Upper East Side Story: A Cartoonist's Report
Substack throws a writers' party at EAT, sending in the cartoonists to document the damage.
This event was also reported in the New York Times on 14th November, 2024.
November 12th, 2024
Madison Avenue, NY
EAT on Madison remains one of those iconic Upper East Side holdouts where the ghosts of Woody Allen movies still linger in the corners, which made it the perfect backdrop for my latest attempt to masquerade as a functional member of New York media society.
Substack had arranged for three New Yorker cartoonists—myself,
, and —to document their best-selling writers’ salon in ink, despite my historical inability to navigate large crowds while holding both wine and drawing implements.
The best part of doing these events (apart from the fact that they keep choosing the best venues in the city) is getting to catch up in person with Substackers I’ve been reading for years and meeting new ones I’ve never heard of. One writer filmed me drawing him and posted it to his TikTok. The comments are erm… Welp. They’re interesting.
The jazz trio wedged in the corner provided ideal cover for my perfect pratfall with a canapé in front of
and his wife, Debbie. While I was gabbing rabidly about dogs and bike lanes in Central Park, the crème fraîche cucumber made a graceful arc through the air before landing with impressive accuracy at their feet. I don’t know why I’m allowed in public with adults. There should be a lock outside my studio door.
The kitchen kept sending out waves of tiny baked things that make you feel simultaneously sophisticated and unworthy—pigs in blankets and perfect mini lox bagels that I managed to scatter across my clothes like an abstract expressionist garnish. Newsletter luminaries and TikTok prophets navigated the space with practised poise while I positioned myself strategically in a corridor where my eardrums and ego could recover.
By midnight, Sofia, Hilary and I had decamped for a nightcap at the Stumble Inn on 2nd, its name serving less as location and more as a performance review of my evening.
Here are some snaps from the evening provided by the fine folks at
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