cu1tofdionysus

[cu1tofdionysus]

It's my 1 year anniversary on Tumblr 🥳

[cu1tofdionysus]

RAWRing 20's-- Inside Bella Di Pietro's bridal debut

If you are under 25, and into DePop style bundles, Sofia Coppola, coquettish gothic maximalism– AKA a lot of people–you know the designer, Izzy Di Pietro. I’ve been following her since high school, along for the ride, viewing the designer’s Instagram stories. She was a cool girl online for girls who preferred Monster High over Bratz. At that time, Di Pietro was dropping out of FIT as a sophomore and selling one of a kind reworks on Depop under the name Izzy’s world. A corset went viral on fashion Twitter. She dressed the dancers in rapper Lil Uzi Vert’s “Demon High” music video. This year,  Di Pietro is solidifying herself- revamping, from viral Izzy’s World to Bella Di Pietro, doing special occasions, prom dresses and “other stuff.”

Ushers bustle around, attendees rush to their seats. There are none left unoccupied but there are lots of veils, opera gloves, Demonias, and graphic eyeliner. We are at Tribeca Synagogue because this is Bella Di Pietro’s sold-out debut bridal show, and the designer is Jewish. The aisles are draped in red, white, pink and black: crushed velvet, tulle, lace, silk. There are models sitting on stage, their identity shrouded in veils. They don’t move or do anything during the show, just sit. The collection's theme is unclear– goth, girly, bridal. Di Pietro is an “intuitive designer,” which means no pre-production, no mood boards or themes, and leaves me to wonder what that means for the cohesion and storytelling capabilities of future collections. On the flip side, because this is Di Pietro’s platform, the audience she built, her following, her customers, she can do whatever she wants. Many members of the audience look way too young to be engaged, but are interested in the designs because she designed them. 

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by BELLA PIETRO (@belllapietro)

Di Pietro's “M.I.L.F. flower girl”, a mom-aged model throwing petals from a woven basket as she walks down the aisle, opens the show in a cleavage-baring, champagne, floor-length slip. All of the garments live in the realm of pink, white, red and black, too. Like all of Di Pietro’s designs, the pieces are one of a kind, mostly vintage that’s been sourced and upcycled. There’s a couple, both women, one dresses as a (un) traditional bride in white, the other wears a groom-like suit reconception– white knee stockings, black hot pants, an oversized black blazer with a comically large white bow. The gem of the collection is an altered 1920’s medical corset, layered over a David’s Bridal gown, paired with blood red Pleasers. Off the shoulder, like Sleeping Beauty. A large red rosebud has been sewn onto the bodice. Crimson crystals drip down the waistline as if the bride’s heart had been ripped from her ribcage.

Some pieces feel more like reimaginations than original designs. Where is the line between redesign and original design? There is a pink ball gown number strutting the catwalk that has been embellished with strings of silver beads, pearls, and white flowers that look like they might fall out after some dancing. Many of the looks are elegant, beautiful, and unique. Some are gaudy, unstyled, and untailored, as if the show had been slung together in a fury. Because Di Pietro is a one woman show, it probably was. 

Di Pietro has her finger on the pulse. Her designs appeal to the future of brides easily by being accessible for all bodies, sustainable, and trendy. There's an element of drama and performance that I foresee being a very big bridal trend in the years to come. Big name, oldhead designers can't get into new trends, like coquette, the same way twenty-something- year old Di Pietro can. 

A lot of the models are personal friends of the designer, but the rest are Tik Tok models. One wore a strappy mismatched red thong under the sheer fabric of her skirt. For designs as grand as Di Pietro’s, you need a professional model to wear the clothes, not the other way around. I recognize one of the models as someone who trashed my friend's apartment whilst apartment sitting, stole my wedges and butterfly top out of said apartment, gave my friend’s friend chlamydia, and then tried to steal my friend's cat. That’s showbiz, baby! 

Overall, the debut was a success. Wouldn't bank on Di Pietro’s acclaim faltering anytime soon. She just released her newly annual springtime prom dress drop– dresses range from $450– 1000 and are almost gone.

