09. the run in.
contemplating my life while running into people around brooklyn - and why i can't stop listening to father john misty.
I am always running into people.
Since New York is such a large city, perhaps this is a bit surprising, but when you start treating each borough - or even each neighborhood - as a little city, suddenly it becomes how to not run into people. But maybe it’s because I’m a bit nosy - one could also say curious - and also because I can’t keep my mouth shut, always befriending people in line for the bathroom at Doris or saying hello to a dog in Herbert von King Park.
Earlier this week as I was walking around my neighborhood, I noticed a long-shuttered storefront had its door open, a small sign inviting people in. My curiosity got the better of me. I had to see what was inside.
It was nothing terribly exciting, just a series of long tables with cases of water bottles stacked on top and some signs for a State Assembly candidate, Eon Tyrell Huntley. The space was dark. Perhaps the overhead lights were off as a cost-saving measure. My eyes were still adjusting as a woman called my name.
It was a DSA acquaintance I hadn’t seen in months.
She was there “technically” working remotely for her day job in tech but “unofficially” working on Eon’s campaign in between Zoom meetings. We briefly caught up before she realized she had a work meeting. I exited into the late morning sun with several new Google calendar invites and a promise to sign up for canvassing the following weekend.
I love run-ins because of how unpredictable they are; because you never know who you might see or what new side quests might form. Run-ins, by their very nature, are unplanned, spontaneous. They are a brief reminder that I live in a community where I know people who might also frequent the same bookstore or coffee shop or bar.
Places like Greenlight Books or Ciao Gloria or Bad Luck Bar - or even the Park Slope Nitehawk - all feel like various extensions of a communal Brooklyn hipster space that is distinct yet interchangeable.
These are the places where I am likely to run into friends, avoid old lovers, and awkwardly chat with co-workers after hours.
We are all one or two or three degrees of separation from each other. She used to date him. He once worked at the same tech start-up. She worked with them before he ran for office, before she produced that short or moved to LA to pitch her pilot. They were roommates in college.
This is the world of North Central Brooklyn.
Last month I was reminded of how small the world is when I was outside LunÀtico, a restaurant that transitions into a jazz club in the evenings.
I was waiting in line to hopefully see the 10 PM set with my date, a towering Irish-Catholic Yinzer who played basketball twice a week and was in a frat but was also a political science major and took me to the City of New York Museum for our first date. An intellectual bro.
We had spent the better part of our evening so far shooting the shit nearby at Turtles All the Way Down (yes, there are turtles at the bar, because of course there are) when I suggested a jazz interlude.
The line to get in was rather long. As the minutes ticked by, we began making small talk with the people in front of us when suddenly I saw a familiar face, a woman named Miranda. While in line, I met her partner who was in town, an extended stay from the West Coast. He was why Miranda and I hadn’t had a chance to coordinate one-on-one drinks yet because that’s what happens when you become an adult. You have to pencil in a new friendship date a month in advance.
We laughed at the serendipity of it all before intellectual bro and I decided to cut our losses waiting in line and headed to a nearby tiki bar. It was the perfect run-in, but it wouldn’t have happened without an app.
I met Miranda and intellectual bro through an algorithm, except it wasn’t Bumble BFF or Hinge. It was a newcomer promising in-person experiences leveraging the magic of AI: 222.
Maybe you’ve seen the ads come across your feed. They look straight off of someone’s digital camera from 2008 and feature hot people in their mid-to late-twenties in various states of group fun toasting frothy cocktail glasses, sharing a whisper at a crowded bar, passing a plate of Instagram-worthy food.
To unlock this indie sleaze revival, you have to download the app and rank a series of questions on a scale of 1 to 7 that range from therapy prompts (“I worry that other people don’t love me) to borderline unhinged (“How attractive do you consider yourself?”) before it gives you a personality. Unsurprisingly, I got “romantic.” Based on your personality, the app invites you to different in-person events with other people based on everyone’s compatibility.
My first event was in the East Village. A few days before the event I received a text letting me know I was selected for a ‘curated’ dinner and comedy show. The day of the event, I received the location for dinner and a name for the reservation. When I finally arrived at the restaurant, I felt awkward using a random person’s name because up until that point, I still felt like I was one second away from a candid camera crew rushing out.
Sike! You’re some loser who has to use an app to meet people? So lame.
Apparently, my social anxiety is still stuck in the mid-2000s. Instead of Ashton Kutcher punking me, the host simply nodded and walked me to the table where there were already two other people waiting. I looked around and saw there were other people in their mid-to-late twenties in groups of six to eight. I wondered if they were also part of 222.
Over the next few minutes, more people arrived and we completed our table of six. After introductions, conversation between everyone settled into a fairly relaxed pace. We learned what everyone did, but quickly transitioned into other topics like world events and broader philosophical topics. Throughout the evening, there were a few points where things reached a lull, but it never felt uncomfortably awkward, just a natural point in the conversation. Later, we discovered that the app had conversational prompts we could have used but we were all so immersed during the dinner that no one bothered to look at their phones.
