Official! Program, Lineup, Schedule and Tickets for Cabaret of Secrets

Let the celebration commence

It’s all happening. On February 3rd 2024 @1 PST PST / 4 PM EST Cultural Futurist Salon II - Cabaret of Secrets will begin. Here is the official event program with descriptions of all the live talks, readings, and performances. I’ve posted the Zoom link for my paid subscribers under the cut. You can still join as a paid subscriber if you’d like to attend Cabaret of Secrets on the 3rd and gain entrance to all upcoming Cultural Futurist salons that will be held monthly in 2024. You can also get tickets to this singular event through Eventbrite here.

Cultural Futurist Salons are digital events involving a handpicked creative and talented community that is bold and unafraid. My salons will also be popping up IRL this year, which you’ll be given free entry to if you become a paid subscriber today.

I recommend dressing nicely to add to the aesthetics of the event, whether dark dandy or cabaret glam or radical fringe philosopher or aristocratic punk or mad alchemist or something else that is uniquely you. Now is your time to shine, freak.

JOIN THE CABARET OF SECRETS

Cabaret of Secrets is a celebration of transgressive ideas. We’ll defy the modern narrative with live performance art, poetry, literature, music, comedy, speeches, and provocative discussions by revealing the hidden realms of the avant-garde. We’ll vocalize unspoken thoughts while unraveling the archives of our predecessors as we perform the new regime ahead. Join the aesthetic vanguard as we take culture into our own hands.

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EVENT PROGRAM

1 PM PM PST / 4:00 PM EST - Rachel Haywire: Invisible Selections - Opening Keynote [10 minute talk + 5 minute Q&A]

In this Opening Keynote, Rachel Haywire will go over what she calls Invisible Selections, theorists and philosophers whose work was highly influential yet not necessarily “popular” during periods of social realignment. She’ll create the ambiance for Cabaret of Secrets, transporting you back to a past in which cabaret producers and post-Weimar intellectuals exchanged ideas and performances. Returning to the present and enhancing the tone with some Dark Cabaret, she’ll explain how similar operations and happenings of today took place during this unique historical period. To conclude, she’ll flash forward to upcoming Futurist America where new Invisible Selections reside.

1:15 PM PST / 4:15 PM EST - Owen Cox: Church/Masons/Cabaret - The Foundations of Ceremonial Religion [10 minute talk + 5 minute Q&A]

Dion Fortune was one of the foremost British occultists of the early 20th century, second in influence only perhaps to Aleister Crowley. A neglected proto-feminist icon, she was both a teacher of erotic magi and a prolific writer of the Western mystery tradition. Her writings on religion remain some of the most interesting and relevant today. In this provocative talk, Owen Cox will declare how the church, masons, and producers of cabaret should be thought of as a spiritual triad. He will paint a picture of what a culture that places equal weight on public congregations, secret societies, and erotic performances might look like. 

1:30 PM PST / 4:30 PM EST - Alyssa Polizzi: Goddesses and Hidden Archetypes [10 minute talk + 5 minute Q&A]

Tales of Great Goddesses descending to the underworld remind us that each archetypal pattern contains both light and dark aspects, a multiplicity of expressions that encompass favorable, constructive elements as well as negative and chthonic ones. Drawing upon her popular article, Tracking Persephone, Alyssa Polizzi will explore the psychological threads that surround the hidden depths of these archetypes and how the journeys of Persephone and other goddesses reveal the regenerative aspects of painful initiations, withdrawal to the depths, and cycles of life.

2:45 PM PST / 4:45 PM EST - Noah Rymer: 10 minute reading from Invocation of the Bruised

Noah Rymer is a walking bundle of contradictions. He’s written the critically unacclaimed short story collection Harvest, and is currently working on his novella denouement. He occasionally enjoys going slightly mad, being a poète maudit, and long, spiraling walks in foreboding woodlands which may or may not be hiding some terrible, ungodly secret. He will be reading from Invocation Of The Bruised, a small collection of poetry about love, decay, and drift.

