Limelight tells two interconnected and opposing stories. The first half of the film focuses on Gatien’s nightlife empire (The Limelight, Palladium, Club USA and The Tunnel) and the cultural boom that seethed within those walls, complete with interviews of Michael Alig, Moby and a slew of other original club kids waxing nostalgia. The second half of Limelight becomes a true crime/courtroom drama documentary full of drug-dealing DJs turned informants, prostitute-hiring DAs and elaborate political takedown plots.

Director Billy Corben, whose previous Cocaine Cowboys films brilliantly tied a major city to its drug of choice, diligently represents Ecstasy’s role in the Manhattan nightlife story. In one scene, a DJ/drug dealer called Lord Michael describes serving E-spiked punch to Limelight patrons. With the introduction of Ecstasy and Special K, the mood shifts and the hedonist escapism of the early ’90s turned into the paranoid debauchery that characterized the end of the decade.

“Ecstasy wasn’t illegal in New York until 1998,” says Gatien. “Not one of Giuliani’s people arrested anyone in New York City until 1998. Before that, Ecstasy was less illegal than lighting a cigarette in the non-smoking section of a restaurant.”

After the overdose of a young man from a connected family, the “rave” drug made its way onto the radar of New York politicians and the law zeroed in on both Gatien and The Limelight.

“My father’s first indictment said he had an Ecstasy factory in the basement of The Tunnel,” says Jen Gatien. “And then it shifted to, ‘He didn’t profit off the drugs, but he knew they were there.’ At first, I thought it was just a mistake that would be cleared up, but it turned into a relentless pursuit.”

“I think I paid a very dear price for whatever occurred at those clubs.” Gatien says. “Prosecutors make their career by taking down big scalps, and mine was a very high profile case.”

In 1999, Gatien pled guilty to tax evasion and served 60 days in jail. Four years later, he was deported back to Canada, leaving his American-born wife and children behind.

From his new home city of Toronto, Gatien describes how things have changed in the New York City nightlife world.

“We used to put a lot effort into drawing a diverse crowd. You had a much better chance of getting into the club if you looked interesting or if you were an aspiring artist or writer.  Today, someone is valued based on how many bottles they can buy, which I think is very depressing. It’s this whole instant gratification generation.”

When asked what he thought of his daughter’s film, Gatien says, “Listen, it’s hard to tell a story in 90 minutes. There are some areas that I wish could be different. I would have loved them to interview Funk Master Flex and all the other people who were an important part of it all. But then again, the film probably wouldn’t have been that good if it was all people talking about how wonderful it all was.”

This Friday was to be the
end of my social existence. Spectrograph, an art show that promised to be a deconstruction of sight and sound,
was welcomed by hurricane-like lightning and rain, but that didn’t stop a room
full cyberpunk art aficionados from crowding Devotion Gallery in Williamsburg for the opening last Friday night.
For most, the term “cyberpunk” brings up images of Jolt cola-drinking alterna
teens firing up their 28-baud modems to browse Geocities websites, but
considering Devotion’s edgy, techno-art focus, it seems the most fitting of
labels.

Seeking shelter from the
rain, a small crowd of smoking art appreciators hid under the bubblegum-colored
awning outside Devotion, which advertises “Cristina Unisex Hair and Design.” Upon
entering, I was greeted by a display of tiny neon glow boxes that I initially
mistook for party store decorations. Upon meeting the artist Ted Hayes (aka Tedb0t), I learned that the boxes were indeed
the show itself.

“Our perception of sound
emerges out of lots of building blocks, but we don’t normally perceive it as
that. We don’t normally realize all the components to what we’re hearing.”
Tedb0t, wearing all black and looking like a character from the movie Party
Monster, proceeded to pick up a glow
box and whistle into it, causing the color of the box to shift with the change
in his pitch. Across the room, a little girl who couldn’t have been older than
5 was gleefully laughing into a box that responded by changing colors, only
serving to feed her laughter. This was by far the most adorable thing I’ve seen
at an art gallery.

Neon-frosted cupcakes were
served, along with white wine and bottles of Pilsner Urquell, which partygoers
chomped and sipped as they discussed everything from art to computer hacking.

On the opposite side of the
gallery, photos by artist Maximus Clarke were bound to the wall, displaying two photo sets of people in 3-D. A
table at the front of the room was covered in 3-D glasses.

