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Moral Framework

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Moral Framework

WHAT I DID Sunday, December 8 I’m the first person awake in the world today, it seems. Nineteen hours maybe more in the apartment after things went awry Saturday evening. It’s morning now, and I’m clear headed in the way one only can be after sleeping through a haze so profound that the waking contrast is shocking.

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WHAT I DID Sunday, December 8 I’m the first person awake in the world today, it seems. Nineteen hours maybe more in the apartment after things went awry Saturday evening. It’s morning now, and I’m clear headed in the way one only can be after sleeping through a haze so profound that the waking contrast is shocking. I walk to the gym. Warm again. I wish it wasn’t. I don’t mind that some things are more predictable lately. I’m not glad when my best friend calls me crying, but I do like that she’s close by. I walk to the East Village. Her apartment is cozy. I lie on her floor and I hit her vape and I scroll on her phone - evaluate the situation at hand. Kant’s moral philosophy states that the personal happiness or pride accompanying moral action negates the morality of the action in the first place. Hegel would disagree, on account of his belief that inaction to preserve one’s own self perceived moral purity is a deeply stagnant and selfish act. I’m not sure where exactly I land on this one. This is what they’re talking about in the Podcast I’m listening to. Another friend calls me crying. I don’t think my faults include a tendency towards condescension or pleasure in my own ability to impart good will. I waver in faith in my own morality. Far too subject to circumstance. I’m not particularly helpful. I walk to the next crying friend’s apartment. It’s three blocks away. I don’t think pleasure in proximity violates any moral codes. The apartment is ornate. Big gold frames everywhere. I eat Jewish food on the couch. Putting out fires left and right, my first crying friend texts me. It probably is my turn. I’ve probably been wavering on the edge of out of control for weeks now. The truth of self sufficiency is - you can have a beautiful life that is materially and spiritually in large part imparted to you by others, and you can still feel entitled to it sometimes. The worst emotion is sludge. The second worst emotion is rage. The best emotion is clarity. The most risky emotion is euphoria. It’s felt easier to let things turn sour lately, which concerns me. I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about how to resurrect this as a premise. Things are soured on a personal or cultural level when a slight is quick to feel like an injustice. I go to Citarella. I can figure out which cheese is pecorino romano this time. I understand the impulse to travel but I’ve been trying to avoid it. There is newness everywhere. A desire to escape claustrophobia through even more stimulation is symptomatic of a larger disease. I try to buy only ingredients: pecorino romano, sausage meat, red pepper chili flakes and oregano, apples, berries. I buy a little piece of Walker’s shortbread at the checkout, too. Monday, December 9 A busy day. One quickly finds this to be the solution to all malignant indulgences. Before a comedy show at Jean’s, Natasha and I go to Altro Paradiso for dinner. It’s an early dinner in the rain. Madelyn works here, and I’ve been meaning to visit for a while. I’ve been meaning to apply for a job here, too, but the list of things I’ve been meaning to do on that front continues to pile up. We order many things on the menu. The house specialties that we did not order somehow seem to keep materializing on our table as well. It’s like magic. It’s a special night. Rumor has it: Marina Abromovic was dining here this afternoon. Rumor has it, she’s dined here twenty times. Altro Paradiso is a well lit restaurant - I read something I liked about well lit restaurants this week and now I can’t recall where. The premise was: enough of this haze. Some people want to see their food. Some people want to see and be seen. Tonight, I drink Ciro Picariello. It’s like white wine but it sparkles. I drink a cocktail with peach purée and peach liquor. I drink a dirty martini. I eat olives, bread and ricotta, finocchio, another salad with fig and orange, mushroom pasta shaped like pillows, lemon pasta shaped like thick noodles, branzino, gelato. It’s a winter feast. I haven’t had a feast like this in my recent recollection. After, the rain has stopped but the evening is still misty. We hail a cab. We’re too late for Jean’s. Natasha