[cu1tofdionysus]

Fasting all went 2 Bushwick together

Julian Foy is the type of guy you want to be your friend’s boyfriend. He has fiery red hair and wears silly cropped graphic tees, comes across as possibly gay when you meet him (he’s not!) & knows everybody and a little bit about everything. He’s the lead vocalist for a band called Fasting that sometimes plays at TransPecos.

Fasting is the type of band you’d want to play your zine release party. Composed of 5 members– Sean Lawson, Sean Terrrell, Gordon Gillespie, Julian Foy and Jessie Capozzi– They can sway a crowd, literally and figuratively. The dreary April night I saw them, they were one of a few acts inaugurating Rambler Magazine’s latest print issue. They were following a slow, jazzy type band at Village Works, a tiny indie bookstore on St. Marks. Who knew it was a music venue? The place was overflowing with books on tables and books on shelves. It was raining, forcing the indoor/outdoor party strictly inside. The owner of the venue was behind the register asking the musicians to “Keep it down!’ The band was practically on top of eachother, performing from a walk-in closet sized corner of the venue. The crowd was on top of eachother, too–”DON'T lean on the books, please.” Foy bounced around during the set wearing his graduation cap (Pratt Institute, Film,) warding off any low spirits. The guy next to me mutters to those surrounding him, “They’re really good!” twice, banging his shaved head back and forth. 

In the words of Capozzi, bass, keys, sometimes the sax, (Pratt, Drawing,) Fasting makes “very human music.” Some songs are shoegazey, or noise pop-y, some are more post punk. “You know me so well” has warbling, subdued and sweet, almost ghostly vocals. “Lay me down taking my shoes off / I forgot my socks/ grave was faded and hard to read/ written on a subway wall. ” But it’s less about the song’s lyrics and less about the buzz of the melancholic guitar and thrashing drums, those could be gone by the next song. It’s more about the universals, the mood, the feeling, the scenes they emulate.  

John Public, the band’s 2023 debut album, is a memento, a mixed bag, made up of songs as old as 2018, the birth of the band, all the way to 2022. Those first songs came to life in the Pratt Institute dorms, as well as friendship and mold. The album’s namesake, John Public, references an inside joke amongst Pratt students. “John Public” is the John Doe for Pratt’s  lost student ID poster. The album is about that time, going to art school in Brooklyn, part- time jobs and smoking cigarettes, sometimes hand rolled. Trying to scrounge up $7 for a Prontos Deli sandwich. Those days feel like dreams. 

The newest member, the second Sean, Sean Lawson (The New School, Jazz) joined the band after a quick DM exchange with Sean Terrell, drummer, (Pratt Institute, Painting.) I am told by multiple sources that Sean Lawson is a musical genius. Terrell messaged Lawson on Instagram, wondering if he knew anyone who could play lead guitar. Both Seans had met through “the scene.” Lawson could play lead guitar, a member of another band, Aggressive Squirrels, already. Everyone knows someone who knows someone who…

We have to rush to Bushwick, to the Fasting Apartment, because some of the band is driving to Jersey right after the interview for a house show, or house party, or something like that. Sage, my roommate and Foy’s girlfriend, has told me stories of foot fungus and rats plaguing the infamous crib. There’s a Popeye’s and Mcdonald’s nearby, attracting chaos and all sorts of creatures. This is the band’s headquarters, and 4/5 of the band’s general living quarters: Gordon Gillespie, rhythm guitar, (Pratt Institute, Photo) and then Foy, Terrell and Capozzi. Sean Lawson doesn’t live here, this is the first time he’s been here, actually. There's a CPR dummy perched above the kitchen counter and a Hello Kitty poster on the wall, gifts given from the mystical streets of the city. Adobo seasoning, an astray, headphones, pliers, half a pair of sneakers and a roll of duct tape litter the coffee table. Capozzi’s room has a pair of pants pinned to the wall. You can barely see the floor of Gillespie’s, who has a loft bed.

Keep reading for a conversation with Fasting about the band’s history, a secret 6th member, the creative process, and hating music.

----

CULT

How'd you meet?

JESSE

Most of us met at Pratt. Sean and Gordon were random roommates when they were freshmen like four years ago. 

CULT

Did you live in the apartment before? Or did you make the band before? 

JULIAN

Band before, 5 years ago now. Freshman year..

GORDON

Julian was down the hallway from me and Sean.

