nyc noise

~ always incomplete ~

new

what's happening*

2025-01-02: updated /tenants: under "if u rent here," good cause & local rent standard; under "having troubles?," tenant helpline + hotline, filing overcharge, & free legal consults; misc cleanup
––––––––– created /new, swapped w/ /misc in top menu (will think about where to put priority misc items; recently added insurance info, tho that's also on /covid...), updated /past

2025-01-01: updated /sites-like-this: capeet (austria)

2024-12-31: updated /access: condensed top Qs, misc cleanup
––––––––– moved mutual aid etc. info to /community; added rent refusers sweep defense, living gallery

*yknow how on wikipedia you can check an article's history, & if people left solid edit summaries you get a sense of where to look for new stuff w/out comparing versions? okay first, just save the articles to yr watchlist & it'll be much easier; okay second, so this page is for that, for now; also including "blog" entries, & will add excerpts of those so you can see if u care. (i planned to get back to something RSS-y, but in the over a year !!!! since /greg & recursers made nyc noise 2.0, i haven't felt v blog-y, awful even at email...)

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2024-06-30 wooooof: yes i very briefly had all of this text at the top of 2024-06-30 lol... just a general late-june note trying to stave off despair, i guess???? has apology for being behind cuz of Health Troubles, thanks people who've donated, links to Great Thinkers like mariame kaba & brill bb (radio) & death panel (podcast) & books in tinyurl.com/FTPaywall folder like health communism. i was strugglin!! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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2024-02-26 /half-access // "RIP half access; u were not gr8, but u were (in praise of the messy internet) ... this is a sad lil processing rant about name recognition, the fast-fading amateur internet, not letting resources die, & (scroll down) a set of bookmarks to state pages on the half access database as i back all of it up to the wayback machine. RIP to half access; i wish your founder had still been around when i tried to help you have a new life, & i rly wish you had handed off your name recognition instead of shutting down, but i get that your core energy source has moved on to powering other things..."

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2024-01-25 /drone-party // "WE DON'T USE PARTIFUL: on surveillance tech, disability (in)justice, & how war crimes funded a party app ... the cofounders of PARTIFUL worked for Thiel's most murderous baby, PALANTIR. they've hired more palantir ppl, too! in 1 small company, palantir alum include partiful's CEO, CTO, head of business & product ops, founding engineer, & at least 2 product engineers. the CEO has also lied about how long she worked at palantir –– either in interviews & on linkedin, where she says 2014-2018, or in her 2020 political donations, which ID her as a palantir 'analyst'..."

there have been several updates to this page as new communities find & share the insta post (4.1k shares, as of 1/2/25!); it now includes an overview of palantir patents on which partiful's cto has inventor credits. these are fundamental tools of data aggregation, analysis, & display for a company that helps cops, the CIA, & the state of israel map social networks, "predict" who & what need policing, & lock people up –– so jfc please ask for some sign they've changed before using them for yr fuckin ~hangs~...

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2023-11-16: closing tabs // i had WAY TOO MANY TABS open & they all felt v ~important~ lolol; i made a blog entry to reassure myself that i wouldn't forget about their contents i guess??? some have notes; included dispatches from gaza, tabs for contacting representatives (to ask them to demand a ceasefire), tabs for contacting white house (ditto), For the People: A Leftist Library Project, REBUILD Transformative Justice Calendar, Anne Boyer resigns as poetry editor of The New York Times Magazine, An Annotated Version of the Indictment Filed Against #StopCopCity Organizers, grumpy tabs abt instagram, & way more

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2023-08-25: gr8 wknd mask up // "this is just a long meandering that i'm putting as a caption on an insta post w/ screenshots of 8/25-27, an ABSURDLY GOOD WEEKEND FOR MUSIC, absolutely CRAZYTOWN, but alas i will be there for none of it bc i have (finally??? possibly for the first time??????) been bested by covids :'( also tho adding the # for getting paxlovid even if you don't have a doctor (212-268-4319) bc in my personal & v limited experience paxlovid rules???..." plus a lil about my ~personal health journey~

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2023-07-26: big tech big banks // this started as a rant under a few events, & turned into an insta post about nonprofits presenting events in partnership with big banks. the initial site text was a bit more uhhh ~aggro~ (e.g., "if you really respect a person, don't say their name with your mouth still dirty from the sisyphean task of trying to suck a big bank's dick clean!"), but by the time i took it to insta i had chilled out enough to be (i think) more measured & earnest, & didn't name specific orgs (tho i guess it was v clear who i meant lol).