“There’s no reason why 3-D
should only be used for giant robots or blue-skinned aliens. 3D, as an artistic
medium, has so much unrealized potential. I mean, it’s a whole other
dimension!” Clarke said.

Clarke’s explanation of the
philosophy behind the photos seemed in line with Tedb0t’s glow boxes: Things are
not always what they seem, and there are many components to what we see and
hear. The subjects of Clarke’s photos ranged from the artist himself to author William
Gibson and noted lit-blogger (and Clarke’s spouse) Maud
Newton.

“I think there’s a lot of interesting
stuff that’s happening with technology and art and the intersection between
them, and I think it’s great that Devotion has given it a home,” said Newton.

Before the night ended, I
caught up with hacker/gallery owner Phoenix Perry to discuss Devotion. She told me that maintaining a
gallery in the current economic climate is hard, but doable, and that
Williamsburg needed a gallery that dealt specifically with the intersection of
art, science and new media.

“Anything
worth having is worth fighting for,” Perry said. [Jon Reiss]

I was so certain of this that by the time I made it to powerHouse I was deathly afraid to walk in to the actual party. Halfway through a cigarette, I worked up the nerve to talk to another partygoer smoking outside. Danny Lambert, a philosophy student from the U.K., confessed to me that he hadn’t read much BOMB before the party, but that it seemed "indistinguishable from other literary magazines." Instead of trying to explain why I thought BOMB was the key to happiness, I asked him what he thought of the party.

"It seems all right," he said. "There’s a lot of people with their organic babies inside."

Finally brave enough to walk inside, I immediately spotted a few babies in the children’s section of the bookshop but had no way of telling whether or not they were organic. The adults were scattered throughout the room, enjoying the selection of Brooklyn Brewery Lager, Pennant Ale and Pilsner beers and white wine. Across the room from the drinks table, a man in a navy sport jacket and white turtleneck with billowing dark brown hair seemed to command the crowd around him. There was no way that this guy wasn’t a BOMB published writer with a beautiful Dumbo apartment. I tried to nonchalantly mosey up beside him, but I quickly became too conspicuous and had to identify myself as a reporter.

The dapper young man turned out to be Simon Van Booy, a BOMB writer and novelist who would be reading as part of the evening’s event. I asked him what he thought of the festivities.

"It’s just fantastic," he said. "You could be trapped in an elevator with anyone in this room and it would be interesting."

The reading kicked off with a young Nicholas Elliot reading his poem about a road trip taken by ex-lovers. Van Booy then took the stage, reading the opening pages of his novel Everything Beautiful Began After, his poetic prose sounding not unlike the short stories of Italo Calvino. To cap off the evening, playwright Richard Maxwell and actor Scott Shepherd played dueling guitar and ukulele, respectively.

Before the party’s end, I made a beeline for BOMB’s editor in chief. After exchanging smiles and shaking hands with the demure Betsy Sussler, I asked her my go-to question for the evening.

"What allows BOMB to persevere when so many other literary and art magazines are dying off?" "Me!" Sussler replied. I laughed far more than was appropriate and then asked my real question.

"What does it take to get a story published in BOMB?" "It’s not just about great writing. I’m really interested in subject matter and what compels the writer to write about that subject matter. I’m really traditional in a way when it comes to good storytelling. I want it. I expect it," she said.

Heading toward the subway, Dumbo, BOMB and cobblestoned streets named after citrus seemed slightly more attainable than before. 

Walking up Bowery from the J train, it was easy to spot the event by the legions of graffiti aficionados pouring out of the venue onto the front sidewalk with freshly signed books and sweaty foreheads. The Hole’s interior was brightly lit, with glaring white walls that featured odd smiley face paintings and sculptures scattered throughout. Two small tables were set up in the spacious room, one selling the book and another giving away free bottles of Colt 45 Blast in watermelon and cherry flavor. Across from the drinks, another long table stretched the entire length of the room. There sat the two authors of The History of American Graffiti, as well as a number of the graffiti writers featured in the book. By the time I made my way over to Roger Gastman, co-author of the book and copublisher of Swindle Magazine, my cherry Blast was already hotter than the inside of my underwear.

I asked Gastman what he thought of the turnout.

"I’m just thrilled that so many of the original graffiti writers showed up. Look around—everyone’s happy, everyone’s smiling. It’s hot, but it’s so great."