JESSE

There's also another member we need to speak about. 

GORDON

A secret member who is going to become a monk soon.

SEAN TERRELL 

He was our fucking grateful dead. What's the guy? He was our Jerry Garcia.

JULIAN 

So, in the Can-- paper thin walls and shared bathrooms for the entire floor. Right? 

CULT

Yeah.

JULIAN 

Naked people everywhere. People would have to go back to the room with a towel where other people were drinking Red Bull and vodka shots.

GORDON

Every Tuesday night everyone in the entire building would get hammered.

SEAN TERRELL

Because everyone had the morning class off, we all had 1pm classes.

JULIAN 

The walls were super thin. So, you could hear what was happening in every room as you passed by. In your room, you could hear conversations everywhere, even underneath, because the floor was just so thin. You could jump on it and it would bounce. You could bend the walls. They were made with thin plywood, to be temporary housing for the people who built the other dorm. We met because you could hear through the walls what people were doing. When they were making music, we could hear it. We'd just knock on just knock on the door and be like, what is that? What is that song?

GORDON

"My name is Julian and I'm a really good rapper. Let me freestyle for ya."

CULT

You rap? 

JULIAN 

Yeah, I was in a rap group called "Sort of Sober." We were all so bad.  We opened for Lil TiJay. That was our moment. For Lil TiJay at a club. That was pretty cool. 

JESSE

They all started playing music together. And then Eddie, who hasn't lived in New York for a while, joined. And then I floated in. Really early though, we wrote "talking to ed" like the first week I joined. 

JULIAN 

Jesse would float in to play the saxophone.

JESSE

People who could hear it through their wall would tell me to shut the fuck up.

I started talking to Sean, because I was in another band of people I knew from Long Island and I asked him to be the drummer. And he did that for a while. And I had class with Gordon, so we all kind of knew each other musically, and not musically. There was no real rehearsing at that time, a lot of making recordings in the dorm.

GORDON

It wasn't a group of people either. We had people floating in. Our friend Thomas wrote a song that we used to play in our set.

JULIAN 

We would have homies sit around giving us conceptual ideas. 

CULT

Was there a certain sound that you were aiming for back then?

JESSE

Any idea that came to our heads. A lot of indie? 

SEAN TERRELL

I was super into fucking Current Joys and Black Marble, and shit like that. Gordon put me onto shit that I used to hate, which was straight up emo music and Algernon 1000s math rock. Ones where the vocals are super annoying, and like whining. Now I love that shit. 

JESSE

When we were sophomores we started rehearsing more seriously with Julien singing, Sean drumming and singing a lot, Gordon playing guitar, and our friend Eddie playing lead. I was playing bass. We played one show, early February of 2020. We played battle of the bands. 

JULIAN 

Eddie faced away from the audience the entire time, because he was wearing a Michael Jackson shirt.

SEAN TERRELL

We lost because JHARIAH all voted for themselves. We joked that we were gonna vote for ourselves and JHARIAH did. There were probably about seven votes total, and five of them were everyone in that band. 

JESSE

Yeah, then Sean didn't come back to the city for the next year. Neither did Gordon. I started living with Julian and someone else. 

SEAN TERRELL

That was a dark period. That was sort of the Dark Ages.

JESSE

Sean (Terrell) came into the city to visit his girlfriend. That fall, we jammed once. It was really fun, we wrote a song. The next fall, I guess the fall of 2021, Sean moved back to the city to continue going to school. Then the four of us started living together. Eddie never came back after COVID. He moved to Colorado. We've still kept in touch. He was the greatest musician of the group, by far.

SEAN TERRELL

But he gave up making music and he deleted it off the internet and became a monk. He was super Russian Orthodox. In high school, he made music with this band called The Hellp, producing.

CULT

Wait, I’ve heard of them.

JESSE

There are some really funny pictures of him on the internet. I saw Reddit posts from a month ago, where someone was theorizing that he was still involved.

JULIAN 

He's got memorable licks. Tasteful, memorable melodies. You can hear it on "I will go outside." 

JESSE

So that's basically the history. Then Sean joined. Our friend Jamison, she played with us for a little bit, but it was a more casual thing. We played as a four piece for a little bit. Sometimes with Julian trying to play lead guitar, but not practiced. Sean Terrell DMed Sean Lawson asking if he knew any New School jazz guitarists who would want to be in the band. Which is crazy because he saw us play the worst, most tension fueled show of all.

