday, September 28 at 8pm — $EGIRL Zine launches at Sovereign House. Readings by Cassidy, Annabel, Jo Rosenthal, Billy Pedlow, and Adeline Swartzendruber. I have a piece in this about being stalked and being manic.
Inline links: $EGIRL Zine, Sovereign House, Cassidy, Annabel, Jo Rosenthal, Billy Pedlow, Adeline Swartzendruber
I go to a philosophy meetup where the evening then bleeds quickly into a reading at Sovereign House. I’m told the two are separate events, but I can’t say I engage enough with either to really tell the difference. Mostly, I am sitting outside on the stoop eating North Dumpling, drinking a white claw. It’s a little gross, but there was a year during which I lived on chicken dumplings and green tea alone. I won’t feign repulsion.
There’s a Houellebecqian Eboy Party at Sovereign House. If you know what any of those words means, then this is for you.
I arrive at the Sovereign House Anti-Canada party a little late (6pm) (the party started at 3.)
Inline links: Sovereign House
There’s a lot to miss today, and a lot that therefore, I do miss when my plans go awry. Beverly's reopened and there’s ambient music sets down the street and there’s a few gallery meetings, a communist meet up at Sovereign House.
Friday, October 18 from 8 - 11:30pm — Sovereign House hosts an HP Lovecraft Halloween Party. In the spirit of the author’s incomprehensible abyssal cosmology, costumes should evoke “cosmic horror, intrepid explorers, reclusive cultists, or anything else that’s sure to drive us mad.”
Inline links: Sovereign House, HP Lovecraft
After, head to Sovereign House for the Halloween Masquerade edition Confessions. Readings by Abigail Yaga, Miami Mike, Christian Gail, Sam Forster, Cassidy, and Annabel.
From 7pm - 11pm — Sovereign House hosts a screening of The Legend of Lami. An anonymous source describes this as “a documentary about murdered seasteading businessman who was diplomat for Liberia”
Inline links: Sovereign House, The Legend of Lami
From 8pm - 1am — Sovereign House is hosting a Milady Election Watch Party. RSVP only.
Inline links: Sovereign House
From 7pm at Sovereign House — Christopher Zeischegg makes a rare NYC appearance to celebrate the launch of The Magician with a night of alter egos. I recently read and loved this book - “an incantatory trip into the heart of darkness”. Come as you are (or as you are not). Readings by Tess Manhattan, Reuben Dendinger, and Chris Zeischegg. A short film screening of THE MAGICIAN will follow, inspired by the harrowing story behind the text.
I watched the election at The Free Press party, and then at Earth, and then at Sovereign House. Magdalene Taylor wrote the Sovereign House Scene Report for GQ, which you can read here. The only thing I can really add is that while I also was not on the winning team, I did arrive late, and then stuck around until some approximation of the bitter end. I don't really have any sweeping political commentary to offer from my evening spanning the Election Parties of New York City. On all sides, people seemed generally more subdued in their mourning and/or celebration than I expected.
Looking through the backyard window of Sovereign House a few hours before results are declared but a few hours after everyone is already certain of what they will be, you can see a shadowy mass of people cast in the blue light of projector TV. You can see some outlines of figures jumping, but their forms are blurred by the clusters they compose together. A few people are chanting USA, but not too loudly and so the sounds are muted from the garden. The garden feels more distant from the party than in past times that I've been here - from outside, I can't get that good a sense of what's happening within. There aren't that many people left at this point in the night, and I wasn't here earlier, when the place was packed with sensitive young men and e-girls.
I leave then - it's probably around two am and outside, the streets are quiet. I walk over to 169 Bar to get a water. There's residue of a party going on, here, too, but it seems more like a kickback than anything political. They have one TV here, but it usually is playing a choppy re-run of some movie from the 90s. I don't think to check what they’re playing tonight. I'm not really sure. I go to the bathroom, where I find an "I'm Immune to Propaganda" Milady hat forgotten on the sink, no doubt the leftovers of a Sovereign House straggler who got tired of waiting for the single bathroom at the crypto party. I consider taking the hat, but decide against it. It is very late. I would like to be home.
