32 Comments
User's avatar
Bryan Duoto's avatar

Love how this became so speculative and unhinged the further you read. Very topical as we were just sitting in the office talking about how none of us have ever been inside JPM - just orbiting it taking meetings and going to after parties and happy hours

jinbin's avatar

love your writing, pls tell me you’re planning to publish a book one day

Abhishaike Mahajan's avatar

hopefully someday!

Handle's avatar

Reminiscent of Borges pseudohistories, like Tlon, Uqbar. Well done, and enjoy the rest of ... whatever it is.

Martin Sustrik's avatar

Or maybe Lottery in Babylon, given how it pictures a world with different mechanics that the ours.

Matt Lubin's avatar

I see the headline and think, aha! Finally a real person will report on this mythical conference that all the news outlets cover without actually saying anything! But... instead I learn that JPM is the Area X of Jeff VanderMeer's Annihilation, which consumes researchers and leaves a confused body double in their stead. Thanks for the warning!

Dennis Grencewicz's avatar

If there are no pictures of trainees next to half-baked posters, the conference doesn’t exist 🤷‍♂️ sorry I don’t make the rules

Aritra Misra's avatar

This is the most trippy blog post i have ever read!!!!!! It felt like a Ghibli story that made me question terrible thing!!!

Maxine Levesque's avatar

Good comedy—but also, do try to get an invite to a few parties, there’s a lot happening in the hollow earth ;)

Mark Hahn's avatar

Touch of late William Gibson...

naveen's avatar

reminds me of The Gulf War Did Not Take Place by Jean Baudrillard

rafael@realizeAI's avatar

I like your style, abundant of sophisticated sarcasm.

Poonam Rath's avatar

this was delightful and wholesome to read! i cross union square twice a day to drop off and pick up my 5yo from school, and have so many questions and theories looking at the distributed clusters of suits whisking out and about with a distinct air of urgency but equally an endearing expression of primal confusion in the interstitial moments. it all makes sense now. :)

Austin Morrissey's avatar

Love this one

Daniele m's avatar

Perfect - just perfect. Thank you so much for writing this!

Varsha's avatar

So deranged I couldn't stop reading, thanks for the laugh!

Ed's avatar

Great piece! Very true that 95% of pilgrims only keep circling around the “mecca”

Vickram Pradhan's avatar

This is so good