SEAN LAWSON

There was a point in the set where Jesse said that it was their last show. It felt like everyone in the audience was like, "Was that a joke?"

JESSE

I liked that it was hard to tell. 

GORDON

You used to say that a lot. We used to be in the middle of practice. You'd be like, "Alright, we're done." 

JESSE

Because I thought that. I honestly hated it for a while. Not the band specifically, just playing. I don't know why I thought it was really stupid for a while. I think I was just really mad all the time at a lot of things in life. There was still enjoyment with playing music, but I got to a point like when I was finishing Pratt, like in 2022, where I actively didn't listen to music. Unless it was like jazz on the radio, for almost an entire year. 

SEAN TERRELL 

Through a tiny cassette player.

JULIAN 

That or baseball. 

JESSE

But even that whole time, I was still writing music.

CULT

Are you a perfectionist? 

SEAN TERRELL

He's like a contrarian.

JESSE

That's not true at all. 

CULT

Where does the name “Fasting” come from?

JESSE

They spent a whole week trying to think of a name. 

GORDON 

A whole year.

JESSE

Some silly names we were going to be, "Christmas." 

GORDON 

"Christmas band" does not work. "Dog with a cane" -- that was the first name. We had a SoundCloud with that name. We never posted anything.

JULIAN 

These nincompoops went on the balcony to smoke cigarettes. They come back like "Yo, we've thought of it. Balconies." 

JESSE

The name Fasting came from when we were still in school and Gordon didn't get paid for their Pratt job for a while. So they had no money. When Gordon was really hungry, they would say, "now I'm fasting."

GORDON

I was in the photo building. I was working the desk, but the way their system is, you don't get paid for the first month. One meal a day, your sandwich or something. Now we're all fat. 

CULT

I have three questions that go together. Do you live together, except for Sean, because you're a band or because you're friends? What makes you so close? And how much time do you spend together?

SEAN TERRELL

We live together because we're buddies. But the band did exist first.

JULIAN  

If we were having friend problems, we'd play music about it sometimes.

GORDON

Our early practices were so bad. If Julian was mad at Sean he would try and scream over him every time he was singing. I couldn't play the bass. They were just so bad. We wouldn't live together if we didn't also, like, enjoy spending time with each other a lot.

JESSE

We've known each other for so long. I think the closeness started early on. We've done a lot of shit together over the years. We've seen a lot of shit. We've seen each other grow up because it's been like fucking five years at this point, which is insane. Now we're all adults in the world having jobs, which is weird.

CULT

What genre are you? 

JULIAN 

We used to say "fast and fun." 

JESSE

Music for everyone under the sun.  I do think it's very human.

GORDON

(Mocking Jesse) "it's very human music." 

JESSE

Post punk, new wave, not so much anymore. Definitely math rock for people that can't count.

JULIAN 

Math rock for people missing fingers.

JESSE

We have a lot of overlapping musical interests but also everyone is into their own thing which is something I've always enjoyed. 

JULIAN 

Jamison was full on funk sometimes. And we had a saxophone.

SEAN

We usually like to have friends on the album. 

CULT

What's your music about?

JESSE

it's not about music, but it also is. (Laughter from the band.) Now I've gotten super into songwriting. There's so much to explore forever. I really enjoy experimenting with harmonies or with songwriting and dipping back into old ideas. So for me, it's about writing songs and trying to play them live. And having fun. Which we're trying to do for the first time.

SEAN 

I used to give a fuck about lyrics. And now I super don't. I only use lyrics as a vehicle to sing notes. They're more free associative. I would "free associate" words until I would come up with idioms or phrases that didn't mean something that I hated. Or could be construed in a way that was really dumb. Julian loves writing.

JULIAN 

I love writing lyrics and all my lyrics are about something. I always imagine that I'm trying to say something, and as I'm saying it, it's coming out through rhythm. Then the melody comes from music. For me, the first three or four years of making music, it was all rap. Malik, and Phil, from that band (Sort Of Sober), influenced me a lot. I used to write spoken word in high school, that's also rhythm based. But it wouldn't fit tightly into phrases. The two of them were like, your flows are terrible. Now I'm like, where can those things meet? Also a lot of improvisation. There's a lot of times during shows where I've sung lyrics that I never wrote for the band, or they came out live, and sometimes I'm not even saying words. That's fine. I might be saying words. I might be saying sounds. 

