Bright Girls on the Make!
On New York Charlatans, Dilettentrepreneurs, and Terrifying Girlsbosses
Holy Cats! Patricia Arquette is the most terrifying Girlboss ever in Severance! I had a terrifying Girlboss once. Her name was Vanessa. She was HOT.
Hello, Lovelies, How the hell are you? Dragging?
Personally, I love daylight savings because—given my life—I am a huge fan of arbitrary chaos. It’s like the sun pulls up outside my apartment, honks the horn, and shouts, "If you don't get your ass up, I swear I'm going to freak the (bleep) out!" I profoundly appreciate this. I like to imagine solar bodies as that one abrasive friend, think Leslie Jones, who is like, "I told you what time I was going to be here and now I'm here and I don't care that you don't have no shoes on, baby, and I certainly don't care that I'm bothering the neighbors. These are your neighbors. You KNOW I live in the sky!”
Ever since Russia invaded Ukraine, I’ve been thinking a great deal about our old dog, Sleeper. Our sweet 108-lb black Lab sighed a lot for somebody who didn’t contribute to the house or know what a government was.
He would have sighed so much these past three weeks—i.e., congratulations, you’ve just survived a global pandemic (that isn’t quite over), now for your reward… here’s a shirtless dictator flouncing in on a pony with the specter of World War III.
Sleeper was a pro at not fetishizing catastrophe. He would never be the ugly American and make things all about himself—like so many are doing right now. He’d sigh at the GOP pundits on CNN and then when no one was looking… eat an entire pizza off the dining room table.
As it’s women’s history month, this was supposed to be snarky meditation on the glories of New York City women—bright girls on the make and the ways in which they reinvent themselves—from the fictional Holly Golightly to Martha Stewart to “You look poor!” Anna Delvey to Heather Morgan—the latest in crypto-schadenfest.
When the Heather Morgan story broke, a collection of words so random they have likely never been before put together in such a heinous combination came into being to describe a newly exposed criminal act: A New York City cryptocurrency investor and his skinny white girl tech entrepreneur-Forbes contributor-hip-hop rapper wife, who also goes by the name of “Razzlekhan,” were arrested on charges of laundering $4.5 billion in hacked bitcoin funds. Yes, the girl pictured below was theoretically worth more than Peter Thiel!
In describing herself Morgan says: “I’m many things: a rapper, an economist, a journalist, a writer, a C.E.O., and a dirty, dirty, dirty, dirty ho.” All I can say is: girl, you win for the prize for weird, but no thank you.
Warning: the following footage is disturbing—especially if you are a dancer or have any rhythm whatsoever.
Where this story really sings is in the details…
The husband, a dual citizen of Russia and the US, describes himself as an “occasional magician”. Doesn’t he just look like a magician? His head is almost small enough. And he looks like he’d be a really bad one too, the kind who gets heckled at kids’ birthday parties? Again, hard no thank you.
At the time that the funds were stolen in 2016, during the major breach of the Bitfinex exchange platform, that amount was worth about $71 million. This was allegedly transferred to the digital wallet belonging to Ilya “Dutch” Lichtenstein, and Lichtenstein and his wife Heather Rhiannon Morgan who conspired to launder that money. Prosecutors say the couple spent some of the money on gold, NFTs, and “absolutely mundane” — okay, rude — “things such as purchasing Walmart gift cards for $500.” You gotta wonder, why Walmart? Why not at least something fun like a Chanel or Burberry gift card? Ooh, or Sephora? C’mon girl, everybody loves Sephora.
Besides Morgan’s low-rent crypto-gift card washing, there was also the multichannel campaign wedding proposal by “Dutch”. This bold romantic branding gesture, which appears to have taken place in 2019, included a PowerPoint deck as well as putting up posters bearing the word “Razzlekhan” (Morgan’s ‘rap’ name) all over New York, staging guerilla-style happenings, and buying digital billboard space in Times Square. “Sweet, thoughtful, creative, and positive ROI,” Lichtenstein wrote of their marital lives to come.
Meanwhile, as they were laundering all this crypto, Morgan was penning remarkably sane, intelligent articles for Forbes like Tips To Protect Your Business From Cybercriminals which, again, is probably the most surprising part of this whole debacle. Morgan seemed to have intelligence, skills, and a modicum of sanity somewhere underneath all her be-razzling and Korean waffle queen vlogging—so, what on earth was she thinking?
To my mind, both Morgan and fake socialite Anna Delvey seem to be suffering from acute dilettantepreneuria (thank you Ned Rust for that neato word) defined as ”the compulsive expression of unrealizable entrepreneurial notions.” Because of this unique mania, neither could stop.
And with Inventing Anna, much as the series is decent trash, I felt scammed little by little into thinking the show had something to say about the nature of the grift… but in the end, like everything, it was all a shell game.
In fact, the biggest problem with Inventing Anna is that there is never enough delicious delusion of being high on your own grift. Not like you get with Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany’s or even Melanie Griffith in Working Girl.
Indeed, nothing in the series captured that heady, thrilling feeling of getting away with something. Audiences need that. There was only the one great, tense moment on the yacht between the billionaire investor and Anna’s dumb boyfriend—where she calls the investor out about how dream data would be pivotal to all the investments he’s made in pharmaceuticals for depression, anxiety, and insomnia. It’s a singularly genius moment where she nails his bloated white VC-ass and redeems herself in the eyes of everyone. In that moment, you see how good she might have been in business if she’d just done the work, and it’s something to behold. The rest of the series needed more of this, and it’s where I would have taken more poetic/thematic license as a writer. Alas…
But it all goes back to that feeling of New York—that anything can happen here, and because that’s the case, of course, you should reinvent yourself—you’d be a fool not to! Just don’t do it in a way that lands you in jail… like Anna, Martha, or Heather Morgan. Don’t people realize, the blonde always gets it in the end? C’mon, that’s lesson one.
Things I have been loving this week…
The most New York emoji I have ever seen—just simply called, “running my mouth.” 🗣 Please use often and irresponsibly.
This girl…
The sleeper hit on Amazon Britannia! Think: scary Druids fighting pompous Romans amid insanely amazing anachronistic music with uber-complex women’s roles. Best of all: their rituals always involve rubbing psychedelic pesto on someone’s face and that then leads to a plot twist. Genius!
All My Friends Hate Me
If you’re feeling the need to cleanse your Upper West Side palette, I highly recommend fashion TikTok-er Elizabeth Venter. She lives the idealized ’90s Meg Ryanesque Upper West Side life that we all dream of, but she does it with an iPhone and a modest social-media following. Her normcore wardrobe is androgynous and cozy-chic.
The best track ever, courtesy of Mary Laura Philpott…
Meanwhile, I wish I could talk more about what I’m doing right now. I’m a lousy secret keeper. When I try to skim the surface, I always just sound full of bullshit. But man… I love making TV more than anything in the world and I remain amazed and dumbfounded when little fictional people with their Aristotelean arcs and their internal conflicts and their punchlines come to life in the minds and bodies of extremely talented actors right in front of me. You know how sometimes you think of a sad weird scenario in your head and you make yourself cry? That's literally me five times a day. Tears just soaking my KN95 mask as I mumble "Agh, that's so sad, the totally pretend thing that I made up. I wonder how it will resolve! I'm just rooting for everyone! Does anyone have a Kind bar???"
Well, that’s what I’ve got right now. Just stay safe people, and know that I am thinking of you all the time. xoxo - gotham girl
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Brilliant! Thank you!
THE Ned Rust? :)