This year's CoSy MidWinter Gathering was another in the necklace of
memorable events .
Because of the extension of the War on some Drugs to the herb that
made America , tobacco , a party in any bar or "public" place was and
will be out of the question .
Setting
Around the end of November , I had the vision of "Tagging" the old
circa 1986 portable expo display unit pointlessly taking up space
in my closet . Being a notion requiring paint , I immediately thought
of artists' paint maker Bill Rabinowitz , who I've respected around the
gallery scene since those `80s because he was about the only one who
understood color science .
Bill quickly connected with Muralist Barbara Listenik , and the
connection turned out extraordinarily serindipitous .
At the last minute , it being clear that the party would be too large
for her loft , and it looking like a real pain to have the tagging and
much activity on the roof as described in the final version of the
invitation , the entire empty 4000sqft 5th floor ( which is available
for rent ( contact Barbara ) ) was made available .
Thus , an entire fluorescent lit room was available to set up Tagging
Space . Serindipitous to the point of synchronicity was the
existance in the remainders of past tenants of some rolls of coated
fabric which worked excellently to replace the unusably complicated
and heavy magnetically attached original display covering panels .
Barbara's friend Rick had the brilliant suggestion of using plastic
wire ties to attach the fabric to the frame . Worked beautifully .
And dismantling the whole display by just clipping all the ties took
max 20 minutes . Great fun to be able to spend some hours in physical
reality manipulation rather than the symbol shuffling which fills
my life .
CoSy Parties are experiments
One thing which probably inhibited the turnout of a bunch of the
beer drinking crowd from Manhattan was the MTA's closing of both
the 14th St "L" line and the "A" line south of West 4th making
getting to the "G" line to get to the party absurdly complicated .
The subway on saturday was a mess .
Being basically a beer drinker , without much thought ,
I had decided to get a keg of interesting beer for the
party . I learned what an incredible hassle the
neo-prohibitionist nanny-socialists have turned renting
a keg into . The place on Chrystie I have traditionally
gotten beer at no longer sells kegs except to
established bars because of the hassle .
We Found American Beer Distributors on Court in Brooklyn which
had a rather short list of beers available . Of these , we got
the excellent Hop Devil Ale from Victory of Pennsylvania .
You can click the thumbnail at the right to see how I had to
sign under penalty of purjury that no one under 21 would
possibly get at the keg . Plus a $75 deposit for the state !
Because fewer of the Beer crowd showed up than expected ( several
gallons of hard liquor and wine were consumed ) and those who came
brought some very good beers of their own , I have quite a bit of
beer to consume in the next few days .
One experiment I tried at this party was to have premium ( some of
my favorite selections and otherwise interesting ) bottles of
Talisker Scotch , Duvel , Sauza Hornitos , etc available at about
twice their discount price , available for donations to the
Manhattan Libertarians and my alma mater , Culver.org .
No takers .
None the Less , a Great Memory
It was great to see many expected and unexpected friends , including
a larger "teky" contingent than expected who even had me show a few
lines of K.CoSy I used to calculate how many wire ties I needed and
the accounting for the party costs , and even the most tenuous work
towards future CoSy on my notebook .
And to hear many people enjoy having a space to release their
creativity .
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