Crowd of Drifters

"Sometimes the sun is too bright And it burns you like acid
You get to love driving at night The moon is so close you can kiss it
I used to remember you smiling and waving
I don't think I can anymore "
Magnetic Fields, Crowd of Drifters



The roads are turning into firecrackers which light up under my skin and leave me turned on like a lamp. When I turn to take the lit cigarette from your fingers, my reaching leaves a shadow imprint under your lids, where my face used to be.
The computer keys click-click until the letter is typed, and I re-read it to make sure it'll have the desired effect, but I'm clumsy with words, they bumble out of my fingers like too many keys clasped in my palm, instead of making you weep it will probably just give you gas.
When you leave, I swear I can't see, for a moment I am blind and I think the last image I will ever have is your head turned away, your chin jutting into the air. But then the darkness grows shadows and pinpricks of light, as if from far far away, some distant happiness is beckoning to me.
That is the promiseland, I keep moving towards it, reach out my hand to touch it, and wait.

Vibe on

Oh publishing, you wayward little beast of an industry. You are falling apart, and the only ones holding you up are the big business places which have such a backwards way of doing everything, and such a myopic way of looking at the world.
This is what I think, shh... don't tell anyone, but I think that small is going to be the new big.
Okay, I totally didn't come up with that myself, I got that from a guest speaker in my entrepreneurship class. It's just that, what he said just made a lot of sense, when big business get too big, then it's time for small business to topple them over one by one.
I was not a big Vibe reader, but business wise, it seemed to have a strong demographic, an attractive readership for advertisers, and an actual worldview. Most magazines (Time inc, I'm looking at you) don't have even that. What makes them survive? Backings of advertisers? MRI reports (which are completely useless)? Or just that weird feeling that Time should exist, well if they should, then shouldn't Vibe?




I would hate to live in a world where only magazines with a half a million readers and subscribers can survive. That doesn't make sense, I don't know half a million people who like the same thing, and if I did, I would run in the other direction. Run I tell you. Because there is something terrifying about that.
Most people who read Pomp hate at least a few articles in the issues, and that's exactly how it should be. You should be able to disagree at length with the media and what it's telling you, in fact you should be able to respond right away if you have a semblance of intelligence or sense. Continue the discussion, don't fall silent.
Perhaps this is something we should do for our web redesign... have a response page for everything you read. Get engaged again, or the din will drown you out.

-Kastoory

The Party's Crashing Us Now

Whirlwind night! Thanks to everyone who came out and made it amazing! Thanks for interacting with the ads, the brands and each other. I know that we at Pomp had a blast talking to you and putting some faces to the names we've been working with. And to all the new faces, welcome to the fold.

Now as promised here are some party photos...

What's your Obama-won-face?

Due to technical difficulties of feeling cut off from the world because of no election news coverage, the Pomp election watch was shortly canceled and we made our way down to another LES hang out, preferably one with drink specials and television screens; all the while staying close to the Williamsburg bridge so that the trip to BK would be quick and painless no matter who the victor. Our group consisted of Pomp editors, photographers, writers and illustrators, armed with red and blue glowsticks and huge Obama pins, we made our way through the strangely quiet streets. In bars, people were glued to television screens in a rapt alcoholic daze.



Inside Iggy's (great jukebox, $2 pbr and $3 red white and blue shots) with it's multitude of news channels and it's guardedly optimistic patrons we were able to rejoin the rest of the world in waiting with baited breath. Yes Obama's lead was pretty extensive but the talk of the town was "dirty tricks". The general murmur was of great enthusiasm - and as the night wore on and the red white and blue shots were imbibed aplenty - growing wariness.



In the middle of talking to a friend, a cheer went up. We turned towards the TV to see CNN declaring Obama president-elect. Everyone started screaming until someone shouted "Wait! Isn't it too soon to tell?" People immediately stopped cheering and started drinking like mad. Like I said already, guarded optimism.



Finally the news reached our paranoid minds! Whoops and shouts, people laughing hysterically, me and my roommate jump up and down and hold on to each other. Everyone else hugging, talking rapidly and smiling hugely. We find noisemakers and start blowing like Lewinsky. Strangers hugging, kissing and high-fiving as if there is absolutely nothing separating them (because at that moment nothing is). Like New Years but better, all that hope and expectation distilled into a balmy November night.





The rest of the evening was an ecstatic haze of taking pictures of Obama-won-faces, celebrating loudly and reveling in the noise. The LES was a parade of insane elation. The city felt like a community again.

- Kastoory










PostScript: Obama's speech was also a high point of the night as all the noisemakers and revelers silenced to hear him speak. It just further cemented his place in history. How many presidential acceptance speeches are that humble? And give we-the-people so much credit? I don't know, but seeing Oprah as just one of millions in a crowd thawed my cold dead heart even further, it might even start beating again.