2:55 PM PST / 4:55 PM EST - Christopher Cook: A Framework for the New Individualist [10 minute talk + 5 minute Q&A]

What we need now isn’t more blackpilled doomerism—it’s a pathway out. What might that pathway look like? Is it revolutionary or evolutionary? Does it begin with a shift of power or a shift of consciousness? Are there new kinds of nations in our future? Could we start one right now? For the last quarter century, Christopher Cook has worked at the confluence of politics, philosophy, and culture. He’s the author of “The Freedom Scale" and writes at his Substack of the same name. He’s been formulating a concept for a new kind of anarchic policy that he’ll be releasing installments of in his new book, revealing the blueprints to us.

2:10 PM PST / 5:10 PM EST - Mo Diggs: Is Authentic Culture Still Possible? [10 minute talk + 5 minute Q&A]

In 2022, Dimes Square was poised to help relaunch the downtown Manhattan artistic renaissance. Did it succeed? In this talk, Mo Diggs questions how artistic movements can sustain themselves during a period of what he calls a mesoculture, a time in between the macroculture and the microculture. Must we keep our ideas a secret as creatives if we don’t wish for them to be defiled? Where do we go next in a world in which even anti-movements become movements in themselves?  Mo is ready to break it all down.

2:25 PM PST / 5:25 PM EST - William Collen: Dark Academia and Subcultural Anthropology [10 minute talk + 5 minute Q&A]

The dark academia aesthetic is becoming increasingly prominent and noticeable on social media. It has attracted intense interest and even some censure. How are we to think of it from an art-historical perspective? In this talk, William Collen will discuss a method of aesthetic criticism that can be applied to aesthetic subcultures such as dark academia, which relate directly to the history and interpretation of more traditional artistic creations such as painting, sculpture, and architecture. He will consider the form, approach, vocabulary, and social media presence of dark academia, and suggest some principles by which other prominent aesthetic subcultures can be analyzed.

2:40 PM PST / 5:40 PM EST - Made in DNA: 10 minute reading of Daimyo's Decoy

Made in DNA has been an American immigrant in Japan for 25 years. He has been a document translator by day and a science fiction author by hobby. He’ll be reading Daimyo's Decoy, the opening chapter to a novella that will be serialized later this year. It’s a story of cannibals, mutants, megastructure castle cities, and a woman with a mutant power she does not want and must hide. It’s Kurosawa meets Mad Max in far-future Japan.

2:50 PM PST / 5:50 PM EST - Kristin Garth: 10 minute reading from DADDY

Kristin Garth will be reading from DADDY, a collection of dark short stories and a novella all sharing the collective theme of a dark father figure, absent or present. The stories and novella present characters struggling against and giving into their daddy issues. They are set against the backdrop of a Christian university, strip clubs, roller skating rinks, suburban neighborhoods, Pensacon, Florida’s electric chair, a small town cable access station late night, a Parisian fashion show after party, a candy coated dream/nightmare, a kitty themed coffee shop, the rural woods of Northwest Florida, an elementary school bathroom stall, and a child’s ornate playhouse among other locales.

3 PM PST / 6 PM EST - Break/Music/Chaos Social

3:30 PM PST / 6:30 PM EST - Crank Moise: 10 minute musical performance

Crank Moise will stop at nothing to shake up your reality. Whether through nerdcore, experimental electronic, or hyperpop, Crank Moise is leading the new species of sound. With his new Hyperpop set at our salon, get ready to have your mind blown. Strap in tight. We’re going for some hardcore accelerationism.

3:40 PM / 6:40 PM EST - Sovereign Syre: 15 minute comedy show: Sex Work on Election Night

Sovereign Syre is a former sex worker and recovering academic. She uses stand-up comedy to confront audiences with the realities of sex work by turning the mirror onto the consumer and customer. She has been profiled in the LA Times in addition to appearing on Adult Swim, Epix, and MAX. She currently has a scripted TV series about her development and most recently opened for Marc Maron. Her podcast ILL REPUTE! documents the lives of transgressive women, and is regularly featured on the top 50 of Apple and Spotify. She’ll be performing a comedy act at Cabaret of Secrets titled Sex Work on Election Night.

3:55 PM PST / 6:55 PM EST - Tesstamona: Musical Alchemy of Trauma and Treason: [10 minute talk followed by 5 minute video performance]

Tesstamona is a singer, songwriter, poet and devotee of Truth who began creating music when she got clean from heroin in 2009. She will speak on censorship of thought, word, and expression before she shares her most controversial and censored piece of music, Bondage, to date. The backstory of this song and why it was removed from YouTube five times will be disclosed. The video is a graphic, offensive, maniacal surrender narrated with tarot cards, weapons, chains and blood. Tesstamona will conclude with a screening of her video Wasteland, a look at what happens when the reality of living in a collapsing fragile simulation hits.