After the check was dropped, our phones buzzed and we received instructions for our next event at a comedy club a few blocks away where other 222 tables converged. Knowing that we had all signed up for this app - that we were there because we wanted to meet new people - made it much easier to approach one another at a crowded bar.
Before going to events like this, I always worry - even in New York - that I’ll be the only person of color so I was pleasantly surprised that our table was not only balanced along gender lines but was also racially diverse. This was something I was able to fully appreciate around a month later at my second 222 event in Williamsburg and part of why I’ll likely go to future events. But we also need to address the elephant in the room.
Since signing up for 222, I’ve gotten invitations ranging from a Lower East Side dive bar crawl to art felting in Downtown Brooklyn, but the timing has never worked out. Each event has a $20 ‘curation fee’ that unlocks the full details of the event - think of it like your ticket – but that doesn’t cover things like food or all those frothy cocktails you might purchase during the event. I’ve only gone to two events so far, and by all accounts, they’re working the way they were intended. I’m not sure how I would have otherwise met intellectual bro or Miranda or some of the other people I’ve since run into without 222. We all live within the same neighborhood, but our social circles are such that I’m not sure we would have organically interacted.
Yet as much as I loved these events, and many of the other “social experiences” popping up, the more I realized they were are all curated for people within a specific income bracket. My concern isn’t that I didn’t have a good time but rather how it feels like just one more thing - in this case, organic connection and friendship - that seems locked behind a paywall, accessible only to people with disposable income.
Next week: Tracing the evolution of this current iteration of social clubs as it’s made its way among the ultra-wealthy before trickling down to Brooklyn hipsters, and how that coincides with the decline of ‘third spaces.’
CURRENTLY…
Pausing to consider whether “love is just an economy built on resource scarcity,” and revisiting some college radio tunes a decade later.
I am always yearning, trying to take in as much of the world’s beauty as possible. The romantic in me pauses to look at flowers or up at the moon. I can’t help but softly smile at the toddler outside a cafe tentatively stepping towards a dog, or a couple walking in front of me as they silently join hands.
I believe in love because I see tiny snapshots of it every day.
I also believe in love because I haven’t been able to stop listening to Father John Misty’s 2015 album, “I Love You, Honeybear.”
So much of my music taste lately is girls who yearn (Clairo, Faye Webster, Mitski) that it’s always a welcome surprise to hear a man sing about love in such an raw, open way.
Each week this spring I’ve found myself constantly replaying certain songs from this album. Earlier this month it was the opening track because sometimes everything is doomed - but it’s an easier pill to swallow with Josh Tillman’s soft crooning.
Lately, I’ve found myself returning to “Holy Shit,” a song full of juxtapositions that he wrote on his wedding day. It’s a reflection on how it’s incredibly wild that people fall in love (“no one ever really knows you/and life is brief”) but also - who cares (“what I fail to see is what that’s gotta do/with you and me”).
Holy shit indeed.
Now this is a man who yearns.
Some other additions to my summer playlist diary include some early Real Estate and Hospitality.
I’ve had Spotify for over ten years now. Recently, I’ve found myself using it as a time capsule, a look into how my music tastes have (or haven’t) changed over the years.
For example, a playlist from June 2014 is simply titled “beep beep” and features a medley of artists I still listen to (Yo La Tango, Vampire Weekend, Toro y Moi) but also Shirley Temple (don’t ask) and Buddy Holly (the man, but also the Weezer song).
During my freshman year of college, I was a DJ at WMXM on Fridays from 3-5 PM. My moniker was DJ Gidget. The station had a wall-to-wall collection of vinyl dating back to its founding in the early 1970s. I spent the fall of freshman year playing early 70s soft rock, like Bread, and developed a small but loyal fan base of late-afternoon Chicago commuters. The radio station’s only requirement was we had to play five new songs an hour.
In the spring of 2014, that meant Real Estate’s Atlas - “April’s Song” made its way onto a spring chill playlist from that year - and Hospitality’s sophomore album, Trouble.
Real Estate remains somewhat of a notable background player in the indie scene. Funnily enough, unbeknownst to me until Thursday, while I was revisiting this album earlier in the week, Real Estate performed at a Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young tribute concert at Carnegie Hall.
However, Hospitality still feels special, still feels mine. It is so distinctly of a time and a place in my life that I’m almost glad few people have heard of them. I know it’s summer when I finally feel called to cue up Hospitality’s debut as I walk along 8th Avenue in Chelsea or Park Slope, knowing I am on my way to sit on a roof, play spades and hearts - that I’ve “left my twenties in bar rooms and bathroom halls.”
With lyrics like “I don’t wanna go down to 14th Street” and “moved out in the summer/an army bag of clothes.” If that doesn’t scream ‘soundtrack to a Brooklyn HBO mini-series,’ I don’t know what does.
This is what 19-year-old Kayla thought living in Brooklyn would sound like. I’m happy to report that it’s been all of that - and much more.
until next week,
xx kayla