One of my favorite recent Substacks has been On the Spectrum, On the Guest List, which its author describes as “a serialized account of my fish-out-of-watering through New York City’s VIP party circuit.” That doesn’t quite do it justice though. It’s a sprawling, witty, sociological exploration of one of New York’s countless alternate realities—the archipelago of nightclubs like Tao, Lavo, Marquee, and other vectors of NYC-Vegas quantum entanglement—by someone who is brand new to it all yet able to fully immerse herself and even enjoy the experience, remaining just detached enough to make a tongue-in-cheek appraisal of what she’s witnessing. It’s the rare Substack where the writing feels native to the medium and less like a series of essays or blog posts that happen to be emailed (the final issue just went out today). One of the newsletter’s most distinct motifs is subterranean imagery: The
#186: Lake of Fire
#186: Lake of Fire
#186: Lake of Fire
One of my favorite recent Substacks has been On the Spectrum, On the Guest List, which its author describes as “a serialized account of my fish-out-of-watering through New York City’s VIP party circuit.” That doesn’t quite do it justice though. It’s a sprawling, witty, sociological exploration of one of New York’s countless alternate realities—the archipelago of nightclubs like Tao, Lavo, Marquee, and other vectors of NYC-Vegas quantum entanglement—by someone who is brand new to it all yet able to fully immerse herself and even enjoy the experience, remaining just detached enough to make a tongue-in-cheek appraisal of what she’s witnessing. It’s the rare Substack where the writing feels native to the medium and less like a series of essays or blog posts that happen to be emailed (the final issue just went out today). One of the newsletter’s most distinct motifs is subterranean imagery: The