claire

marcos morgan, aka big body kito, books kitofest, the all-day artist gathering that takes over anchor rock club once a year and turns it into something halfway between a house party and a small festival. he also does the late nights, the long drives, the hard conversations that nobody sees. an excerpt of this conversation runs in issue 8. what follows is the full thing, lightly edited. kitofest is a great gathering of people. what about it stands out, what makes it special to you? the people....

many (annoying) people describe atlantic city the same way: corrupt, dirty, a money pit, sin city, saturnalia of vice, a place that had it coming, blah blah blah blah. you say the name and people already know what they think about it, which is funny, because most of them have never lived here, a lot of them have never been here, and basically none of them were around for the part they’re so confident about. the notion that atlantic city is corrupt, that it was always corrupt, essentially...

the diving horse's album of the month: house by te vista. intentional vocals, harmonies that make you wanna cry, and a live show you don't want to miss.

atlantic city locals, we want your advice for the tourists coming this summer. whether they're flying in from europe for the world cup (tip #1, please, do not walk down here on the parkway) or it's their 100th boardwalk weekend, what do you want them to know? what grinds your gears, hidden gems, where to eat, how to actually have a sick ass time in ac. send us your hot takes and we'll put together a guide. Please include your name, age, and in brief, anything else a tourist might ant to know...

people say a lot of things about atlantic city. often, it's rooted in ignorance. and here at casa diving horse, we don't let that slide. from 1912-1916, we had a mayor. his name was william "billy" riddle. he was a rich dude who genuinely believed in justice (rare!), enjoyed a nice cocktail, was obsessed with a single land tax, and LOVED atlantic city. his father died before he was born. his mother mary founded chelsea — yes, chelsea. as a single mother. with an all female real estate team....

a couple years ago, andy and i drove across donegal, caught a ferry, and ended up in newcastle to watch our friend austin potter play his first show outside of the united states. it was at The Globe. it was wonderful. we drove through the lake district afterward, found old things, laughed a lot, ate at wetherspoons more than once, and i filed it away as one of those trips that just works out. austin has been making music for a long time, most recently under the name tapes & tubes, but his new...

you know her song "come here." you just might not know you know it yet. the movie before sunrise. ethan hawke. julie delpy. record store. listening booth. two people standing very close together while a song makes you feel everything that isn't being said..... well that's kath bloom and she's playing anchor rock club with dave shapiro next sunday. i've been trying to figure out how to describe her music to someone who hasn't heard it and the honest answer is i can't. she'll make you laugh,...

as i am talking to more people, i’m learning how important media literacy is. it wasn’t intentional, but issue 6 ended up heavily focused on the subject. in researching and reading about atlantic city and realizing that we were never really taught the full, real history — just a history written by those who had something to gain. i love being silly goofy and carefree and thoughtless but i also love thinking and critical thinkging, too. you can’t safely practice one without the other, i think....

the following is a transcription of an atlantic city newspaper report from march 18, 1901, detailing the st. patrick’s day cases that passed through the city’s police court. men celebrating a little too enthusiastically and a judge who seems p amused by the whole affair. erin go bragh baby the spelling and wording have been preserved as closely as possible to the original. CASES IN THE POLICE COURT Two Victims Only Wanted to “Celebrate St. Patrick’s Day.” MANY RYE PARTIES Johnson, of...

march 26 at anchor rock club forever plaid is a four-man harmony group that never got their shot. pals sparky, smudge, jinx, and francis spent years in an eastern pennsylvania basement rehearsing tight harmonies, clean choreography, tuxes pressed and ready for a tv era that had, for the most part, already moved on. the kind of act that would’ve killed on ed sullivan, if only. they never made it to their gig. on the way to pick up those tuxes, things went very wrong. somehow, they're getting...

every year, the atlantic city st. paddy's day parade turns the boardwalk into a strange and wonderful collage of bagpipes, green beer, families, and a large number of people who clearly started drinking around 8am. i grew up going to the paddy's day parade with a family who took it really seriously. i'm also half irish (dún na nGall abú!) so i feel pretty confident in my recommendations here. me in '08ish decked to the 9s if you’re heading down this year, here are a few places worth knowing...

in this piece i get into a stretch of atlantic city history when morality meant getting arrested for exposing a knee and the governor threatening to send troops into town over a sunday drink. a novelist named louise rosine got hauled off the virginia avenue beach in 1909 for rolling her stockings below the knee. around the same time officials were policing bathing suits, banning bare chests, and deciding who was dressed respectable enough to go in the ocean. meanwhile the governor was calling...

i went through every single "ac" "atlantic city" "boardwalk" "taj mahal" etc mentions in the epstein files so you don't have to.... mostly boring logistics that literally made my brain wanna melt. duplicates, travel schedules, promo emails, fbi desk briefs, and general business sludge. a lot more logistics than scandal. this first pass is just laying out who shows up and what’s actually documented. nightmares the main name that keeps resurfacing is nicholas ribis, longtime casino executive...

if you grew up anywhere in the orbit of atlantic city, you’ve probably had at least one conversation about morals. maybe about whether you give a shit if the homeless guy you handed change to spends it on booze. maybe about whether women should show their knees on the beach. prohibition. the casinos. every mayor we’ve ever had. the crda. trump. epstein. paris. nicole. everybody’s got a theory and a moral high ground. but guess what baby. this is atlantic city and we’re level 0 my guy. so in...

if you could build a bridge straight out from atlantic city and just keep going until you hit land, there’s a pretty good chance you’d end up somewhere near one of my bucket list spots: nazaré. in this piece we walk the streets of nazaré, looking at what feels familiar and what doesn’t. where you might sit and smoke a cigarette. how a place built around giant waves compares to one built around giant bets. over there you gamble with big wave surfing, over here you gamble with big wave...

gambling has been around longer than rules..... longer than morality... and the alphabet. whether you’ve ever rolled dice or not, you’ve for sure gambled before. everyone has. ancient myth even credits one man, palamedes, with inventing both letters of the alphabet and dice, which means the same figure tied to language and reason also gets blamed for chance. the story gets stranger from there. the article below, pulled from a 1967 issue of monsieur, goes into how dice moved from divine tools...

a guide to valentines day in atlatnic city