Dispatch 11/25/22: The Downtown Set

Suffering advanced signs of clout poisoning while climbing the Mortal Kombat tower of New York media

The official Air Mail writeup of the “Downtown Set” party at the Odeon mentions Jay McInerney leaving after getting a cosmo spilled on him, but it omits that Graydon Carter did the spilling, which I witnessed because I also got spilled on. I’m pretty sure that’s what happened, though the evening was a red haze. The Odeon was dimmed in red, the color of Air Mail, the red step-and-repeat banners announcing the issue’s Celine sponsorship (not Louis-Ferdinand), the red cosmopolitan cocktails and Marlboro Reds they gave out, even “red” Crumps they had the kindness to invite. I know I see Grosz paintings everywhere I look in New York, but this dressed-up crowd deserved the comparison even more than usual, red-hued like Gefährliche Straße or Metropolis, full of eerie half-familiar faces, like the eminently caricaturable Graydon himself, the eternal face of the bourgeoisie, faces with names that would go in the party report because they’re actually stately “important” people, not just the enchanting young boho microinfluencer proto-fascists, but media executives and fashion designers and restauranteurs and people who win Grammys and Pulitzers, grinding coke teeth grinning in the camera flashes as they sip along, “remaking downtown in their own image.”