GORDON

It's a lot of poetic imagery. There's not a lot of concrete stories or ideas. 

JESSE

We haven't had a concept album yet. Unless the concept is drinking beer.

SEAN TERRELL 

Say that was the concept of the last one. 

[cu1tofdionysus]

The Dare @ Silencio? Fire. Walk w/ me.

“Why is the new Silencio in Midtown?” reads my friend Isabella’s Instagram create mode. She attends NYU Tisch and studied the art of horror filmmaking abroad in Paris last summer. 

When she’s interested in a club, I know it’s a cool one. The kind where you smoke cigarettes and wear sunglasses well into dawn. As it turns out, Club Silencio is only the chicest nitery in Paris– Rico Nasty is performing there live as I type this out. The original Parisian nightclub was designed by film director David Lynch, named after the theater in his film Mulholland Drive. 

Club Silencio 2 is New York City's version in Times Square, also known as not the Lower East Side or Bushwick. The equivalent to us as garlic is to vampires. HISSSSSSSS! But because they said “David Lynch,” and because they said “The Dare,”  Times Square is no longer the worst corniest most chaotic place in the city, it’s an ironically exclusive club we need to get into. When The Dare, the hot-shit DJ in NYC right now, posted that he would be hosting his “Frequencies”(reoccuring parties where he DJs) to inaugurate Silencio, it was like I was a cat, and Mr. Dare was shaking cat treats. 

Though the event was ticketed, what felt like a mile of young people dressed in fur and black leather wait with us. We wait shivering, huddling, our bare legs exposed, for our IDs to be checked, and see what all the fuss inside is about. Phoebe, my red-headded friend who studies painting and pole dance, was kind enough to skip her Friday morning class to make the trek with me. Betwixt a pizza shop and vapery lies the unmarked entrance, a secret outdoor staircase bathed in red light, descending down into the party. It looks like what I’d imagine a club entrance to be if it was located in Diagon Alley. Once we reach the bottom of the stairwell, we are met with thick red stage-like curtains, enclosing the narrow walls around us, like we are entering the heart chamber of a velveteen rabbit.

The dance floor is not big by any means, it’s as big as my basement, but it is cool. It is a room enclosed with flat, tall crimson walls lined with fire engine red LED lights.The walls feel hollow, like walls you’d find on a film set. Behind the rest of the curtains are built-in-into-the wall-booths wrapped in metallic wallpaper: floor to ceiling, even over the benches. They are little rooms of gold foil. Bottle service/ VIP only. This branch was designed by Harry Nuriev, founder of Crosby Studios. His main inspirations were the Silencio in Paris and Studio 54, a legendary Broadway theater and former nightclub in the same area were in now. The club owners were interested in the “history of the neighborhood,” and I’m guessing they mean the history of Times Square being a sleazy yet colorful prostitution, drug, and sex theater headquarters. 

In the back is the bar. I knew from the Byline launch party at The Georgia Room last year that going out in these spaces is a pretty penny. They did not have cider, they didn’t have much besides an array of bitter wine and cocktails. Two shots and two beers, only beer they had, ended up being $80. Phoebe’s ex-boyfriend shot a music video for the opening DJ Throom, so she’s trying to get us a seat somewhere, mostly so we can set our coats down. We don’t want to pay for coat check. The problem is that way down underneath Times Square, it's a rarity to have cell service. We have to go back to the outdoor staircase to contact the outside world and it’s cold. 

We actually do bump into DJ Throom, but we chicken out on asking if she has a table. Phoebe talks to her about Lebanon for a while while Throom smokes a cigarette and we shiver awkwardly, no point to being outside anymore. When we go back in, we bump into Gutes Guterman, editor for The Drunken Canal and Byline. She told me she would give me an internship and then never replied to any of my emails. I go say hi, thinking if I keep putting my face in front of hers she’ll feel bad about blowing me off. When our faces meet, she has no idea who I am, though last time she remembered a piece I wrote for her. It’s been too long. I’m glad Phoebe is my buffer, she compliments Gutes on her curl pattern. “Extensions!” She replies. We say, “We couldn’t tell!!!!” 

