Activity

A month after Jerry died, PJ Harvey played two sold-out shows at the Warfield, and after her second show she played a secret impromptu set at the Hotel Utah, a dive bar South of Market. The show began at one a.m., after her show at the Warfield. I don’t know how I got invited but I went. The Hotel …

On the opposite end of the spectrum was a soulless event we worked for a company party at a giant stadium somewhere in the South Bay. It was a private concert given by Rod Stewart for the employees of whatever company it was (I don’t recall). We had to wear ugly polo shirts and khakis, and everyone…

At the height of a roiling controversy, before Kanders ultimately resigned from the Whitney board—and well before Safariland tear gas canisters were fired on crowds of American protestors in cities small and large across this country after the murder of George Floyd—I found myself in a social situa…

Koons’s linking of refinement with debasement recalls Joan Didion’s closing comment in her essay on the Getty Villa, which, she says, serves as “a palpable contract between the very rich and the people who distrust them the least.” Tacky and overt signs of luxury are for the poor. Tasteful, subdued…

The company had another ad in the same series, a similar couple, good-looking young professionals, reading different parts of a newspaper that is spread over the floor in some kind of magnificent domicile, huge and unfurnished. Trying to decode what kind of space it is, I’m reminded of a comment in…