The year is February 2023. Instagram is now the exclusively old Millenials hawking their standup shows in flyers ironically designed in MS Paint. You just found a good song on an abandoned deezer.com S3 bucket to add to your Malaisesque Songs About February collection. Gen Z has given rise to the plaintext revolution and is responsible for the return of pagers. This is Geistlist, about Things for People by Jacob.
∞. Colophon
Undersigned continues apace and Sam Kriss wrote the retort and synthesis to and of that Vibe Shift piece, and the followup to all of us talking seriously about hipsters in 2009. I’m thinking of starting a private forum just for people who go to that one brewery in Queens that I like.
¶. Tonight 7pm: Open VCR Night
It’s tonight, 7 to 10pm at Wonderville. I found knockoff tapes of Snow White and also Beauty & the Beast (with Noah’s Ark!) at the last DVD porn shop left in the East Village (Blue Door DVD).
¶. Friday 8pm: Miss Subways
In the 1950s there was a beauty pageant held each year on the advertising boards of NYC subways. In 2017 the City Reliquary brought it back. In 2018 and 2019, it got weirder.
Friday night it’s back, now live from the Coney Island Freak Show Theater and hosted by Maggie McMuffin, who in November earned the title of Miss Coney Island by performing a live medical cervix modelling demonstration on that very same stage. Judges include New York Nico who made short docs before you watched them, The Reverend Jen, Maxine the Fluffy Corgi, and Greg ❝One of the Bowery Boys❞ Young.
The contestants are live as of 5 minutes ago and I just fixed an 17-year-old CSS bug, so enjoy. Then buy tickets and say hi Friday.
¶. Sunday 11am: Critical Eurovision Studies
My pal and Palindrome Mystery Hunt Team President Ben Smith is presenting at NYU Pop Conference 2023, on Eurovision, the Pandemic, and Learning to “Open Up” Again. It might be livestreamed. Just register anyway and you’ll get the link if it is.
¶. Friday – Sunday: Fair Trade in San Diego
Anyone here in San Diego? You can see Fair Trade this weekend at La Jolla’s WOW Festival. It is a play for 3 perfect strangers about love, desire, and market economies.
¶. Tomorrow: Post-City Beautiful
What came after the City Beautiful movement? A good book by a cool guy coming out tomorrow that’s what. Chipper on down to your local bookmonger and and her to please stock it among her wares. Fun audio interview about the thesis, and in a wonderful magazine that used to be.
There is a launch party tomorrow in Troy, at the James Connelly Social Club at 4pm.
⁂. Asterism
And lo! Just noticed the perfect prequel to the two pieces mentioned up at the top. David A. Banks has culture’s fingers in his pulse. Also his wife Gil narrated the Real Life Audio Edition when it was alive. Power couple.