Beside Gastman sat Caleb Neelon, co-author of the book and a prolific graffiti artist in his own right.

"This is an excellent turnout," said Neelon. Then, looking giddily to his left, he whispered, "I mean, Taki 183 is sitting right next to me. The teenager in me is gushing right now."

At that point, my desire to understand what exactly made this event so special that people would pack into this oven of a gallery was matched only by my desire to find cooler air. In a sweat-soaked stupor, I found myself talking to Derrick Harden and Laura O’Reilly, co-curators of Gallery 151.

"The artists in this book," Harden said, motioning to the signing table where graffiti writers Taki 183, Mike 151, Rocky 184 and Snake 1 sat scrawling their tags into book after book, "These guys are like the Afrika Bambaataa of graffiti—they’re the true innovators of the art form."

I felt like I understood. I shook my head, causing a couple of sweat droplets to launch off my forehead towards Harden.

"By the way," he said, "there’s a mini air conditioner in the back room." 

Sitting together at a booth inside Little Italy Pizza in the Financial District, Colin describes a NY1 report he’d seen in another pizzeria the day before.

"This thing had washed up from the East River," he says. "It was an Atlantic sturgeon. They can grow up to five feet long and have these armored plates on their bodies. It’s the most sick-looking animal you’ll ever see."

Despite the images of sea monsters that suddenly hovered over our plates, Colin and I eat and then discuss the merits of our plain slices. We agree that it is above average and should be rated six out of eight possible slices. A few days later, the review shows up on his blog.

Thus far, The Slice Harvester has deemed Pizza Suprema, at 431 Eighth Avenue, the best slice in the city, citing its "superb ratios and ample grease." However, as any fan of the zine will tell you, The Slice Harvester isn’t really about pizza.

"People ask me, ‘Do you have any goals besides eating pizza?’" Colin says, wiping his mouth. "I’m like, ‘No, I’m going to eat all this pizza and then I’m going to kill myself because I’ve finished my opus.’ I want to end rape, honestly, that’s my goal. But nobody wants to talk about that. You want to write a feel-good piece about pizza and that’s fair enough."

I pull out my camera to take a picture.

"No pictures" he says. "I’m anonymous."

While Colin embraces the incognito aspect of the New York Food Critic, his reviews are far from your average food critiques. Colin has tempered a zineculture-influenced writing style that’s casual yet articulate, and uniquely funny.

"Pizza, it’s so simple yet, so wonderful, just like the Ramones. Wanna know how to make a good slice, what’s the formula for a Ramones song? Four ingredients!"

"All I’ve ever wanted to be was articulate, and someone who believed in things," he says.

In a post-Giuliani Manhattan food world, where by-the-slice pizza has taken a backseat to fancy, organic brick oven pie joints, Colin’s reverence for the slice is refreshing. By sticking to slices, Colin has managed to pay homage to food that feels representative of not only New York City, but hoi polloi and punk culture.

"Pizza, it’s so simple yet, so wonderful, just like the Ramones," he says. "Wanna know how to make a good slice, what’s the formula for a Ramones song? Four ingredients! Pizza is a cool cultural establishment. You can enjoy it on your own, or you can order a pizza pie with friends."

Between our time at Little Italy, Star Pizza and Palermo Pizza, all within a few blocks in the Financial District, we broach numerous topics of weighty conversation and philosophical crescendos. While Little Italy and Palermo both received a coveted 5-slice rating, Star Pizza on Murray Street received a crushing 1-slice rating. Colin’s review quoted my complaint that the cheese formed "tiny globules" in your mouth. When our slices are finished, Colin and I walk aimlessly toward the water, discussing the project further until our interview strays from standard Q&A style and turns into a discussion about love, art and growing up.

"When I started this whole thing, I’d returned to New York from traveling and I was drinking a lot," he tells me. "So I just said fuck it and started the project. Since then, my life has changed so drastically. I’m a lot more sober than I used to be, I have a lot better mental health and I’m jut so much more comfortable with who I am. Finding an arbitrary thing and investing all of my time and energy into it didn’t solve those problems, but it did solve the question of why the hell I should get out of bed."

We share an intense silence that’s broken by a kid, no older than 11, running towards us.

"Do you guys want to see a monster?" he asks.