I’m excited. I’m also anxious. Back in September, I booked the event at Sovereign House. Sovereign House has become rather infamous among people who concern themselves with scene politics in downtown NYC. Suffice it to say, the venue has right-wing affiliations. So, mere days after the election, I am ONCE AGAIN ASKING my friends, followers, and performers to willingly enter MAGA territory.
Inline links: right-wing affiliations
There were actually several practical reasons I chose Sovereign House for this event, including but not limited to the venue’s convenient location and its willingness to host and offer an open bar in spite of my having no event budget whatsoever. Notably, the venue is also known to be open to a broader menu of “dissident” artists and writers. Zeischegg’s book and short film are decidedly NSFW. I couldn’t expect to bring this content into any cutesy little venue and hope for the best. No, I needed to know ahead of time that I wouldn’t risk inciting moral panic when a bound, naked Zeischegg appears onscreen with a cock in his mouth and a forcep-gripped firecracker(?) in his ass.
Look, much has been said about the political bent of the guys who run this place. What people fail to mention is just how asocial, stilted, and ineffectual they are. My early dealings with Sovereign House were comical. When I asked X (I’d rather not flame anyone by name) whether they’d be willing to host a musical act, he told me it would depend on how “clouted” they are. Sick. I told him I’d “keep that in mind.” In early October, I alerted him that I was interested in booking iD-SuS. He didn’t ask further questions. In late October, when I asked whether there’d be anyone to assist with sound, he replied, “Fuck. I didn’t know there was a music performance. We didn’t discuss that I don’t think. I guess I should have checked the event description.”
From 7pm at Sovereign House — One Man Army hosts Vol 5 of Anthology Film Festival Paradise Shredition
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
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: DDM, Uncensored New York, Beckett's, Tense, Lucy Sante, Penny Arcade, Madame Matovu, Chris, Adeline
From 8pm - 11pm at Sovereign House — Filmmaker and photographer Lara Verheijden celebrates the Nude Calendar Launch. The 2025 calendars are available in both “Texas” and “New York”. Free drinks at the party.
From 7pm at Sovereign House — One Man Army hosts Vol 6 of Anthology Film Festival Paradise Shredition
From 2pm — There’s a Holiday Market at Sovereign House. Ft Elena Velez, Confessions NYC, a group closet sale, and much more. Christmas Caroling to follow at 7pm.
From 8pm at Sovereign House — It’s a Very Tense Christmas. Come celebrate the most Tense time of the year with spiked eggnog, surprise santa, and a performance of William S. Burroughs “The Junky’s Christmas” by Nico Walker and Beckett Rosset. Readings by Kathy Joyce, Nick Dove, Kitty St. Remy, Sophie Dess, and Caitlyn Brennan,
From 7pm — Christmas Caroling begins at Sovereign House and walks through the neighborhood. Hot chocolate, cookies, and drinks provided.
Inline links: Christmas Caroling
From 7pm at Sovereign House — One Man Army presents an exclusive first look screening of BIRD BOY, a comedy documentary from Daniel Robbins.
From 7pm at Sovereign House — One Man Army presents Paradise SHREDition Vol 7 - a steamy, sultry, celebration of erotic films, and a mixer to follow.
From 7pm at Sovereign House — One Man Army presents Paradise SHREDition Vol 7 - “a steamy, sultry celebration of erotic films…with the plumber (but without the “fixing”).” A talkback and networking mixer will follow the screenings.
From 7pm at Sovereign House — Magdalene Taylor hosts an Arcade Publishing Event, featuring Bruce Wagner, Noah Kumin, Matthew Davis, Emmalea Russo, and David Fishkind. Excellent writers, free drinks, and “something to offend everyone.”
