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Mimetic Theories of Doing Nothing

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Mimetic Theories of Doing Nothing

WHAT I DID Monday, September 31 In the rain, I walk over to my old apartment alone after class. The lease is up on October 1st, I’ve already enlisted an unreasonable amount of help from people who don’t necessarily owe me the kindness of multiple days in a row lifting boxes. I can handle the final touches on my own.

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WHAT I DID Monday, September 31 In the rain, I walk over to my old apartment alone after class. The lease is up on October 1st, I’ve already enlisted an unreasonable amount of help from people who don’t necessarily owe me the kindness of multiple days in a row lifting boxes. I can handle the final touches on my own. The Clinton St. apartment was small and I didn’t live there very long, the bed was lofted, and being that close to the ceiling felt eerie, I used to wake up sometimes and feel like things were caving in. I like my new apartment. Now, when I wake up, it’s all glass and sky and little planes floating out of LaGuardia Airport and drifting over me from what feels like such a distance. It’s been a series of subletters at the old place all summer, and so the boxes I’m moving don’t really even feel like mine. It’s depressing how much stuff has accumulated, most of it stuff I at one point purchased, probably within the last few years, I probably thought it would serve some purpose. There are some things I miss. There’s a map of Buzzards Bay that I’ll bring to wherever I live forever. Mostly, the clutter, or more realistically the dust, is starting to give me little red hives. Tuesday, October 1 October first. I’m thinking about how I’ve done nothing all September. I’ve done some things, but there’s been a lot of times that drift. I go to the gym and I make a list of all the things I have now that I used to think I would die for. Quantifying things like that mostly just serves to make me nauseous. I haven’t done everything in September, but I did do some things. I go to Buvette with my boyfriend for breakfast, it’s a little French place in the West Village, it’s so packed we can barely sit. I like to lurk in places like this on times like Tuesday mornings and think about who everyone probably is. There’s no reason for me to be here. Safe (perhaps?) to say the same for everyone else. There’s a woman taking business calls so loudly on the patio behind us, giggling as she bosses someone around in a voice so high pitched. She’s being loud on purpose because she wants to seem important. As a shy child, I would make crude jokes particularly loudly to my few close friends in the proximity of others so that knowledge I possessed a personality might be inadvertently gleaned. I have always been able to recognize this trick. I like the people sitting next to us, Italian couple, they order croque madame to share, and then ask to move inside, they’re very chic, old. It’s easy to trace the rest of their day in my imagination. There’s a made up trajectory for them that makes sense, and it’s appealing. The woman in the bathroom line is also on the phone, very concerned about who is going to watch her dog. I order steamed eggs and salmon. Mint tea. etc. Wednesday, October 2 I’m convinced by a friend to go to Rumble Boxing tonight, which is hellish in its conjuring of both excess and anxiety, and which I always found appealing. I’ve had no desire to go to anything this week, and so my observations on anything concrete, significant, cultural, buzzy, whatever, feel limited. There is something a little gross about eating bowls of mushed up cauliflower rice and chicken from Springbone Kitchen and then simulating SPORT in an expensive padded glow in the dark room where projected robotic videos on dark black walls guide your movements, but I feel very happy in a very sincere way today. Placated by whatever I have been sold, maybe. But also, I don’t feel sterile. Everyone is so nice in this routine that I could march through. Thursday, October 3 Reading ARTICLES this morning. Foggy. I’ve been thinking a lot about the value of long form vs short form art recently. Articles vs books, The Internet vs Anything else, entertainment vs higher purpose, etc. I feel inclined to think that long form is obviously better and that things that take endeavored effort to create and consume almost universally contain value not attainable or achievable through something transmitted in bursts. But also, I genuinely struggle to view obscurity as anything other than discouraging, and I don’t know if it’s necessarily less self-indulgent to pursue a deep investigation into one’s own obsessions and then beg others to engage in the form of their own easily digestible judgments. I think my thoughts on this are not that fleshed out and a bit unfair. A Creative Director emailed me career advice regarding what is Useful and Useless which I found to be incredibly annoying today, and so now I am thinking about it more. I slept too late this morning, and so I am trying to resurrect the situation by staying up till sunrise and then drifting through the next day until it’s evening enough to sleep early. I’m reading The Magician by Christopher Zeischegg . Body horror, noir, it almost should come across as voyeuristic but it doesn’t. I have a sense that if there is a book to read through the depraved haze of an all nighter it is this one. “There is nothing in here to satisfy the consumer,” says a glowing review on GoodReads. Friday, October 4 I don’t go to sleep and so I don’t wake up. Strange to bleed one day into another. I’ve been disconnected from the Things I Usually Do this week. Nothing to recap, then, this week… just musings that I do think drone on… Saturday, October 5 It’s important I redeem myself today. I go to the gym and then I walk to the Lower East Side for a meeting at Parent Company . The gallery used to be located in a shipping container in Brooklyn and I loved it then, but I haven’t been to the new space yet. You enter through a hatch off East Broadway and I like the new space too, there’s a group exhibition on view from an additional alternative art space called P.A.D . which hosts single-day exhibitions on carpets rolled out in SoHo. They’ve hosted more than eighty exhibitions since 2017, I’m told. There’s a glazed ceramic vase on view by SiSi Chen which I adore. It’s titled Venus Falls Until She Floats , I can’t stop looking at it. I’ve been writing a lot about alternative art spaces lately and this one feels special. Later, I walk to Stone Street . It’s a beautiful day, it’s too warm, the cafe is too crowded but the people-watching is pleasant. I get a matcha. It’s fine. Later, I walk to Tribeca to drop off a shattered old phone at the post office. I stumble into Nowhere NYC . It’s a show of Peter Knapp’s photography, not terribly well curated, a bit kitschy and over explained and yet reluctantly, I’m transfixed. The show is extremely heavy handed in it’s messaging as a tribute to fashion photography as an art form, old world glamor, placards tell you exactly where to direct your eyes but I am taking the bait and I am drawn in and I spend two hours here, the post office closes, arrive home early evening. Later, the Houellebecqian Eboy Launch Party . Chris reads a beautiful piece . There’s not much else to say. By the time I get to Time Again , it’s clear that even here, the night is over. WHAT YOU SHOULD DO Tonight : Monday, October 7 from 5pm — Loser’s is hosting their Monday night pop-up at Jean’s . A meeting of the minds of two of the best places to eat in New York. Proceeds on The Big Cinnamon Roll will go towards the preservation of the Elizabeth Street Gardens ❤️ Tuesday, October 8 from 6pm at AIA New York — N+1 hosts a discussion based on an essay that poses the question: “ Why Is Everything So Ugly? . Featuring Marina Mogilevich , Blair McClendon , and Dushko Petrovich Cordova in conversation with Lisa Borst and Mark Krotov . Two readings this Wednesday, October 9 From 7pm at Sisters Brooklyn — Elizabeth Teets presents I Blame Television: A Pop Culture Reading Series . Readings by Lana Schwartz , Blythe Roberson , Edgar Gomez , Sophia June , MJ Corey , and Matt Starr . From 7pm at KGB — Riley Mac and Montana James Thomas introduce the first installment of STRAIGHT GIRLS . Readings by Meg Superstar Princess , Zoey Greenwald , Jack Meriwether , Maddie Vasquez , and Chariot Wish . It’s busy per usual on Thursday, October 10 Roger Winter opens his solo exhibition Manhattan Valley at Tara Downs - “a selection in Winter’s signature pop-realism: flat opaque portraits and landscapes of New York” Beverly’s reopens at 297 Grand Street ! I never visited Beverly’s in its earlier days, but it’s a beloved artist-made arts and nightlife institution that I’ve heard wonderful things about and I’m excited to finally check out. From 7pm at KGB — Meg Spectre returns with The Meg Spectre Spectacular - “a musical comedy extravaganza done in earnest”. Featuring Deborah Offner , Pia Marchetti , Agnes Enkh , and Calla Selicious From 8pm - 12pm at Pretty Garden Club — Permafrost presents ambient iii with live ambient sets from espforever , mithril , and condorhouse - “an evening to rejoice in autumn’s sentimentality, a momentous gathering to embrace summer’s farewell” From 9pm at Gonzos — Voyeur presents a free ep release show. On Friday, October 11 From 6 - 8pm — MINOTAURS opens at Foreign Domestic . This group show explores sentience, agency, and new and old forms of consciousness. Curated by Harris Rosenblum , with works by Simon Denny , Anthony Discenza , Eli Kessler , Filip Kostic , Andre Magana , Karyn Nakamura , Georgica Pettus. From 6 - 8pm — After Hours opens at IRL Gallery with works on view by Gigi Rose Gray , artist duo Marjano and Denis Kapurani , and Yuwei Tu . - “ is an exploration of intimacy, privacy, and the hidden nature of human secrecy.” From 11pm - late — Dirty Mag will be at Baby’s All Right . The Dirty Mag parties are consistently fun. From Baby’s newsletter - “I have a feeling there’s going to be a lot of hot people at this one”

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