"Of course!" Colin says. We walk about a meter down the East River Park boardwalk until we’re standing right above a 5-foot sturgeon washed ashore. Colin hands me his camera and jumps down from the boardwalk to pose beside the scaly beast with both thumbs up. The smell is so bad from where I’m standing that I’m ready to throw up three pizzerias’ worth of pizza, but I’m enthralled. After all, I realize in this moment, that this is my job. 

Cologne wafted through the outdoor area, where tables and chairs were set up around a rectangular reflecting pool and beer tents. Guests were handed little green radios with headphones to listen to the audio of the film, which was being shown on a large flat screen resting against the side of a neighboring high rise. The film began with a newscaster describing Boob as "diametrically opposed to the jeans and T-shirt approach to rock ‘n’ roll," and continued with spliced-up interview and performance footage. Throughout the movie, the band is seen slipping into elaborate makeup and costumes and philosophizing on the state of the New York City art scene.

Soon the outdoor area was filled with eccentrically dressed ex-members of the film’s scene, and I found myself wondering what it must be like for them to watch their youth projected on a wall.

I spotted a guy sporting a back tiara; it was noted fashion plate JoJo Americo.

"I think it’s great. It’s fun to see that people are putting effort into making things so that people can see what was going on here," he said. "From 1990 to 2000, it was kind of strange for music and art and stuff. Things got really expensive and you couldn’t just have a two-daya-week job to pay your rent, everything changed."

Across the pool I saw a big, muscular blond in a black wifebeater. It was Walt Cassidy, frontman for Boob and one of the few talking heads in the original Party Monster documentary who managed to hold on to his handsome mug through the’90s. I asked him about Boob’s punk rock approach to the club kid scene.

"You have to understand, all the club kids came out of the hardcore scene, at least our contingent. Me, Michael Alig, Desi Monster, we were listening to Minor Threat and DRI."

Cassidy, who’s now a visual artist, described to me the inception and ethos of Boob.

"Boob started when they were closing all the clubs, right when Giuliani came into office. We were trying to hold onto something that was disappearing right in front of our faces."

Is it as bad now as you thought it was going to be, I asked.

"I think it’s worse." Cassidy said. Near the beer tent, hairstylist Astro Earle was fraternizing with his apprentice Tony Caserta. Earle, rocking leopardspotted hair and three "Oi!" tattoos on his neck, explained to me how nightlife has changed.

"There’s a whole new slew of kids bringing a great new energy," he said.

"It’s kind of dark now, everyone wears all dark colors," added Caserta, sporting all black himself to offset his porcelain complexion.

I asked Earle whether Alig’s upcoming release from prison will make a difference in the nightlife.

"I don’t think he realizes what New York has become, we never had these sterile high-rises when he was around. Besides, I think he wants to go out to L.A. to torment James St. James." 

Though the show had officially started, the new incarnation of Cinders—a block or so away from its original location, right next to the BQE—was sparsely populated until Knoop walked in. Then, slowly, a crowd seemed to form around her. Since moving to New York in the wake of the social experiment that was JT Leroy, Knoop has hastily churned out contributions to New York culture, including the performance art duo called AMASS, her monthly dance party Woahmone and a soon-to-be-released novella from which she was about to read. Knoop, in a black-and-white jumper, explained to me that she and the two other readers were all connected through San Francisco activism.

"Erik Lyle and I used to live in the same office building in San Francisco and we’d see each other a lot in the elevator," she said, explaining that it had become common at the time in San Francisco for people to take up residence in office buildings.

Lyle arrived wearing a blue buttondown shirt and a black baseball cap, looking more like a L.A. surfer dude than an East Bay Gutter punk. Then it occurred to me that the outfit was probably dumpstered. Atop a small table inside Cinders sat copies of his zine Scam, which featured numerous guides to scamming, cheating and stealing in order to further a punk rock lifestyle. Next, Kat Case arrived in a sleek black dress and Cinders seemed suddenly full.

The room was full of mostly grownups who sat quietly as the readings commenced. Knoop read from her work in progress, about a woman trying to get on general assistance while being haunted by the voices of her pet fish. Lyle’s work focused on a fictional graffiti artist on the lam, and Case brought the evening home with a story about two ladies in trouble after trying to cross the border with a cache of pills. Afterward, the crowd broke for smokes and beer as the film Maggots and Men was set up for a screening.

Outside, I asked Lyle what his teenage self would think of the presentable adult before me.

"I feel like I’ve kept pretty true, I still hustle any way I can to get by," he said. "I still sell zines for cash, do crime, whatever it takes. I’m still making it in the most expensive city in the country."

I tell him about how I used to romanticize San Francisco, but add that while it’s expensive, Brooklyn feels like the place to be.

"Honestly, we’ve finally killed off the hippies and the baby boomers and now it’s our time, he said. "The punk rockers control Brooklyn." 

Needless to say, I was sweating bullets before the Mobys, an awards show dedicated to nothing more than book trailers. What can be said about book trailers that hasn’t already been said? Indeed, has anything ever been said about book trailers? I went to powerHouse Arena and jammed in amongst a crowd of book people and their assorted hangers-on to find out.

The first person I approached was Tao Lin, Richard Yates author and the bard of Bushwick, standing casually before me in a black nylon zip-up. My anxiety showed prominently.

"Do you mind if I ask you about book trailers?" I asked Lin.

Standing less than a foot away from me with his jet black hair jutting in my direction, Linn stared directly into my eyes with both brows raised for about 40 seconds of silence before saying, "No."

"No I can’t ask you about book trailers, or no you don’t mind?" After another long pause, he gave me the go ahead.

"I made one for Shoplifting From American Apparel that was just me doing something weird for like five seconds and then it showed a blurb. I guess it helps. I think that the best ones are just the ones that are funny." I walked away feeling it had been a positive interaction.

Soon enough, everyone grabbed one more beer pumped directly from some keg-like apparatus and took his seat and the ceremony began. Standing in front of a large screen, Melville House publisher and Moby Awards founder Dennis Johnson presented a slew of awards representing the good, bad and ugly of this year’s book trailers, regaling the winners with a small gold statue of a whale.

In a highlight of the evening, the trailer for Gary Shteyngart’s Super Sad True Love Story featured Shteyngart’s editor admitting that the much-celebrated author was in fact illiterate. Shteyngart accepted the award—dubbed the "We’re Giving You This Award Because Otherwise You’d Win Too Many Awards"—and exclaimed, "Today is a special day for illiterate authors, from Snooki to Nicole Richie. The future of publishing lies in illiteracy."

And while James Franco’s cameo in Shteyngart’s trailer won him the "Best Cameo" award, Jonathan Franzen’s appearance in the book trailer for his Freedom, in which he rails against the very notion of the book trailer, won the Moby for "Worst Performance By An Author." Other awards included "Most Monkey Sex," which was won by Vanessa Woods’ Bonobo Handshake, and "What Are We Doing To Our Children" snagged by Lane Smith’s It’s a Book. "Best Big House," it seemed, was the evening’s most coveted prize—the Best Picture of the Mobys— and it was won by the trailer for Mary Roach’s Packing For Mars.

"It’s like any other art form," Johnson told me, "98 percent of it is dreck, but you slog through it to get to the 2 percent that’s magic."

When the ceremony wrapped up, people hung out inside the space drinking and schmoozing, but I was left confused about book trailers—from what I could tell, they were neither fish nor fowl.

Heading toward the train, I ran into writer Catherine Lacey, whose olive skin and high-beam eyes made me decide I needed another quote.

"I realized that book trailers are really just a good way to make fun of books without making fun of them directly," she said. "Like, I heard that Capitol is a really good book, but the trailer is heinous."

I thanked her and headed home, unscathed. 

I’ve always been bad with feminists.

Though I’ve never been able to play a sport or change a tire, boyishness tends to leak from my pores. Around them, I clumsily try to differentiate myself from the other men of the world by quoting Spitboy lyrics or talking about The L Word. It’s usually a disaster.

The steep three-flight walk up to Paragraph established a light glaze over my back and belly, dampening my blue dress shirt. The dark room was divided into cubicles with a small communal couch space at the center for socializing. A largely female group stood in circles sipping wine from plastic cups, trying to be heard over a soundtrack of adult contemporary.

Damp and isolated, I questioned the space’s potential as a party venue, but was relieved to spot a friend at the top of a set of windy stairs. After a number of narrowly missed collisions with plastic wine glasses, I greeted him. I mentioned that I was having trouble approaching people and he gave me some typically male advice: "Just talk to the most attractive people in the room, they tend to be the most interesting."

Done and done. Sitting with a friend in a cubicle was a Winona Ryderlooking writer named Theresa Coulter.

