#001 NEW YEAR'S EVE

The beginning of something is usually the hardest part to conceptualize, especially when it’s derived from the shrouded corners and cubby holes of the everyday, these spaces we rarely give pause to. You don’t always imagine that projects of great significance will begin in these small places. You – I – expect some great epiphany that arrests and seduces, a place that will one day become a public monument. This project begins in a place most ubiquitous and private: my friend Mathilde’s bedroom. All of us will only have a few more months with our rented college bedrooms, so I don't take this lightly. 

I arrive at her house on New Year’s Eve, in preparation for an outing to some indeterminate bar or club that hasn’t yet been decided. We begin our night singing the high praises of a year which is about to unfold, and I'm immediately swept up in the promise of it all. As we prepare to depart, she tells me of this idea that’s been floating, a so-called “Project 2026,” which originated out of the haze of a high shared between her and Lam, our other friend who’s along for the ride. 

It’s difficult to express, this fragment of a fragment, half memory, half prophecy, but I’ll try. As I came to find out from my friends, 2026 is all about a revival of the failed ideals of past generations – a second try at the undertakings of the counterculture, which are perhaps better felt than articulated. I realize that it is the act of ascribing language to such collective urges that often causes them to fall away into broken promises. By this point in the conversation I can’t even remember the words myself, but I still make an attempt at transcribing them as I have no other means of imparting them to you, dear reader. 

We speak of a Los Angeles of Babitz, Didion, etc., a time when class stratification gained elasticity at the venue of a house party in the Hollywood Hills, during which young women not unlike us three might have found ourselves suddenly exchanging our youth for close proximity to Industry, Luxury, Mobility. 

Now, this could all be boiled down to the ill-fated practice of “networking,” which finds a much less alluring package in the present day. The constant looming presence of the hand-held surveillance we all wield makes these spaces of true, open social negotiation difficult to find. There is no such thing as the demi-private sphere anymore, as everything has the potential to be broadcast to the public at large. 

Let me be clear, before we proceed – this is not about being born in the wrong generation. Speaking strictly in terms of nostalgia (especially towards the counterculture) is difficult territory, leaving us vulnerable to slippery politics that overlook our privilege. We three are certainly not immune to the pull of taking a Waymo to our destination, puffing on matcha flavored vapes, and using the digital to our advantage. We know where home is. 

Case in point: New Year’s Eve. 

I’ll skip ahead, but in short: I agree to take part in this plan to resurrect the potential of hedonism. 

When midnight strikes we are neck deep in the crowd of some West Hollywood bar, pressed between shoulders in a sea of people doing their best to iron out a moment to define the coming year. Some are making out, others making eye contact in an attempt to make out, and some, including us, are already moving on to the next plot. We celebrate briefly before clamoring our way to the smoking patio for what little fresh air remains. Mathilde sends a text to a male escort we met the weekend prior at a bar themed after a mid-century suburban living-room. Paul is his name. He was born in 1963, he told us, the same year as my mother. He offered to take us on a date to the Los Angeles Zoo because he “knows the zookeeper” and also promised us a slew of New Year’s parties to attend, so we knew that he would be the next best lead in our quest for transcendence. He was actually around for the very era we are referencing, after all. 

He shoots Mathilde a text back inviting us to Formosa, a Chinese restaurant and bar which is supposedly having a 60s themed party. She taps me and Lam on the shoulder, interrupting our conversation with a real estate agent from Denver who disagreed with our sentiment about bringing back house parties – he said that the home is best left as private property. We take this opportunity to bow out, and on we go. 

Formosa brings us closer, if only an inch. The music is right, the atmosphere certainly more aligned with our sensibilities. The DJ drops the needle on “Shot Down” by The Sonics (yes, they spin real vinyl records here) as a variety of age groups go at it on the dance floor. In the corner, a woman attaches a ring light to her iPhone to take a better selfie. OK – this isn’t quite where we want to end up, so we cram into a booth of scarlet velvet to discuss. We all agree on the next destination, it has to be somebody’s house. There’s simply no other option. 

Mathilde opens an app which I will leave nameless for the sake of privacy. It’s technically a dating app, but it caters more towards alternative relationship styles, meaning that you can theoretically have more than one person on a given profile and you won’t get banned, unlike the mainstream platforms. Mathilde, Lam, and I signed up for the app a few days prior out of curiosity – we put together our best group photos and stated clearly what we were looking for: not a relationship, but someone who would be able to afford to take all three of us out to dinner. With that, LMC (our group name on the app) was born. 

