OUR NEW YORK OFFICE (collected essays, 2012)
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Out now : FUTURISM
February 2012 - Manhattan
Anonymous asked: are submissions open for sense europa edition II
CAVEAGENCY@GMAIL.COM
Shelly was a retail associate at SOHO store number 2, in late 2011. She knew April, who worked in corporate. April had invited her to come to the office and sit in the sunshine on the roof, on an unusually sexy day in December. It was warm and people outside the office moved with unusual grace. There were black cars in the streets and the deep recession looked comfortable and soft. There was a mood, but it was changing. The light on the road was cruel and both women thought of the other as younger and prettier than themselves.
“As teens, we used to read The New Yorker with great energy. Now we only read Artforum - and only as a slow, lazy joke,” said April. April spoke of the company for a long time as if she was maybe interviewing. Shelly did not seem to notice or care. She tried to talk about boys she knew from University in London, then relented.
Club Monaco was restructuring that year, largely as a effort to understand it’s own internationalism. It was another company that did not understand itself - believing itself to be an entity somewhat independent of its employees and owners. “Ours is culture of business. These American women understand money,” said Shelly. She was raised in Spain, born to a wealthy family that lost almost everything in the tech collapse of 2001.
April was raised in Argentina, with some German Parents. They had many brightly colored bathing suits. They had a chef named Emanuel.
The sun went down with the sound of exhausted production assistants putting on unfashionable backpacks. The two women made their way downstairs to the executive offices.
“If you have tomorrow off as well, you should come to this party on Canal Street, tonight,” said April.
“OK give me your number again and maybe I will call later.”
Shelly left the corporate office to breath in the early night. On the street, she felt chased by eyes. She felt wanted by bad men, and by some cute boys. Her gaze flashed up and down the busy streets of lower Manhattan. She found a train to her appartment in Bushwick.
She made a salad for dinner to go with her internal monologue about how she should eat a salad. She danced to the album Power, Corruption & Lies and thought about her next paycheck. She wanted to be able to not think about money, but she felt that there was also something sinister in that. She texted April about the party and received an address.
*
“Is there something completely gay about the F/W men’s collection? Am I off base?” asked April. She roared with laughter. Everyone else smiled politely. They were all in the penthouse that April shared with five other girls. There was a view of the financial district.
“I want to be completely drunk by the time straight boys get here,” said April.
“Why?” asked Shelly. Both were standing by the refrigerator. People moved them aside to get more beer.
“I can’t talk to boys when I’m sober. I just can’t. They are too ridiculous.”
Someone told a story about how someone at Club Monaco got fired the other day for getting really upset at the office.
A man in a slate gray turtleneck was like “oh my god and they couldn’t get him to leave. Muthafuck was like ‘yo ima kill this nigga’ and I was shocked into silence. Then Jerry said ‘let’s go into the other room and talk about this’ - which was the only real thing to do, obviously. It was just a small clerical error at the factory.”
All these single women in their late 20s crowded around the man and listened to the grusome office drama. Their faces were lit by expensive candles and they wore short black dresses for nobody, it seemed.
The penthouse was very large, so the group was on one side. Large windows looked out at the city. The girls would have made an amazing photograph. A beautiful young collection of these transnational faces, brought together by fashion and commerce.
And then three boys came to the party and it was all over. One was a director of TV commercials. One was a creative director of TV commercials. One wrote TV commercials and also some poetry. The boys stood at the makeshift bar like very hungry animals, trying to eat in order to not look hungry. They put the tequila on the table as quietly as possible. Shelly could already feel herself becoming a pawn in their sex game.
Erik Stinson
January 2012
On January 18th I deactivated my Facebook account. Maybe my move was prompted by the political protests of the day. But any political maneuver so convenient should be regarded with suspicion.
I think mostly, I feel people are sick my bullshit (I am sick of their bullshit)- or at least confused…
Erik Stinson for DIS MAGAZINE NYC USA
http://dismagazine.com/blog/28101/the-next-levels-debt-character-skins-in-the-game/
Anonymous asked: no more fb?
Yeah I de-activated it. It bored me; it looks like shit now.
Anonymous asked: should i buy hella gold now
Potential office space, West SOHO
Anonymous asked: do u enjoy male hegemony?
I don’t enjoy the social condition.
It can be really uncomfortable to have so much unending power, systemically reproduced and interpersonally invoked.
But I enjoy the benefits, probably.
Anonymous asked: which is more private to u, a person's thoughts at nite or their location at that time w/ action?
Thoughts probably seem less private, today. Blogging makes these shapes that appear like thoughts, and the myth of thinking on the Internet continues.
But thoughts are hard to have - let alone express. So they remain very exclusive. The work of expressing thoughts makes them private, functionally.
Probably location and action are privacies that are more easily violated.