The other opening act is the other awesome DJ, Jason Walker Lewis. You might know him from the newish band, Fcukers, which “re-contextuales ‘90s dance.” He’s also been the resident spinner at one of my favorite clubs downtown, Pianos. He plays “hung up” by Madonna and a lot of “acid home.” The crowd parts I am shown the path to the corner of the DJ booth. Like, the shoulder of the DJ. I’m on my learning-how-to-dj kick and want to watch so I weave forward, Phoebe’s hand locked with mine so as not to lose her. Also I wanna dance semi-close to my close personal friend The Dare. 

Girls scream when The Dare puts on his headphones, gearing up in his classic tailored suit. Suddenly everyone’s on the floor. He plays Sleigh Bells’s “A/B Machines“. I hear someone behind me yell, “I love this song!” He plays a lot of songs everyone loves, but forgot about. He plays Public Enemy’s ”Louder than a bomb” over a buzzing, static-ey beat. I can faintly hear the chopped and screwed toot of a saxophone. By the time the crowd is on a high, swaying and bumping, he is playing his own tracks, “Girls” and “Good Time.”  If you haven't danced in a DJ set where the DJ is playing their own songs, you should really try it. It's very fun. He plays “Von Dutch” for the girls, the highly anticipated Charli XCX single that literally just dropped. We all eat it up. 

I’ve never had any original idea ever, everyone else is dancing for/ or waiting to dance next to The Dare too. There’s a line of girls and magazine photographers swarming the booth. Girls in sunglasses press themselves against the front lines. I’m actually shoved backwards a few times but my feet were planted. Someone close to my ear is trying to, I don’t know what, seduce the DJ? Garner attention? She lets out a guttural coo, “HARRISONNNNNN!!” That’s The Dare’s real life name, the one he goes by outside of the club. I felt kinda bad for Mr. Dare, like when you kinda feel bad for your mom when you gain empathy. He didn’t look up from his board, in a BPM trance, except for a couple of words to the older (above 27) blonde woman breaking it down next to him, one he came here with. Good for him. 

While we're dancing I’m thinking, What makes the Dare so cool? The fashion magazines say he’s spearheading the indie sleaze revival, and whether he agrees with that or not, they always take things and run with it. The Dare is cool because he’s a good DJ/ producer/ musician, with necessary technical skills, groovy beats and a cue of songs that are dirty and bouncy and fly. He’s cool like David Lynch is cool, because he has a niche, character, a style/ brand/aesthetic that we dig and want to emulate. Because he’s hedonistic and wears a fancy suit while he spins. He’s cool because someone declared he was cool, and now we all know, so he’s exclusive. Everyone wants to get in.  

[cu1tofdionysus]

TRAVELING DELPHI: Woodstock, NY

(See above link for all pictures)

Schools out for summer and I need a strong drink in the wilderness to recover. Junior year is intense. In the city, there are so many places to go for a breath of fresh air. Just a short car, bus, or train ride and you could be away from the humid hustling and bustling. Some can go to the Hamptons, if they can’t they might get a weekend AirBnb near the Rockaways or something. Some go upstate, some go to the shores of dirty Jerz to gamble or bake to a crisp. I chose to go to Woodstock, New York. In my head, it’s synonymous with the legendary 1969 Woodstock festival. I love a place where something happened. I love a live music venue. 

Most of Woodstock’s whole thing is that it has the bohemian art culture of the city, only in the woods. Bob Dylan owned a house here. I learned about the Hudson River school in history class, landscape painters in the Hudson valley that invented a new art movement in the mid 1800s. In 1903, Ralph Whitehead founded Byrdcliffe colony in Woodstock, intended to be a utopian art colony. My roommate got into their summer residency. Hi Sonia! We missed our exit on the highway. Don't do that, because if you do, you’ll have to spend 30 more minutes driving to the next one.