Up until this point, we had managed to get a couple of people to DoorDash us meals, which was quite thrilling and convenient because it didn’t require anything in return, but we were ready to experiment a bit more. We chose from our long list of likes a man (nameless), who seemed as though he’d know where to find a good house party. A 32 year old stylist and self proclaimed socialite who, in our previous messages, had talked a big game as to which 5 star restaurants he’d be capable of taking us to. The profile is on Mathilde’s phone, but we always pass it around so as to create a sense of our group voice, and keep the other person on their toes. We are acting as a hive mind, so this method feels appropriate. 

We sent him a message as we sat in the booth, asking if he knew of anything going on. Almost immediately he responds, telling us about a function in the hills of Silverlake, overlooking the Reservoir. 

He drops the address. $70 Uber ride from where we currently are. 

The phone makes it around the table to me. I debate what to say for about five seconds before I realize that it’s all so simple – I just have to ask for what I want. 

So I type back: “we’d love to join you but the Ubers are a bit pricey rn…would you be able to get us a car? xx” 

He says yes, and soon enough we’re in an Escalade heading to the party. 

We pull up to a sleek mansion on what feels like a near vertical slope. I need the Uber driver’s assistance to exit the car. 

The house is packed, the steps to the entrance slick with rain. We notice that everyone is dressed in flapper dresses, feathers, suits – this is a 1926 themed New Year’s Party, and we are not dressed correctly whatsoever, as you can see. 

But still, we press on, and decide that, okay fine, we will send a follow up text announcing our arrival to the man who invited us. We’ll just say hi, thank you, and keep it pushing.

I almost can’t believe it when he responds: “oh I already left for another party in Malibu, but you guys enjoy it and we’ll have dinner another time.”

We pause in the hall, speechless. We didn’t even have to meet him. What do you do when you get what you want? 

The balcony is filled to the brim with smokers, as every communal balcony in this city is, but we manage to find a couple of seats near the ledge. I type some stuff in my notes app as we sit, overlooking the hills and the shimmering Silverlake Reservoir. 

We sit on this balcony for at least an hour, taking it all in. There are too many details, synchronicities to convey, but the main feeling is one of satisfaction. None of us felt any urge to talk to anyone, or even to stand up, despite our expectations. All we wanted to do was exist, knowing that there was a little bit of magic still left to be cultivated. It just comes from a different source these days, but that doesn’t make it any less real. Eve Babitz did it with charm and magnetism, we do it with a couple of selfies and a whole lot of audacity. 

We pay for our own Uber home, and arrive back completely soaked from the rain. I fall asleep dreaming up all the ways we can use this newfound confidence, all the people we might meet and share a moment of honesty, or dishonesty. I’m down for it all. 

This is all to say – Los Angeles is being reborn. This is not just a prophecy, it’s a decision. Once the final palm trees die away there is a very important choice at hand: do we replant them or replace them with something new? When the final movie palace has been converted into an Apple Store, where will we go to worship the age of a glamour long passed? Stay with me here, I know this is all very abstract. What it all boils down to is this: there could really be more to this whole going out thing than just a meaningless sequence of new Instagram followers and the promise of a DTLA warehouse afterparty. Behind the thick jelly of a high, there is meaning to be found, pleasure that seeps into the everyday, chance meetings that carry over into waking life. Are you picking up what I’m putting down? 

If so, this blog is for you. Here we will continue chasing this vague and nebulous philosophy I have outlined, interrogating the potentialities contained in our contemporary gender relations via the rituals of nightlife, online “dating,” and alternative medicine. We have a very important task at hand – to synthesize our nostalgia for a youth culture of the past with our own personal manifesto for the future. Join me if you dare… 

On January 1st, the LMC trio reassembled to collect our thoughts, and came up with the following set of principles:

This is the year of opening up the houses, breaking down the barriers between public and private. I don’t care if we’ve met an hour prior at the bar, we’re coming to your house and you’re letting us in. 

This is the year of sentences that have never been spoken before. Secrets of every nature: personal, industrial, familial, will all be brought to the fore. We will name drop with a purpose. 

This is the year of asking for what you want, and figuring out what to do when you get it. No request is too extravagant, too imposing. 

This is the year of performance, of seeing everything as performance. Gender, intellect, sex – it’s all fair game. 

This is the year we interrogate the male performance with as much scrutiny as we have previously interrogated the female performance. 

This is the year we make it to the Chateau Marmont. I’ll explain later.

This is the year we use every advantage we have, both digital and physical, with tact, grace, and style. Dating apps can be a playground of endless possibility for those with pure hearts and clear intentions. 

This is the Year of The Horse.

~

Stop by next week to find out which of these resolutions we attempt to complete. In this space of nonjudgement, let us grab 2026 by the reins. 

Yours truly, 

Cheyenne