Jul 28, 2014
This week: Duncan, Richard and Amanda talk Nonsense with Jeff Stark!
What is Nonsense NYC?
Nonsense NYC is a discriminating resource for independent art,
weird events, strange happenings, unique parties, and senseless
culture in New York City.
What does that mean?
We send out an email every Friday about unique events occurring the
following week.
What kind of stuff?
Street events, loft parties, puppet shows, bike rallys, costume
balls, interactive art shows, movies in unusual places, parades,
outlaw dancing, guerilla theater, burlesque and variety shows,
loser open mikes, cirkuses, and absurdist pranks. Nonsense covers
the stuff that has no name, or a name that you feel really awkward
and self-conscious saying out loud, like "underground."
Sounds great, how do I sign up?
Click
here.
Um, I'd rather not give you my email address.
Can I just read it online?
No. The only place you can read Nonsense NYC is your inbox. We like
the intimacy of email, thank you, and this Web stuff is too much
work. We promise not to sell your email address or give it away.
We're not going to spam you with useless information either.
OK, I've signed up, and I want to know more
about Nonsense. Will you print my event?
We'd love to hear about all of your events. The important thing to
remember is that Nonsense NYC happens because of you. That means we
rely on you to let us know what events you're organizing and what
events you're attending. Please keep us up to date and don't assume
that we'll find out about it from someone else. Our job is to
gather, edit, organize, and filter; your job is to make interesting
things happen and let us know about them. Remember to include all
the important information, like the address and stuff, and a brief
description. When you put it all together, send it to jstark@nonsensenyc.com. Please
send a text-only email; flash graphics, links to online fliers, and
facebook announcements make our life more difficult. You can find a
guide to better email communication here.
Also, Nonsense does not list events that cost more than $25
at the door, without door code, RSVPs, or special arrangement. We
make some exceptions for obvious extra expenses, like boat rentals.
To those of you promoting events: We're sorry. We know it's hard.
We know it's risky. We know it's expensive. But nonsense has always
skewed toward cheaper events; our readers expect it.
But one time I sent you something about my
band/my movie/my party/my opening and you didn't print it. What
gives? How do you decide what events will be on Nonsense
NYC?
To start with, almost all the stuff we list is independent. Also,
we like rock bands and experimental musicians and arty films and
galleries and museums and big street festivals, but we can find
information about all of those things in other places. We generally
will not list them.
We use something called the rule of three. That means that we will
generally list your event if there are three different things going
on: DJs, bands, dancers, costumes, fire performance, theater, film,
art, projections, fashion, an unusual space, or several other
intangibles. Your event doesn't have to include all of these in
order to be listed, and it certainly doesn't need all this at once.
If you're in doubt, send it to us anyway -- we're decent
editors.
The list is huge sometimes. Where do you find
all this stuff? Do you write all of it yourself?
We don't really write so much as edit announcements from other
people. The bulk of each weekly list is culled from other lists and
Web calendars. We monitor a couple dozen of them. You can find a
partial listing on the Links page.
So, do you go to all of the events that you
list on Nonsense?
Not even. We can't afford it. We go out a couple of times a week,
and we generally write a small editorial note if we have an opinion
to share. You can find those comments in each post. They're all
marked like this: NOTE.
How can I tell the good events from the bad
ones? Will I have fun at all the events?
No, you won't always have fun. And please don't assume that merely
listing this stuff is some sort of implicit endorsement. A lot of
these events are strictly amateur hour. We love amateur hour. But
the problem with some amateurs is that they're just amateurs. It's
hard to distinguish the good stuff from the bad. Some of it, no
doubt, will make you wish you'd sat on the couch eating microwave
nachos. If you want a safe bet, go to the movies.
That said, if you start going to a lot of the events listed here
you'll start to recognize some of the names of performers,
promoters, venues, and so forth.
Let us know if you have a great time at an event. Hell, let us know
if you feel like you got scammed out of $5. Send us a sentence or
two about the events you've attended -- especially if you went to
something that is ongoing -- and we'll run them in the future. You
don't have to be a professional writer or do anything fancy. Just
tell us what you would tell your friends over a late breakfast.
Your fellow subscribers will appreciate it.
Why does the new Nonsense come out so late?
Can't you get it out earlier?
No, we can't. It takes a long time to put this thing together. We
have real jobs, and real lives. Both prohibit us from compiling the
list earlier in the week. We try to run events for the following
Thursday so you can have a heads up, but a lot of the people who do
the kind of events that we list don't always have their shit
together.