The decoy main attraction is the Woodstock festival grounds, which are an hour away in Bethel, New York. The real main attraction is Tinker St, the Lower East Side of Woodstock, (main street), nestled at the end of a large hill. It is lined with pinterest board boutiques, cafes, a few restaurants and churches and places to buy incense or expensive tie-dye. After Tinker St it’s green. Ancient trees, winding roads, wildflowers, hidden homes, cottage homes with long and twisting driveways. A sign in someone’s yard says: “KEEP WOODSTOCK WILD. SAY NO TO OVERDEVELOPMENT!” We swerved often, narrowly avoiding mini squirrels darting across the road. I registered a bit later that they were chipmunks. Cute!!!! RIP to the ones we passed, already flattened

PEARL MOON

Our first time stretching our legs from the 3 hr car ride and our first time eating that day. Pearl Moon has a pretty string light patio, can’t miss it from the road. The inside has a stage with gold curtains for live music. The walls are painted with rich teal paint. Our waitress and hostess were both very friendly and attentive in a way that initially threw me— were not in NYC anymore! I got a $30 burger in front of me swiftly. The $30 made it less enjoyable, but it was good, and the hot toddy my boyfriend got was strong. His duck quesadilla was unique. Go there for dinner instead of lunch, when there's music. They have some drag events too. 

TINKER ST SHOPS

We perused in and out of a bookshop, some spiritual shops, gift shops, smoke shops, antique stores, consignment stores, home goods stores. Most of them had the owner behind the register. 

Bookstore- The Golden Notebook

Ice cream- Sweet Dreams Organic Ice Cream

Vintage shop- Rock City Vintage

Record store- Woodstock Music Shop

Antiques- Woodstock Way Hotel – There’s a little shop owned by the same people directly in front of the hotel. 

Free Gallery- Woodstock Artists Association & Museum

AIRBNB

Our lodging was right on Tinker street, perfect location, but hidden behind a bigger house with a garden. But we didn’t read the full description. It turns out our yellow cottage is more like a guest house attached to a main house. Our host runs “authentic writing workshops'' out of her main house. Even though the house was a bit closer for comfort than we were used to— no Midnight drives, headlines too bright— we never saw the host. The place was too sweet — studio sized, sunny, surrounded by wildflowers. Adorable mugs, quilts, a rocking chair, sky light. A nice queen bed to finally fuck where your roommates cant hear. We couldn’t take our trash outside because of the bears. We only had a kitchenette, so no cooking. Sleeping in such a quiet place took a couple nights to get used to, we heard the screaming of a fox and music lofting over from the bar across the street. We were also getting some kind of allergy sickness, ushering in summer, so we had tea in green mugs with fortunes on the tags at 3am. 

LEVON HELM STUDIOS

My boyfriend, a musician, wanted to go to the Levon Helm Studios show for our first night. Levon Helm was a famous drummer, and Levon Studios is a tricked out barn. Its main attraction is their midnight rambles, where Helm's daughter, other extended family and invited guests put on a Midnight tribute. They didn’t have one tonight, so we’re seeing John Moreland, a big guy from Texas with sailor type tattoos and an old soul. 

The stage was a nice red rug laid out over an elevated sector of the floor. Helm Studios Shows are acoustic. The stage  wasn’t much but a few guitars, some harmonicas and vintage looking light bulbs in funky modern industrial stand up lands. But it was beautiful and intimate. 

John Moreland could make anything sound good. His voice is warm and full and raspy. His opening was Ken Pomeroy, a folk singer who was about my age (22.) Her vibrato danced sweetly through our ears as she sang and told stories about what her songs were about. 

The con? The crowd was a double edged sword. Mirroring the town's general population, I was one of very few young people there, one of an even smaller number of people of color. It was a lot of people over 60, music enthusiasts eager to listen, so much that the stillness and quietness dragged after a while. Some people brought their babies and toddlers though it was getting late for a farm town. Another con, Levon Helm doesn’t serve alcohol, and we didn’t know that, so we didn’t bring any. We had to resort to smoking in the car beforehand, which didn’t feel too good around a bunch of old white people. I could hear the couple behind me talking about my tattoos. They didn’t have any, but the man was once thinking about getting a cross. 

It was before midnight, but too late to get food after, something I’m not used to. We had to drive to the McDonalds in the neighboring town, which made me really sick later. 

