Towards a Radically Contingent Destination

In the post-war years, it was quite common for a gentleman to eat at

his club every day, never varying his routine in the slightest. Members

of the following generation rebelled somewhat against such habits, cutlivating

a menu of restaurants from which they were able to choose; the list became

ever more diverse as bars and multi-ethnic restaurants were added to the

acceptable possibilities.

With the arrival of the 1980s, where one went in the evening became

a matter of style as much as substance. Restaurants and bars became hot

spots, places to be seen, where the elite could congratulate themselves

on getting past the front door.

And in the 1990s, all pretense at timeless quality was thrown to the

wind in a tornado of openings, flashbulbs, secret phone numbers; of destinations

becoming more famous than most of the boldfaced names inside them.

The lifespan of a hot new bar/restaurant started shrinking dramatically.

Years turned to months, and months to weeks, as Balthazar begat Moomba,

Spy begat Veruka, and the Soho Grand begat the Mercer Hotel. It wasn’t

long before the downtown fabulous started abjuring all destinations except

those which hadn’t opened yet: the “soft opening” had arrived, and with

it a condescension towards anywhere actually listed in the phone book.

There was a parallel development, too: as the number of destinations

increased, the chances rose that no matter where you were, you would be

better off somewhere else. And as the number of cellphones approached

the number of revellers, groups of friends in different places found it

increasingly necessary to meet up with each other, usually at some third

location.

It wasn’t long before the amount of time spent moving between parties

exceeded the amount of time spent at the parties themselves; before minutes

of airtime overtook minutes of facetime. The greatest bar, the most exclusive

event, was always just the right cellphone number away; even first-name-only

supermodels started suffering the Groucho Marx syndrome of never being

satisfied at any bar which actually admitted them.

In the 2000s, the real party, the place where everybody wanted to be,

had disappeared from the map. The radically contingent destination, or

RCD, existed only behind the speed-dial buttons on Nokia 8860s; coalesced

only in the interstices of possibility between dreams and fabulousness.

It’s opening tomorrow.