Stuff : A New York Life of Cultural Chaos

“STUFF is a totally new genre of book, carving out a radically new mode of storytelling. The 448 page tome serves as both testament and beacon, a record of collaboratively- engineered creative intelligence that can guide whoever is looking to continue in its lineage.” - WHITNEY MALLET Kim Hastreiter, the beloved troublemaker and champion of downtown New York, is best known as the co-founder of the iconic, indie, Paper Magazine. She calls herself a cultural anthropologist, but in today’s terms she might be better described as a multihyphenate artist who excavates big wild ideas from all corners of culture and brings them to life. Kim has spent the last 50 years amassing a deep and iconoclastic collection of stuff. STUFF is more than a memoir; it’s a loopy, joyous, chaotic ride through the last half century of cultural chaos in the greatest city on earth. STUFF is a storytelling project about an extraordinary slice of history and the people who defined it, using Kim’s singular edit of art, fashion, design, photography, books and ephemera as a lens. In these pages you’ll meet Kim’s amazing friends: at an all night party in the basement of an East Village church with Keith Haring, a private art sale with Jeffery Deitch in Phylis Diller’s kitchen, or impromptu cocktail at Trader Vic’s with Salvador Dali and Joey Arias. In Kim’s New York, a leopard print Fiorucci look catches the attention of legendary photographer Bill Cunningham and sparks a lifelong friendship. A chance run-in with Kim’s neighbor Steve McCurry has her witness the creation of the defining image of 9/11. And a trip with her mother to buy a dining table from Nakashima, sets off a devotion to patina as a form of personal history. Whether you are an OG or a kid, a culture vulture, artist, design buff, fashion nerd, skater, collector, chef, cinephile, New Yorker, uptowner, downtowner, out of towner, or something else entirely, STUFF will make you feel like you’re sitting with Kim in her garden high above Washington Square Park, her booming voice imploring you to follow your heart and listen when the voice inside your head screams YES. Kim is begging us to pursue our lives with compulsive enthusiasm, by generously walking us through her own. STUFF is more than the sum of its parts: it is a provocation and a roadmap for building a creative life. Co-published by Damiani and Amazing Unlimited.