"What's up with 2012?" cries Dylan, a friend of the artist, a buoyant outsider to her clique. "Everybody's talkin' about it."

Indeed. At Dame Darcy's show at Sloan Fine Art features illustrations from her graphic novel Gasoline, which is set in a post-oil, post-apocalyptic wasteland, were on display. The book is a fiction, but there's no irony intoned when I ask her and her friends about the year 2012, the end of the Mayan calendar's current cycle.

"They kind of see me as their silly kid sister, but I know what's up," says Jessica Delfino, comedienne and singer of dirty ditties. "I know about the solar flares that are expected, and I do believe that in 2012 the [magnetic] poles will reverse." Metaphysical pundits have all variety of theories about what 2012 will bring. Maybe we'll be wiped out; maybe we'll re-civilize; maybe we'll experience total psychic unity.

Not taking any chances, Jessica has resolved not to have children before the fateful year. She's also devised an art exhibition—a sustainable underground home—that will serve a second purpose if the prophecies come true.

I float the issue to filmmaker and artist Tenzin Phuntsog, another of Darcy's cohorts. Any preparations for the big switch? "I'm becoming the best person I can be," he says, "working on my soul."

My elbow is violently grabbed by an older man whom I don't know, who nonetheless looks surprised to see me. He's wearing leather pants, gold chains, a fatigued leather coat and a scarf that reads "Savoia" on the tag. "Who the fuck are you?" he asks. I sigh.

"I guess I don't really know. How about you?"

"You don't know who I am? I'm a fuckin' big shot. I'm Savoia. Look it up. Google. Do it."

Can you just tell me?

"Who the fuck are you? I'll knock your fuckin' teeth out. I'm a big shot. You're a punk kid."

How do you react when an old man threatens you? It's like when your baby cousin calls you a faggot.

"You shouldn't use those words," I say. "What do you think about 2012? The apocalypse."

"What the fuck? Fuck the apocalypse. Catastrophe’s every fuckin' day of your life. Do too many drugs, every night is catastrophic." And I couldn’t argue with that.

Photo by Safia Fatimi