is good at spotting famous people. Rebecca Black walks by. EmRata’s ex husband. Some other people, too. We go the The Nines, which is very festive, but where everyone is very rude. We go back to Jean’s. The show is over, they let us in, but there’s no point in lingering now. I loved tonight, I say when I get home. A sign of mental stability is drinking alcohol and not hating every second of it. I know for some people, it’s the opposite, but this is how it works for me. Tuesday, December 10 The line to get into the Richard Kern book launch is too long and it’s raining. I see Annabel and Ellie outside. I see that Berlin blogger who only wears all black or all white and her TikTok DJ boyfriend. “I need to become someone who’s ‘list me or miss me’”, a girl in line sighs. We’re still waiting in the rain. She said this in a way like she was kidding, but I repeat the sentiment with no humility to David later. “We should become ‘list me or miss me’,” I say. David has a tendency to bludgeon his way through lines. “We should become ‘list me or i’m going to fucking kill you’,” David says. After I abandon the Richard Kern line, I go to Lucien. I run into a few people there. The expected and the unexpected. There are things I’m very excited about these days. Excitement is risky - it’s unwise to tempt fate and it’s destructive to celebrate accomplishments you are yet to achieve, but I am excited. Full of ideas again. Everyone at Lucien is an actor. That must be so cool, I say. I’m so full of sincerity, I think. This time of year can be so full in general that it begins to feel uneasy. This type of luxury isn’t mine to claim and it’s certainly not sustainable. The hedonism feels truly hedonistic today, though. It’s energetic, not coated with something darker. I’m having so much fun. David wants to go to Frog Club for banana chiffon pie. “Why am I so broken up about Frog Club closing?” asks David. “You’ve never been to Frog Club,” I say. “Yeah, that’s probably why,” says David. Risotto David made for me + prints from Paris Wednesday, December 11 I went to the Russian Baths on Wall Street on my first day in New York. I still go often now. It’s not really of my own volition. It’s a family tradition. It’s still pouring today. It’s been pouring all week. I used to think the Russian Baths were all liminal space and Russian mob, but now it feels less secret. The Doritos are from Israel. Russian Jews and Russian Gentiles, I hear someone explaining in line behind me. The building is huge. The pool area does feel kind of like The Backrooms. I have night terrors every night. In my dreams, I am never stuck in places like this. My aunt likes the cold plunge. She can stay in it for seven minutes, far beyond the recommended time of three. The Wim Hof method recommends rapid bursts of breath coupled with exposure to the extreme cold. I’m in the Infrared Sauna. On Christmas, I will swim outside in Walden Pond. Wim Hof (the man) lost a finger, an ear, something detached in the retina of his eye… I can’t recall the specific injury but something bad happened swimming across an icy lake. He took it too far. When I get back to New York, I will swim off Orchard Beach. There’s a group that goes every morning. My aunt tells me you have to go to Orchard Beach in the winter. It’s like Siberia in the Winter. It’s finally getting cold enough to swim. On my Wednesday at the Russian Baths, I lose my keys. I lose the big rubber slippers that they give you on arrival. I can’t last very long in the extreme heat or the extreme cold. An actor in the infrared sauna is talking about how he can only memorize lines in the cold plunge. I’m thinking about how I’m in an infinite feedback loop where everyone I meet keeps being actors. We go to dinner at the Russian Restaurant at the spa. It’s called Matryoshka like the dolls. I only learn this later David and I split potato pancakes, salad olivier which is the one with mayonnaise and egg and chicken (delicious), beef stroganoff, steamed chicken pelmeni. More stroganoff and borscht and red wine is also passed around the table. I can’t drink red wine, so I drink ginger juice and ginger vodka instead. Afterwards, too full to continue. There are other plans tonight - a film, a party, I promised I would go and I never cancel plans but sometimes I do just neglect to show up. A very bad habit. Inertia ultimately breeds pure evil ! Time doesn’t pass at Spa 88. Still pouring but dark now, when we emerge from the underground. Thursday, December 12 My abridged review of Dimes Square (revival) today. I didn’t see it the first time around - I wasn’t here. I was in Boston. I was in a sorority. I arrived in this godforsaken ecosystem