She told me she wasn’t a Granta reader but had come to the party merely to check out the space. I asked her my fallback question of the night—Who’s your favorite feminist writer?

"I recently got into Margaret Sanger," said Coulter. "She’s pretty amazing. I mean she’s talking about family planning and birth control in a time where…"

I cut her off to mention that one of Sanger’s books had been featured in a recent episode of Mad Men. She smiled and nodded, signaling that our conversation had reached its stopping point.

Back across the room, partygoer and Boston University professor Ashley Mears told me, "For me, feminism brings to mind misunderstood students who really do believe in gender equality, but think that the F-word is some kind of sullied bad word that means angry French women and bra burning."

With her was Picador editor Alex Gilvarry, whose novel From the Memoirs of a Non-Enemy Combatant is due out in early 2012. He praised Granta and its girlpower guest list for cobbling together an enjoyable event. "A lot of book events can be really boring with long readings," he said with a cool grin. "You might notice that tonight there’s no reading, just a lot of hanging out and drinking wine."

Remembering my friend’s advice, I honed in on a girl with closely cropped dark hair and strong features. Her name was M.J. Corey and she explained that she was a writer. I asked her about feminism.

"The feminism that gets me excited is second-wave feminism, which is very strict old-school, anti-sex and kind of anti-male."

Excited and enamored, I interjected.

"Like Kathleen Hanna?" She laughed. "No, she’s a third-wave feminist.

She’s pro-sex whereas second-wave feminists believe in withholding and selfpreservation. They’re not fun, they’re like angry lesbians but I like them more."

In the reflection of a computer monitor, I noticed that my shirt had completely soaked through.

Sponsored by Electric Literature, the quarterly short-story anthology, and Flavorpill, the fete, held on the 18th floor of The Standard Hotel, was
by all appearances glittering. Cocktails in chilled glasses were
stuffed into hands while dress-slacks-covered bottoms perched on plush
leather couches. Glass tables were littered with copies of books not to
be released to those on the other side of the hotel’s phalanx of
bouncers for months.

On the roof, a DJ spun a mix of dance
music, classic be-bop and soul. A crepe stand set up in the far corner
served sweet and savory snacks to literary leviathans who found
themselves puckish. Editors, agents and bright young things devoured
their treats and sipped their drinks as they stared out at the Hudson,
pondering the larger questions of existence. The scene that night
appeared to be the genuine article, almost the perfect picture of a big
time book party. Almost.

"I can’t believe we have to pay for drinks!" said musician Marshall Winter. "What
kind of shit is that?" The books may have been free, but on the
Astroturf-covered rooftop of the glamorous West Side hotel, the hottest
question of the night was, "How much did you pay for that drink?" In
today’s tight times, parties aren’t what they once were. Freelance book
marketer Kimberly Cowser explained that having an event at all felt decadent.

"When
I first started out in publishing, there were tons of parties. But this
is the first book party I’ve been to like this since, since the
recession. You have to pay for drinks, which kind of sucks, but this is
the first party that’s pretty much as good as they used to be."

If anyone deserved props for the evening’s success, it was Electric Literature co-founder Scott Lindenbaum. I
attempted to subtly shower Lindenbaum with praise, sharing with him the
sentiment that he’d thrown the best book party that a bunch of drunken
bookworms remembers. He shrugged and said, "We try to hold it down."

Standing
near the crepe stand, a tall young man with curly, coal-black hair and a
strong jawline caught my attention. I asked around and learned that he
was Michael Signorelli, an editor at HarperCollins; the company’s Perennial imprint was billed as the night’s "special guest."

"The
party is as good as we could have hoped for," he said. "I don’t know
how we lucked into this venue but it’s a perfect backdrop to the kind of
energy that we’re all cooking up together."

Things wound down as clouds covered the sky and the sun disappeared. I spoke to writer Brian Joseph Davis, who
told me that a lot of changes were going to have to be made to keep
literary magazines (and the parties they throw) healthy, but that we’d
all be better off in the long run.

"It’s not that we’re in dire
circumstances, but we’re in painful circumstances. It’s much like the
industrial revolution. It was brutal, but it improved a lot of the
conditions that happened before it."

Maybe the party wasn’t
perfect, but it certainly wasn’t brutal. There was a palpable sense of
hope on the rooftop that night, or at the very least, the air seemed
thin enough that a few $10 drinks went the distance.