10.30.15 - Halloweekend Part 1: Inferno
6:30pm: Gabby, Chris, Katie & Peter arrive at my apartment to get ready for a Halloween party called ‘Inferno’ at the McKittrick Hotel, home of Sleep No More. Sleep No More is an immersive theatre show where you walk around experiencing different scenes of the performance. The theme of the party is “the Occult.” I love Halloween. I love costumes.
Even Princess want to dress up sometimes.
We have a random third closet in our apartment that my sister calls the “costume” closet because it’s filled with my random thrift store finds. (How can I not buy a beautiful velvet gown when it’s only $5? I really needed those antique jean coveralls.) I love costume make-up. I own three different Ben Nye* stage make-up wheels; the death wheel, the bruise wheel & the master disaster wheel. I have a bag full of different fake eyelashes. That’s why everyone came over to my apartment to get ready. I have massive supplies. Need hair gel? I have it. Need glitter? I have it. Need spirit gum? Yup, I have that. I am intense. I am dramatic. Going with this years theme I decided to dress up as the “mistress of evil.” I don’t buy packaged costumes. I already owned all the elements of my costume except the horns & the crown.
8:00pm: Just two hours later I am ready. I realize once I put on the crown and the horns I decide I sort of look like Rita Repulsa from Power Rangers but I am into it. Sexy Rita Repulsa anyone?
8:30pm: We hail two cabs to get to Sara’s apartment where we are having dinner. I literally don’t fit into the cab with my horns. I have to scrunch down as not to damage my horns. Next time I will order an Uber XL for these horns.
9:30pm: At Sara’s I do the boys’ makeup. Chris is bald and I draw a pentagram on the top of his head and his forehead in red stage make-up. I give Gensho a scar and dark circles. He looks like Anakin Skywalker from Star Wars Episode 3. Somehow I am accidentally referencing pop cultural references for these costumes. We ordered about a $100 dollars worth of sushi but when it arrives it looks like nothing. I guess that’s why all the very skinny ladies I know love sushi, it’s actually not food. The party is open bar. Guess we are all getting wasted tonight.
11:00pm: We arrive at the McKittrick. The McKittrick is not actually a hotel. It is merely a space meant to look like a hotel to serve as the set for Sleep No More. It looks as if it was decorated in 1928 but then stock market crashed and nothing has been changed or cleaned since then. It is large & decadent. It is beautiful yet terribly dirty. Next to coat check is a nearly naked nun giving out red shoots of “communion.” What a welcome. I love a party where hot people greet me with alcohol.
Praise
11:15pm: Katie immediately leads us to the photo booth. Well it’s less of photo booth and more of a set area with a backdrop and a professional photographer. Trying to get some good photos before we inevitably get all sweaty and disgusting. We snap some quality shots. I need to work on my modeling skills. Katie & Gabby have it down but I think my smize is not convincing enough.
11:30pm: The main ballroom seems carnival themed with a cotton candy & popcorn booth. I don’t think carnivals have anything to do with witches or demons. It seems like the party planners got some wires crossed. Or perhaps they were reusing decorations & costumes from another party? Last year the theme was ‘7 Deadly Sins’ and in one of the rooms, they were painting nude male and female models gold while they ate fruit. I wanted a darker party but I guess free popcorn is nice.
12:00pm: We wander into the top floor room where there are dancers spinning around an empty bathtub. We have arrived at this room just in time. The band in the background plays a haunting version of “I Put a Spell on You.” A perennial favorite.
1:30am: In another room there are dancers in bodysuits painted with internal organs. Dancing frantically around an unmade bed. I am, again, not sure how this has to do with the occult but it is spooky. I think the general thought with this party is just “let’s do weird shit.”
2:30am: Gabby and Chris have left. I have lost Gensho & Sara. Katie & Peter are about to leave. I decide to leave since the party is expansive and I haven’t been able to find Gensho & Sara for about an hour. I hail a cab. One minute after being in the cab I receive several texts from Sara. She has gone to a second party "The Last Ball" presented by Babel at the Diamond Horseshoe home of Queen of the Night, an immersive theatre show similar in concept to Sleep No More. Her brother has two tickets he didn’t use so she sent them to me.
I am already dressed...
2:45am: Arrive at the Diamond Horseshoe near Times Square. The vibe for this party is a combination of Las Vegas Dinner Theatre, Dia de los Muertos and Eyes Wide Shut. There are lots of abandoned bottle service tables. There are aerialists hanging from the ceiling. There are naked men & women in masks and showgirl feathered helmets spinning and parading on the stage.
3:15am: Tonight, I did something I never do. I wore heels. Not even proper heels. Heeled booties and my feet are killing me. Heels are the anti-party. Heels are great if you have lots of places to sit and are taking cabs everywhere. I do own lots of heels because I used to wear them to work all the time.* I don’t really go out anywhere where crippling myself heels are appropriate anymore though. However, it’s Halloween and I decided to complete the costume with heels. However now after being in them for close to 5 hours, I can’t really dance comfortably. So we go sit at one of the tables with abandoned bottle service and I do one of my favorite activities. Chair Dancing. Not the sexy stripper chair dancing but my own personal version where I sit in a chair and just sort of jostle the upper half of my body and wave my arms. I do it while I sit at the computer. I do it in restaurants. It’s a dance for those of you who are lazy but also love to dance.
You can do it everywhere!
3:30am: We get back up to dance and watch the naked glittering dancers.
While dancing a random older man in a black suit smiles at me, I don’t really smile back but apparently I made some sort of friendly face because he comes over and kisses me. I am taken quite taken aback. Sara pulls me away. The man just smiles and also walks away.
I know it was just a creepy old man but the situation was so strange that I also think for a brief moment maybe it was a ghost. The ghost of some poor rich European man who died of a coke overdose in the W hotel and now he just wanders around fancy parties on Halloween trying to kiss women.
3:45am: A naked man painted in gold glitter wearing a devil mask begins to throw white confetti all over the dance floor. He has what seems to be an endless basket of white confetti. More dancers come out with more confetti. They all begin to throw confetti over everyone.
The white shower reminds me both of snow and also of jizz. Either way, I am now covered from head to toe in large pieces of white confetti. I want to stay and see this bacchanal through but my feet are now very much in pain and it’s only the first day of Halloweekend, so sadly Sara & I leave the Eurotrash ghost and the naked dancers and head home.
Bye Bitches
*Ben Nye is a very popular stage make-up brand. Probably every high school theatre troupe owns a basic set.
**Women are expected to wear heels to work, especially in meetings. Heels say, “here let me cripple myself a little so I am slightly taller than you and my butt looks nicer but you still feel slightly superior to me.”