i never heard from roulette, but seems they stopped presenting events w/ bank of america –– & pioneer works' music director (legend justin frye, aka pc worship) was very cool, said PW didn't initially know about the partnership & took nasdaq off their website (indicated in follow-up post, tho it turned out they couldn't get signage taken down in-person, alas...). // "WHY IS NASDAQ PRESENTING THIS? ... MY VOTE: ORGS SHOULD NOT INVITE PPL TO PLAY EVENTS PRESENTED BY NASDAQ OR BANK OF AMERICA. LAUNDERING THE REPS OF EVIL ACTORS FOR CASH = BAD; MAKING "YOUR" ARTISTS APPEAR COMPLICIT? *UNACCEPTABLE* ..."

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2023-07-07 /rent-rollback // blog entry about how we desperately need to fight rent overcharges before it's too late for anyone but rich people to live here; most of the city is being illegally overcharged, & you owe it to your self, your neighbors, & all who have been & will be displaced to at least take a minute to request your rent history & find out if you're overpaying by thousands a year... this led to the /tenants page.

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2023-06-17: organize & die / honor yr dead // ...uhh woah forgot this one! i think it was related to the /rent-rollback stuff, the /summerstage horror-epiphany, & ambivalence about starting work on an accessibility database after the friend who would have most appreciated it had already died; looks like i rightly realized it was A Bit Heavy (maybe even melodramatic, tho it didn't feel it!) for insta & put it here instead... "ARE YOUR DEAD FRIENDS RESTING OR WRITHING IN THEIR GRAVES? I THINK MY MOMENTS OF DREAD ARE THAT QUESTION NEEDING AN ANSWER I CAN HEAR WITHOUT WINCING: WOULD MY ACTS OF REMEMBRANCE SETTLE OR DEVASTATE? I'M TIRED OF BREAKING MY OWN HEART... IT'S MAYBE FUNNY, BUT NOT A JOKE, TO SAY MY DEAD CAN'T REST WITH RENT THIS HIGH OR ADAMS IN OFFICE; THE TRAJECTORY OF THE CITY IS UNSUSTAINABLE, & HOW FUCKED WOULD IT BE TO LOSE WHAT WE LUV WITHOUT TRYING 2 SAVE IT? HONOR YOUR DEAD WITH THE DREAM OF LOWER RENT & PLEASURE OF COLLECTIVE POWER! ... I WISH US LUCK BUILDING LIVES THAT DO NOT MAKE US SAD!"

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2023-06-11: on access // long thing about wanting to build a venue accessibility database. a lot of anticipatory apologetics: i felt like it would be super presumptuous for me to try to build something like this by myself, & was trying to find someone more informed or better-resourced who could head the project... i was also very frustrated with half access, a registered nonprofit with a board that seemed to be getting all the arts access funding for a resource so hopelessly out-of-date that it was no longer functional; i had offered to work for them (for free) to improve their database, but they said they couldn't handle the number of venues we have in nyc. i think i was hoping that if i shamed them a little they would let me fix their website instead of making a new thing from scratch, but they fully disbanded ~8 months later.

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2023-06-08 /summerstage // you know that thing in movies or a christmas carol or whatever, where Money'd Guy is visited by ghosts or has a time wharp or is otherwise made to realize how fully & terribly he has been A Fucked Up Capitalist, & then when he's returned to ~the present~ he's so relieved he gets mildly hysterical, yelling at everyone about how it's all going to be okay & he'll be different now??? okay well this was me doing that about the fact that for years i listed summerstage (sponsored by capital one) events on nyc noise. i complained about it the whole time, but i listed the events anyway... & then one day, evidently during the weird hellish bad air of june 2023, i literally *woke up* in an extreme panic about the fact that i personally directed people to summerstage, sponsored by capital one –– & since capital one is a uniquely bad bank, it might have ruined someone's life. it was a wildly outta-nowhere horror, an experience of Stomach-Dropping Moral Clarity, & my only comfort was that i still had time to tell everyone i know about how fucked up capital one is.