4:10 PM PST / 7:10 PM EST - Jacqueline Rendell: 10 minute music performance

Jacqueline Rendell is an experimental singer-songwriter and sonic landscape artist who loves to travel the line between gritty and pretty, pairing steady rhythmic guitar with soft, haunting vocal emanations that take you deep under the surface. She’ll awaken the memories of what’s possible inside of us at our cabaret. Get ready for an experimental ethereal performance that will speak directly to your soul.

4:20 PM PST / 7:20 PM EST - Jason Rheins: How to Throw Yourself the Perfect Funeral [10 minute talk + 5 minute Q&A]

Chances are, you're going to have a funeral, but it's very unlikely to be held in your lifetime. Despite the fact that humans have been ritually burying their dead for more than 100,000 years, no one has solved an obvious design flaw: the guest of honor never gets to actively participate. Yet what if you could attend a gathering of colleagues, friends, and loved ones while experiencing their appreciation of you and your life? Well now you can, and you don’t even need to fake your own death! Jason Rheins will teach you how to throw your own funeral at Cabaret of Secrets.

4:35 PM PST / 7:35 PM EST - Ben Joeng: It Doesn’t Matter Who Runs Bartertown [10 minute talk + 5 minute Q&A]

A revolution is defined as an attempt to replace a current order with an arrangement more amicable to a set of revolutionaries. Yet historical patterns have shown that the business of governance is quite tricky, and can only be effectively accomplished via institutional knowledge passed down through a genealogical line of career bureaucrats who are completely impervious to ideology. Ben Joeng will demonstrate this through historical examples, presenting an alternative strategy toward the reformation of society from the ground up.

4:50 PM PST / 7:50 PM EST - Lisa Kuznak: 5 minute reading from Pallas

Lisa Kuznak is a Canadian author of science fiction, fantasy, poetry, and various other literary works. She loves experimenting with prose and form. As a reader, she especially enjoys finding a great voice. As a film school dropout, she's a huge fan of film and music. Lisa will be reading from her debut novel Pallas, an old-school pulp-inspired scifi with folk horror elements. Her next book, The Highwayman Kennedy Thornwick, is a literary fantasy that is set for release on February 27th.

4:55 PM PST / 7:55 PM EST - Demi Pietchell: Censorship and Rhizomatic Consciousness [10 minute talk + 5 minute Q&A]

Attempting to restrict speech affects more than policies and facts - it profoundly shapes collective psychology and mass consciousness in chaotic ways. At our salon, Demi Pietchell will discuss how when ideas get labeled "forbidden" through censorship or public pressure campaigns, they morph into something larger, taking on a mythic allure instead of fading away. When not being exorcised through civil discourse, suppressed concepts intensify below the surface, erupting later in more extreme forms. Forbidding public expression compounds turmoil rather than resolving it.

5:10 PM PST / 8:10 PM EST - Miss Metaverse - The Secret Future of Cyberpunk [10 minute talk + 5 minute Q&A]

Miss Metaverse is an intuitive futurist, media personality, marketing strategist, and content creator who will be speaking at our salon about the hidden secrets of cyberpunk. She’ll be discussing the tumultuous world today of and and her visions of a fragmented future. Miss Metaverse has traveled the world speaking, consulting and producing content, including futurism and fintech podcasts at Provoke Media. She is currently writing her first book entitled “Dark Future: Post-Collapse America and Other Cyberpunk Prophecies.”

5:25 PM PST / 8:25 PM EST FU5K4 - Industrial Digital Hardcore: 30 minute musical performance [Closing Set]

FU5K4 is the Spanish vulgarism for a fire weapon within the decay of Mexican conglomerates. In his own words: “73H APHEX OF WE5TEЯИ CIVILIZATIOИ WHEЯE DIGITAL WASTELAИDS FIИD FЯEEDOM El3VAT3, CЯU5H 1И MID A1Я D34D 1D0L5 WЯЕ4KED, ASH3S." FU5K4 will be performing a full 30 minute concert of raw Industrial Digital Hardcore to conclude our celebration of transgressive ideas at the Cabaret of Secrets.

The official link to the event is behind the paywall here: