The space looked great, we spruced it up and added some soft lighting - blues and greens. One of our friends said it was like "a really cool living room."
We had videos playing on a white screen - Buster Keaton, Nosferatu and the incomparable Matthew Barney. I think Mr. Barney was the hit of the evening - dressed in a kilt with a bloody rag in his mouth, surrounded by beautiful, almost naked women, scaling the inside of the Guggenheim and discovering strange and wonderous things at each level. One of those unique Matthew Barney experiences that can't be summed up or put in a box. Sublime.
We played music - people brought their iPods and we plugged them into the sound system and we had all kinds of dance music going. My favorite stuff actually came from my own collection - Aretha Franklin, Otis Redding, the Kinks and Howling Wolf.
Howling Wolf set the tone for me. Outside a big full moon was raging. It was incredibly cold. Inside Howling Wolf proclaimed "I ain't gonna be your dog." Those old Chess cuts were like from another world - but so appropriate to our precarious circumstances.
As the Lovely Carla put it: "We're out front, free-falling" into a new year, a new decade. We feel we are ahead of the curve. Maybe this is the year everything falls apart. And everything gets re-made. We're ready.
As one of my dear friends put it: "Drive fast. Take chances." Sounds like a plan!