We print stuff that's happening on the day we post because sometime
the show will happen a few more times throughout the weekend.
Sometimes there will be a contact listed and you can use it to
reach people and make sure that you don't miss their events in the
future. If you check your email before you go out you'll still have
time to make a snap decision.
What's with the "we?"
We don't know. We got used to writing like this several years ago
and we kind of like it. It has a lot of antecedents, including the
unsigned Talk of the Town section in the old New Yorker. We'd like
to think that it alludes to that sort of liveliness and sparkling
wit. You may disagree. We will cherish our delusions.
Conceptually, we thought that Nonsense NYC would be sort of a group
effort, with its subscribers kicking down a lot of the weekly copy.
It didn't really turn out that way, but we still like to hold on to
the thought that Nonsense is put together by its community. In a
way, it is: It would be a mighty boring list if there were no
events to compile, and the people who make these events happen are
the kind of people who receive it.
So who exactly is "we," and why are you doing
this?
Nonsense NYC is compiled by Jeff Stark. Alita Edgar graciously puts
together the Wishlist section. Jennifer Liepin edits the Help
section. Juliana
Driever is responsible for the Learning section. J. Sinopli is the person behind
Spectre Priority. Neille Ilel
did all the Web stuff.
Why are you doing this?
We believe that there is more to life in New York than getting
drunk at slick new bars. We were frustrated when we moved here and
couldn't find a reliable source of alternatives, even though we
knew that there were creative people making cool shit happen.
Almost more annoying was the fact that certain groups we knew about
weren't always aware of one another.
Our solution was to start a weekly list. We did this in September
2000. Our goals are to help make New York a more interesting place
to live, to encourage others to do the same, and to have more fun
than just about anyone else. We're particularly drawn to
participatory culture, amateurism, and urban folk art. To us, that
means that things are more rewarding when you invest yourself in
them, and that you are responsible for entertaining yourself and
your friends.
We admire the handmade, the recycled. And we're generally
suspicious of commercial entertainment. That doesn't mean we
reflexively hate television or going to the movies. It's just that
we genuinely believe that everyone has something to contribute, and
that life is much richer when people stop treating each other like
walking wallets.
Wow, this all sounds so lofty. Are these your
ideas?
Not even. We're stealing ideas from a half dozen places and using
the bits that suit us. In particular, we are indebted to Fluxus
games, the Cacophony
Society, the Suicide Club, the Situationists, American punk
rock in the 1980s, the Do-It-Yourself ethic of the early 1990s, the
Madagascar
Institute, Dark
Passage, and the yearly Burning Man festival in
Nevada.
We do think that we are witnessing a special synthesis of these
ideas in New York right now -- this very minute -- and that in a
few years we will recognize it as a golden age.
OK. So how do you make money off of
this?
That's not really the point. However Nonsense now accepts
donations. The newsletter remains free, but there are real
costs that we absorb in its creation. We would love for you to
donate money to help offset webhosting, software, and computer
expenses. The labor remains free.
We aren't asking for much; a yearly subscription would be a tremendous help. Please consider $5 for the year if you use the list to figure out what to do on a Saturday night, or if you just like to keep track of what's going on in New York.
Go ahead and donate $20 if you promote events that we list on Nonsense. You know it's worth it. And we would be grateful for more money if you really like what we do.
To be clear, these are donations: You are not paying for a
service, but rather confirming that what we do is valuable and
agreeing that independent artists should support other independent
artists. If you've ever paid for a ticket to see your friend's band
you know exactly what we mean.
But I want to complain about something. Who can
I yell at?
You're getting this ostensibly for free; you're not allowed to
complain. If you have to yell at someone, try a taxi driver:
They're used to it.
I'm not getting the list. What's up?
We don't know. First, you should check your spam folder. Several of
the major email providers sometimes think Nonsense is spam; first
Yahoo and Hotmail, and eventually AOL and even Gmail blocked some
newsletters. We use Dada Mail
and Tiger Tech and are
always trying to fix this problem.
If you don't find Nonsense in your spam folder there are a couple of things that you can do. You can approve messages from us or put us in your address book or on your whitelist. You can sign up with another email account. And if that doesn't work you can use your password to access our archives online.
This should be pretty obvious, but please do not flag our messages as spam for any reason. If you want to unsubscribe, please take a minute and follow the link at the bottom of every list or send us an email. Finally, it helps our case if you send an email to your provider to complain that Nonsense is being marked as spam or held.
I forgot what I was going to say, but I'll
probably remember my question later.
email us anytime.