Team Party Crash: 'Topic' Magazine Release Party @ The Beatrice Inn
Despite our considerate mapmaking labors, we've received few invitations to those "A-list" events. Lucky for us, we have some fairly well-connected people around our office, so at the invitation of Gridskipper editor Josh Stein, our Friday evening was spent at the release party for Topic, a completely non-pretentious publication at the completely non-sceney locale of The Beatrice Inn. In case you missed the memo, Topic magazine is
...made up of real stories by real people. Our editorial mission: to explore today's world by discovering individuals whose extraordinary life stories intersect with a given topic—and to invite them to tell those stories themselves. No journalists, no middleman. Topic gets its material straight from the people who have lived it.
It's published a few times a year, each issue with a different - wait for it - topic. Whowouldathunkit? Issue number ten features Games, and Friday's festivities involved grown adults playing Connect Four, fueled by a shitload of Dewar's Scotch. As usual, we collected the standard party shots for your perusal, and party-pal Kate's extended gallery can be found here. After the jump, Editorial Assistant Heather and Kate remember the days when playing Twister was infinitely less painful, and fruitlessly search for David Cross.
Okay, I admit it. I had no clue what Topic magazine was until Thursday, when I asked out loud what the fuck Topic magazine was. Joshua, our in-house jokester, casually mentioned he was a senior editor there and that I should accept the release party invitation that spawned the original query. Somewhat embarrassed, I RSVP'd and carted Kate over to The Beatrice Inn because, more than anything else, I wanted to see what a "hipsteraunt" looks like. Additionally, I wanted to see what people who hung out at a "hipsteraunt" look like. Unlike earlier, I found out fairly quickly:
- 1. A "hipsteraunt" looks like my ex-boyfriend's parent's basement, which means it's awesome for clandestine hookups, not so good for masses of people or those with tendencies toward claustrophobia;
- 2. People who hang out in "hipsteraunts" are fairly attractive, if not fairly forgettable. It's no Misshapes. Oh, wait:
Never mind. Moving on...
Locating Josh, the only person I know in the room, I am directed to people we should talk to: Marty Reisman, a septuagenarian ping-pong player with a decidedly melancholy disposition, David Haskell, the EIC of Topic, and some pretty girls who I fail to note the names of (because if there's anything I'm good at, it's not writing down people's names. That whole Yara Flinn thing? Totally a fluke, people.) As usual, I'm more interested in the open Dewar's bar, and Kate is more interested in taking pictures of awkward interactions and semi-amusing performances of Twister:
(Nice ass, dude.) Flipping through my complimentary issue of Topic, I mentally note some things I will read the following morning whilst moderately hungover - Marty's life as a ping-pong champion, a girl whose sister shot her boyfriend and gave her name when she got arrested for it, that pretty Cara girl from The Real World who failed to receive Hasselbeck-type fame from her reality television stint. I also score a pack of playing cards designed just for Topic, featuring the faces of Amy Sohn (!) and David Cross (!!) and at that point, I think "HOLY SHIT, maybe they'll turn up and I can earn some gold stars for my performance chart back at the office. And until they turn up, I'm going to play me some Twister." That fun lasts approximately fourteen minutes, at which point I realize I'm not as flexible as I'd like to believe. I retire to being the person that spins the wheel, which becomes tiresome. I think I should go talk to some people because I am, in some sense, working. I ignore the fact that my heart is beating a little irregularly, that it's hot and sort of hard to breathe, a situation I think will be cured by another trip to the bar.
It is not.
You see, if there were more unfortunately dressed people here, I could have stuck out the rapid onset of claustrophobia by making fun of them. If David Cross were here, I could have ignored my arrhythmia in lieu of making a total fool of myself. If Amy Sohn were here, I could attempt to get some sort of embarrassing vagina quote or something. But none of those people are here, and I'm in full panic attack mode. I need to get the hell out of here - fast. Collecting Kate, I manage to have a somewhat inept interaction with a really cute boy as I'm gathering my bags. I think to myself, "Wow, Heather, you really suck at life these days." And this thought crosses my mind later on, when I hear the sad news that David Cross AND Claire Danes showed up almost immediately after we left so alas, no pictures of them.
Damn those celebrities and their fashionably late entrances.