...so yeah anyway the page is a bunch of "fuck capital one" & "fuck live nation / ticketmaster" links, plus the caption & images of this insta post: "ON SUMMERSTAGE, SPONSORED BY CAPITAL ONE, & OTHER BAD DREAMS. ... LET'S TRY SOMETHING: ENTER THE NIGHTMARE OF FEELING CULPABLE FOR [CAPITAL ONE'S] ONGOING REIGN OF TERROR & HAVING NO TIME LEFT TO SAY YOU DIDN'T MEAN IT. …BUT IT'S ONLY A DREAM! YOU CAN SHAKE YOURSELF AWAKE; SHUDDER WITH RELIEF THAT THERE'S STILL TIME; DECIDE YOU MUST CHANGE YOUR LIFE; & GO ON REASSURED BY THE DEPTH OF YOUR OWN SOBERING FEAR. ... I WISH US ALL CLARIFYING NIGHTMARES ABOUT THE CHOICES WE MAKE IN THE POISON AIR! BE GAY. DO CRIME. MAKE NOISE."

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2023-check: on stickers & deferral // i'm just so weird & avoidant about asking for donations, & this is one of 10,000 dumb things i did to postpone asking people to please give me money

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2023-05-06 /jordan-neely // excerpts of this made it to insta; it's meandering thinking through christina sharpe's writing on hysterical whiteness, whiteness & white people as police & the violent protection of property –– & what "we" can do, or anyway what i need to do, to stop being the kind of people who let jordan neely down.

"...some rambling abt the importance of radicalization, whiteness & complicity, carceral logics & abolition, & direct intervention. ... to first establish some norms:

it is bad to kill people.

• even if they upset or frighten you; even if you are a scared b*tch; even if they cause you Actual Physical Harm (which neely did not).

• the pandemic has exacerbated the poisonous effects of white-supremacist capitalist patriarchy.

• there are sick people walking around looking for an excuse to kill someone. 

christina sharpe calls it "hysterical whiteness," this move from 'someone is upset & yelling' to 'i am in danger that justifies violence.'

"Hysterical whiteness makes blackness the provoking agent of the mass hysteria that is the province of whiteness itself." (Ordinary Notes)

• the solution is not (yet still!) more cops. this happened because daniel penny [believed he] was being a cop, doing their work. this is how the carceral state operates.

• [sharpe:] 'Whiteness being a name for property and its violent protection.' ...

• for me, “accountability” means, when i’m able, responding to harm with questions; honest self-reflection; admitting both limits & capacity for harm.

• further: an understanding of what sh*t is By Design, & the ways i’m Caught Up.

• for me, EASY TRUTHS include: i would never put a person in a chokehold; i do not have violent impulses toward those i read as unwell or distraught.

• HARDER TRUTHS: when i read men like penny as “healthy” but violent (!), i am less likely to be patient or measured. i’ve had the experience of being (tho the word irks me) “triggered” by white men behaving violently. when this happens, i am less ~cool~ / commanding & more angry / shaky –– meaning, more likely to escalate, or to be dismissed. some of my attempts at intervention have not seemed 'successful.'

(though: you will rarely know if you succeed in saving someone's life, & you will definitely know if you fail.)

• TRUTH THAT SHOULD BE HARDEST BUT FEELS PRETTY NORMAL: when i see a lone stranger in crisis that doesn’t appear immediately life-threatening, i often walk away. (meaning: i would likely have avoided entering the same car as jordan neely if he seemed unwell.)

• idk what it means to see someone as both healthy & violent––or tbh what it means to see anyone as “healthy.” under any reasonable definition of the word, penny's actions were those of someone sick; people didn't intervene loudly & forcibly because they couldn't see it.

• i am trying to move toward an operating stance of something like, inappropriate behavior may mean a person is unwell. if they are causing harm, i will note this; if that harm is acute, i will do so loudly.

• there are lotsa things out there on de-escalating; hollaback's 5 Ds (Distract, Delegate, Document, Delay, & Direct) = a classic. (if you haven't already, go read that instead.)

• ... in this case that could have been something like, (loudly) say what seems wrong (& why); ask if they intend this wrong; suggest alternatives. [wrong] chokeholds can be fatal; [ask] are you trying to kill this person? [alternatives] if you need to restrain someone, it should be by their wrists.

... we need to get better. i luv our town & trains & am very, very, sorry we let jordan down."

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