"Any Party" by Feist

You know I’d leave any party for you.

You know I’d leave any party for you. 

The song itself sounds like a party—acoustic guitars and drum kits drunkenly played, sloppy and rid of perfection, but reeking of merriment. As the tune fizzles towards its end, the repeated line is passed on from Feist’s singular voice to a collective of party-goers: off-key and seemingly slung over each other, swaying, on the brink of collapsing into a dog-pile of booze-breath and sweat. Just beyond this mass of people is our female lead, hand clasped in her partner’s, moments before being whisked away to her “party of two.” Here lies the warm thrill of anticipation, two lovers awaiting the inevitable climax of intimacy. You know I’d leave any party for you. 

I first heard “Any Party” by Feist on the train, an offering from Spotify’s Discovery Weekly. Of all the algorithms that I encounter on a daily basis, this one might be the most terrifyingly understanding of my desires. I consider what I sonically enjoy to be intrinsically linked with my entire personhood, so you can imagine my wariness in the understanding that a computer knows me in this way, this well. 

I’ll say this…idyllic romance haunts me. I am a servant to the fictitious iterations of love fed to me by cinematic meet-cute’s and pop songs. I’ll also say that while the logical part of my brain recognizes that I am young and it is understandable that I haven’t achieved such success yet, the emotional part of my brain believes that I am 80, dying tomorrow, and too-late to ever finding blissful partnership. But as I sat on the F train, on my way to Carroll Street station, “Any Party” struck me as something different—ideal yet achievable, describing an experience specific and entirely possible. 

The awkward dance of attending a party is one of the most fascinating social performances. I don’t mean dance in the traditional sense, not yet anyway, but a different kind of human choreography. The slight fidgeting alone in a corner of the room, eyes searching for someone you know. The picking at the selection of snacks—stale Cheetos and warm carrots—regretting each bite. The conversation with a stranger about “what you do,” all while knowing the unlikelihood of ever speaking to them again. If it’s a certain kind of party, there’ll be actual dancing: slight hip shaking and fist pumping, or if there’s good music, full-body surrender. 

I miss dancing, at parties and in general. I have a complicated relationship with dancing (for another time) but right now, I want to dance, really dance, yet for the past 10 months, I’ve been dealing with a back injury, forcing me to adjust how I move my body. Yes, if I load up on pain meds (safe ones), I can plug in the mini light-machine and turn a shoebox apartment into Studio 54, but those nights are best when rare. So, I find myself minimizing physicality, discovering new choreographies. 

For example, At 3AM, I’m unable to sleep and in the shower. As I wait for the purple conditioner sitting on my hair to fully saturate, I swirl the tips of my toes around the pool of water my shower has collected due to a clogged drain. Little circles. Left foot twice. Right foot three times. The Phantom Thread soundtrack plays from my phone on the sink, my feet mirroring Johnny Greenwood’s cyclical string patterns. It’s a limited version of what I yearn for, but it’s what I have.

I can pretend my little shower performance is enough for me, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel guilt that my Instagram page’s improv videos in various dance studios are a thing of the past. I guess making this newsletter is in-part a reaction to the fear that a lack of content means invisibility. Late-stage capitalism, baby. In moments of despair, I try to remember a quote by artist Ho Tzu Nyen: “I’m interested in producing a mode or a kind of practice as my ‘art’ in the same way that another artist is interested in producing an action, gesture, a painting, a sculpture. How I operate, and survive - that is the work.” Here, I find solace in knowing that, while my current dance practice isn’t something that produces a product, it is still “the work.” This could mean that our existence, our collection of experiences, informs the work, or the existence itself is the art practice. As is the walk in the park, the do-nothing day, the party. 

Tonight, I am going to party. I am meeting with some friends to dance, uninhibited, publicly, newly 21, and since the pandemic. I’ll show off my freshly platinum-ed hair and matching white pants. I hear the music is good at this venue. The fidgeting in the corner, the stale Cheetos, the full-body surrender, the drunken arm-in-arm swaying, I look forward to it all. I also look forward to the day when I meet someone who’ll grab me by the arm and say into my ear, voice seductively hushed, “let’s get out of here.”