EUPHORIA YOGA 

Not sure if it was the leftover salad from Pearl Moon or the Mickey D’s but I got super sick from 3-5AM. I took the car out to try and watch the sunrise. Pulled into the parking lot of Euphoria Yoga and The Station bar, just across the street from AirBnb. Euphoria is a yellow two story house turned yoga studio. Station bar is a neighborhood bar housed in the remains of an old train station. I am very dumb and know nothing about terrains and tires. The dirt parking lot turned to mud with the night rain. I got the car stuck. We had to wait for a cleaning lady for one of the stores opening to help us maneuver the tires of my bf’s audi in a crazy way, to get us unstuck. We fell back asleep and slept through our morning level 1 yoga class. I regret missing it. Book a $20 yoga class and get reconnected. 

SWIMMING HOLE

I’m from Texas, where it gets hot in April. In New York it doesn’t get hot until after memorial day. I figured this would be a summer weekend trip, so I ordered a silver bikini for the swimming holes. A lot of them were closed until the aforementioned memorial day. The weather was wet and rainy and foggy and muddy. We drove about 10 minutes away from Tinker St to find a hidden stream safe to swim in, but it was ice cold water. 

TINKER ST TACO

Google reviews lie. I so wanted to like this place. It was an indoor/outdoor situation overlooking a stream, like a lot of the set-ups in this town. The owners' three fluffy adorable dogs were present and available for petting. Both employees were kind, one of them was wearing a bandana around his neck and a boater hat. Go here for drinks and great vibes, not so much for food. The tacos were… not good. Cold and warm at the same time. But the reviews were raving! Perhaps this has something to do with the lack of POC in the area. 

MONASTERY

My streak of bad luck continues. We drove all the way up the hill passing grand lush trees and deer and chipmunks, to the Buddisht Monastery. Lines of Tibetan flags are strung on every tree. People are mountain watching near the parking lot. The monastery is a gorgeous white stone building with bronze roof panels and ornate window panes. A lot of the monks were converts, a lot of them were caucasian. These woodstock hippies are something.  It’s open to the public and even available to tour. I donated three dollars for a candle to be lit in my name, for happiness. I got kicked out for wearing shorts that were not that short with a baggy cardigan, so it felt like I got kicked out for being a harlot. 

CHURCH OF TRANSFIGURATION 

The monastery is at the tip top of the hill, nothing neighboring it, but the nearest plot belongs to the Church of Transfiguration. A black, hand built, wooden, single-room church stands in an overgrown lot, built in 1891. You can’t go in it, but you can smoke weed in front of it sitting in your car, if you get kicked out of the Buddhist Monastery. Come, smoke weed as you are. 

CUCINA

We have reservations at Cucina, a fancy Italian spot inside, yes, an old yellow house. We sit on the veranda, warm bulbs twinkle above our heads. Both pasta dishes were fire, the best meal of the trip. Our waitress was young and cool, which gets me thinking, where do all these hip young people hang out?

TINKER ST TAVERN

There weren’t many 20-somethings at Tinker St Tavern, either, but they were the most I’ve seen in one place. One girl had a leather jacket, “QUESTION AUTHORITY” scrawled across the shoulders. The bar is owned by the same people who own Do or Dive in Bed-Stuy. Both bars have a retro dive meets honky tonk vibe, pool table, repurposed old fluorescent signs. There was a girl band playing, composed of a bunch of rockstar moms who put their own spin on Tom Petty, called The Tom Pettys. They were all wearing tight pants and sunglasses and top hats. Two big dogs were behind the bar. at some point hopped up, leaned on the counter and looked like he was the bartender. 

ALISON

Now, this is a place for lunch/ brunch. Inside an old house. This place, casualish Italian/ American, looks like the set of Practical Magic. Steak and eggs were yummy. Pesto sandwiches were so good we tried to make our own later. Not overpriced. 

SAUGERTIES LIGHTHOUSE

Last stop! If you’re in the area long enough, it might be worth checking out Saugerties, the bigger neighboring town. We stopped by to walk the lighthouse trail, which, yeah, leads to an old lighthouse. Bring shoes you can get muddy and make sure the tide isn’t high. Apparently, you can rent it out for the weekend or tour, but we didn’t do that, and it was still nice to see. A lot of them were…….closed until Memorial Day. Next time :(

[cu1tofdionysus]