A student was driving me to a university building, a residence for priests, where I had been invited to stay the night. When we arrived, there was a huge parking space in front of the residence with a sign "Reserved for Residents," meaning priest residents. I said, "Ah, parking right up front." But then to my amazement, she drove right by and continued on to a parking place for the public — a parking place that seemed to a person of my size to be five miles away!…
"Look, did you see that parking place back there?" She replied, "Yes, but that's for priest residents." And I said, "Wait a minute! Number one, we're just dropping off the luggage. Number two, I am a priest resident of this building tonight, so I have a right to it as a priest resident." I continued, "So I think we have a right to park there."
…But what shocked me was that she wasn't even attracted by it! She had no desire to park nearby. I told her, "You suffer from the reduction of desire.”…She didn't park up front because the educational system, with its laws and punishments for breaking the law, had drilled into her that she should accept her spot as a student and not have ambition that might be beyond her rightful place in society. That is how power remains in power — by reducing our desire.
The Puerto Rican physicist turned priest Lorenzo Albacete recounted this story in an essay that attempted to emphasize how those in power have succeeded in convincing the masses to give up on seeking lasting meaning, love, and happiness, and to settle for “contentment”—comparing this to the scandal of someone turning down “free midtown [Manhattan] parking forever.”
Albacete’s sentiment captures the launch party—both literally and figuratively.
Metered parking on the block of our [midtown] venue ended literally at the start time of the party (much to the relief of our guests from Jersey who kept nagging me about whether there’d be parking).
I couldn’t help but feel overwhelmed by the totally gratuitous sense of joy and communion (akin to the kind Emilia Tanu described in her piece about life in the Bronx for the zine) that wafted through the venue (and out into the smoking patio) that evening.
The quirky array of guests alone was a sign of contradiction. Among the “crowds” represented were CL and neocats, Arthouse2B peeps and Catholic NYC peeps, Plough readers and Compact readers, Lambs club-adjacent folk and Dimes-adjacent folk, “the Jersey crew,” a slew of other Cracks in PoMo archetypes (see them all here), and complete randos.
But even more surprising than the diversity of our crowd was the fact that the circles cross-pollinated, people mixed and mingled and engaged in actual, substantive conversations with each other (even though we explicitly stated we were banning all talk and that the music was meant to be a metadiscursive commentary on our postmodern moment). This has come to feel like more and more of a rarity at scene events, where it’s the norm to engage in a performative mode of socializing that’s more keen on self-promotion and on “ironically” saying deplorable things in order to provoke and scandalize. Heaven forbid we experience genuine “fellowship.”
Cracks in pomo is guilty of indulging in sarcastic—at times even bitchy—irony-pilled rhetoric. But this is all in service of nudging our readers to laugh a little, take ourselves less seriously, and have a little fun. For Albacete, a sense of humor was essential to developing the humility to accept that we are broken creatures who are not our own saviors…and because of this, we should give ourselves a break—laugh a little—and rest in the knowledge that there is Someone who embraces us in our fragility and makes something beautiful out of our miserable nature.
If you’ve read the zine, hopefully you’ve picked up on the common thread linking the seemingly discombobulated and esoteric content (also Adam our designer and I challenge you to find the hidden symbolism we’ve placed throughout the zine’s graphics ;) ).
Among the most sinister threats to our times is desensitization to the vice of social division. What are packaged as conflicting factions in a culture war are in reality prefabricated narratives designed to divide and conquer. One of the most powerful bulwarks against such deceptive expressions of abstract power—and agents of hope and freedom—is communion among people.
Also, where else can you find a party in the city that ends with the guests debating Catholic vs. Protestant biblical exegesis (where the Protestant whips a Bible out of her car trunk to prove her point) outside the club at 2 am as drunk white girls and crackheads pass by?
Some last notes
Something about the chthonian, underground discotheque setting brings out the primal side of our gendered embodiment—proving that (almost) everything Paglia (and Zizek) has said about gender relations is correct. The non-cel drama was high-key palpable.
In all seriousness, as cracks in pomo contributor N.P. Krause pointed out to me after the party, having it in a club—with blaring music (esp. since it was mostly R&B and Dembow) and without a reading or discussion panel—really was a metadiscursive commentary on pomo saying: the only worthwhile discourse is one of spontaneous joy, unity, and fun. It is such an EXPERIENCE of conviviality—not ideas or punditry—that truly cracks through the BS.
But not to worry. We’ll be back at our very respectable venue of choice (Maryhouse) in the fall. As devout Taylorites, we believe strongly in moments of frivolous anti-structure. To maintain Appollonian order above ground, we must indulge in moments of Dionysian disorder underground—where it should stay put!
And for real, hit us up if you find the secret symbolism in the zine.
Shout outs
the amazing Dj ZaZa for getting the party littt
The Rose for accommodating us
and of course, zine designer Adam aka Wafers3D
Hit all of them up for their services (click on the links)
And as always, thank you to our sponsors Hestia Tobacco and Masa Chips by Ancient Crunch for simultaneously toxifying and detoxifying our bodies with/from carcinogens, respectively.
I would like a copy! Pretty please :) And I’m subscribed because I bit finally bit the apple 😂