Backlinks
- Adeline
- Adeline Swartzendruber
- Alex Katz
- Ali Royals
- Allen Street
- Ama Birch
- americana
- Anastasia Berg
- Annabel
- Annabel Boardman
- Anthology Film Festival Paradise Shredition
- August Lamm
- Autumn passes and one remembers one’s reverence
- Baguette
- Bar Valentina
- Beckett
- Beckett Rosset
- Berkshires
- Bernard Cohen
- Betsey Brown
- Bijan Stephen
- Books
- Brooklyn
- Brooklyn Bridge
- Cafe Gitane
- Canal Projects
- Casino
- Cassidy
- Catie Fronczak
- Chengdu
- China
- Chloe Pingeon
- Chloe Pingeon’s Substack
- Chloe Sevigny
- Chris
- Chris Bray
- Chris Gabriel
- Chris Smalls
- Christopher Zeischegg
- Collected Agenda
- [[issues/2024-05-19_1-collected-agenda_full|COLLECTED AGENDA #1]]
- [[issues/2024-06-06_collected-agenda-3_full|COLLECTED AGENDA #3]]
- [[issues/2024-06-24_collected-agenda-4_full|COLLECTED AGENDA #4]]
- [[issues/2024-07-27_collected-agenda-6_full|COLLECTED AGENDA #6]]
- [[issues/2024-08-14_collected-agenda-7_full|COLLECTED AGENDA #7]]
- Collected Agenda (lite)
- Collected Agenda Scene Wiki
- Collected Agenda with Lydia Sviatoslavsky
- Concepts
- Confessions
- Conor Truax
- Cortney Connolly
- Counterculture in America
- Crumps
- Danielle Chelosky
- David
- DDM
- DDM
- Denmark
- Dirty Magazine
- Dunkunsthalle
- Electric Pussycat
- Ellie
- Emmalea Russo
- End of the Cold Front
- Equinox
- Events
- Everything I Wanted
- Expat Press
- Florida, Massachusetts
- Forever Magazine
- Franz Kafka
- Gideon Jacobs
- Gonzo’s
- Gutes
- HEART
- Henry Street
- Holy Wisdom LLC
- I wish I had more to say about fashion week.
- Indulging in the Eschaton
- Interview
- Ivy Wolk
- Izzy Capulong
- Jack Skelley
- Jean’s
- Jemima Kirke
- Juice Generation
- KGB
- Kiki Kramer
- kind of a dud socially
- Knickerbocker
- LA
- LaGuardia
- Laurie Simmons
- Life before inositol
- Lucien
- Lucy Sante
- Lydia Sviatoslavsky
- Mackenzie Thomas
- Madeline Cash
- Magdalene Taylor
- Manhattan
- Mars Review of Books
- Massachusetts
- Matthew Barney
- Matthew Davis
- Matthew Donovan
- Michelle Lhooq
- Moral Framework
- Most Mentioned Entities
- Music
- My lame blog
- Myth Lab
- Natasha Stagg
- New York
- Noah Kumin
- NPCC
- Number1Fairytale
- O’Flaherty’s
- October in America
- Old Flings
- One Man Army
- Organizations
- Paradise SHREDition Vol 7
- Paul’s Cocktail Lounge
- People: A
- People: B
- People: C
- People: E
- People: F
- People: G
- People: I
- People: J
- People: L
- People: M
- People: S
- People: T
- People: V
- Peter Vack
- Places
- Playing With Glass
- Prada Horse Shoe
- Pretty Garden Club
- Pubkey
- Public Records
- Publications
- Rachel Wiseman
- Rave New World
- Rebounder
- Red Room
- Reiji Fukitsu
- Reuben Dendinger
- Robert Longo
- Rolling Stone
- Ruby Sutton
- Russian Cosmism
- Russian Cosmism Circle of New York
- Russian Samovar
- Sacred
- Samantha Sutcliffe
- Saoirse Bertram
- SARA’S
- SARA’S
- Sarabeth’s
- Seventh Heaven
- Shannon
- Singapore
- Sleepwalk
- Sophia
- Sophie Dess
- Statues Of Critics.
- Swan Room
- Teddy Quinlivan
- TENSE
- Tense
- Tess Manhattan
- Test Subjects
- The Brooklyn Center for Theater Research
- The Brooklyn Center for Theater Research
- The Central Park Zoo
- The Hamptons
- The Knickerbocker
- The Locker Room
- THE MAGICIAN
- The Magician
- The New Criterion
- The Relentless Shadow Where the Light Surrenders
- The Roxy
- The Suede Hello
- The Thing Is
- Thomas Thatcher
- Tibet House
- TJ Byrnes
- Trump
- UFC
- Uncensored New York
- Venues
- VERA
- Vera Dika
- Vivi Hayes
- Ways to be sincere.
- What Are Children For?
- What Are You Doing In The Fall?
- WONDER
- Zack Graham