after it was already dead. I’m kind of being facetious. I think people try to qualify eras too concretely. Concretely: Dimes Square (the play) is indeed a period piece. In the vein of all Matthew Gasda’s plays, it is emotionally rich, lucid, kind of yearning, which catches me off guard but I think adds depth. The thing I like most about Dimes Square is this: it’s not self serious but also it is not sneering. The best satire is actually quite sincere. This is why most satire is generally and particularly in contemporary culture, bad. Dimes Square (the play) is excellent. I will be publishing a stand alone review of the play here shortly. I already wrote the review but then I realized I was far too stuck on historical accuracy and far too personally tortured . In the meantime (from my notes) — - “The main fault of the characters in the play is that they are cruel, but the main critique of this scene in real life is that it is (was?) (is?) full of people who are pathetic ” - “Nobody actually views anyone with disdain for being cruel and opportunistic, they view people with disdain for being pathetic” - “In the play, they have gallery shows , and make films and write novels .” - “I find it nostalgic (not the writing or acting but the inevitable contemporary reaction to it) (the writing and acting are sincerely strong - not sentimental). My nostalgia is all my own.” I will publish my review shortly. You can see Dimes Square for the last time ever on Dec 17 and Dec 18 in Manhattan. WHAT YOU SHOULD DO Monday, December 16 - From 7:30pm — TheaterLab presents the final performance of Tender Napalm – “The New York revival of Philip Ridley’s explosive exploration of love”. I’ve heard really excellent things about this one. Tickets are sold out online, but available on standby. - From 8pm at KGB Bar — Easy Paradise hosts their Holiday Spectacular Open Mic. Tuesday, December 17 - From 5 - 7pm at Dunkunsthalle (64 Fulton St) — SARA’S presents a solo exhibition by London based artists Emily Pope . “Out of Step with the Season,” will be on view through Dec 29. - From 7pm at KGB Bar — KGB Lit celebrates their Issue 22 Release. A lit journal from the best bar in New York. Follow the green light to the release party. - From 8pm at Seventh Heaven — Car Crash Collective hosts their Anthology Reading. Featuring Richard Hell, Katherine Faw, Geoff Rickly , Claire Donato , Ryan Petersen , Danielle Chelosky , Jade Wootton, and Em Brill . - From 7:30pm at Talon Bar— TinselTown Film Club hosts a night of short films, including screenings of American Cuck, Maison du Ted, and Eve’s Garden, among others. Wednesday, December 18 - From 7pm - 10pm in Manhattan — Your last chance ever to see Dimes Square ! Thursday, December 19 - 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 9pm — The team behind Baby’s All Right celebrates the opening of their new club – Night Club 101 . Located at 101 Avenue A in the East Village inside the historic Pyramid Club structure, this new venue will officially open early 2025. Thursday’s preview club night is in partnership with Pitchfork Mag . - From 10pm — It’s Girls Night at Jean’s. All are welcome, but this night celebrates female DJ’s. Wear your revenge dress and your dancing shoes! DJ’s Mona Matsuoka and Donna Francesca . Friday, December 20 - From 6pm at Baby’s All Right — Matt Weinberger hosts Weinberger’s Holiday Happening. Live music, readings, dance, and special performances. Ft Calla , Taryn, Noah Berghammer , Yonder, and many more. - From 7pm — Christmas Caroling begins at Sovereign House and walks through the neighborhood. Hot chocolate, cookies, and drinks provided. - From 8pm — Car Crash Collective and Charm School Mag will be at Mood Ring . A rare Los Angeles x New York crossover from two of the best magazines / reading series at the forefront of the Writing Renaissance. Ft. Sarah Velk , Bernard Cohen , Vivi Hayes , Rax King , Donny Morrison , and Benin Gardner. - From 11pm at Bowery Electric — Girl-About-Town-Lucy ( Leg5 ) celebrates her 21st Birthday. Hosted by Dirty Magazine , Valley Latini , and Page Garcia among others. Photos by Lyss Lester (and others). Lot’s of DJ sets. Stacked lineup. Saturday, December 21 - From 12pm - 6pm — Foreign Domestic Gallery hosts the Holiday Art Market. Featuring a book launch by Joseph Brock , new posters by Count Slima , and work by Allison Brainard , Massif Central , Ama Birch , and more. Sunday, December 22 - From 7pm at Gonzo’s — Mather Danger Lippman and his band perform a free Holly Jolly Holiday-Ass Show . Lineup includes Lou Salome and Lex Walton . Hosted by Jill O’Connell . DJ sets by Sipper .

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