Glum is the New Glam
“No more tonic water!” the costumed cutie purred from behind the makeshift bar. Shit! I was partying in the United States of Bushwick: no direct train without shuttle-buses and no mixers. I was at Starr Space for a Halloween party called Codex Gigas—a term for the Devil’s Bible, a manuscript created by a monk who sold his soul. I’d have sold my soul for some hard stuff, but I was stuck with Chardonnay.

The line-up was suitably dark and intriguing: multi-media performances by noted artist Terence Koh, Harmony Korine, Disco Mayhem and a Brussels-based duo known as thefuckingFUCKS, who perform together based upon research in “rituals, rites, initiation, sacred sexuality and Magick.” Boyish curator Joseph Whitt knows how to pick ‘em.

The kids were in costumes ranging from Santa Claus to a two-man electric outlet, but the room was hot and they were listless. Glum is the new glam. Had the Bushwick boys and girls ran out of meds? Tall, lean, leatherbooted Susanne Oberbeck of No Bra intoned her electro Teutonic dirge, braless—even topless—with Lady Godiva hair twisting around her torso to the thighs. Her lyrics are to the point: “Doherfuckher, doherfuckher, she takes it up the ass.” Or hyperbolic, like the ones about sharing a squat with Nina Hagen: “She used to make pizza out of dead cats.”

It was becoming midnight dreary, and there was no full-on Dark Wave dance party in sight, so I gypsy-cabbed back for Demented Circus at Lucky Cheng’s, hosted by Dina Marie and Daniel Nardicio. They’d promised two floors of adult fun and hot go-go ghouls.

Justin Bond showed up wearing psychedelic face paint, while I was bedecked in ivory Marie Antoinette drag. Before I left, a demented dude in a dress—boasting he was a writer for Next magazine—flung my white cat-eye glasses on the sidewalk. “Get outta here,” shouted the bouncer, throwing him out. Never hit a girl who wears glasses, especially pointy ones.