As soon as I read blogger Theresa Duncan’s clever “Generation Xorcism: Baby Boomer Ghostbusting at the Chelsea Hotel,” I knew she understood the "morphic resonance" of the Chelsea.What do you do?I am a writer and filmmaker. I made a bunch of video games and was called "the first video game auteur." The first video game I made was "Chop Suey" for 20th Century Fox Interactive, I collaborated with the author David Sedaris, and the music was by people from the legendary D.C. rock band Fugazi. I also made a film called "The History Of Glamour" that was in the Whitney Biennial in 2000, and I also sold it to Canal Plus in France and Channel 4 in Britain, and it played in theaters in Japan, where they loved it. I am making a feature film now about two Upper East Side schoolgirls who kidnap a rock star. It is called "Alice Underground."
Have you ever stayed at the Chelsea?
Of course I have stayed at the Chelsea. My boyfriend the artist Jeremy Blake and I stayed there the 
first time we spent the night together. I also looked at an apartment for rent there and seriously considered taking it.
first time we spent the night together. I also looked at an apartment for rent there and seriously considered taking it.Do you think that there is a creative energy in the Chelsea?
Probably. There is an English scientist named Rupert Sheldrake who believes that physical locations have a sort of "memory" he calls "morphic resonance." Basically, it says that if someone was creative in a location before in the past, it is easier for someone to be creative there again in the present. It is also verifiably true, as he points out, that if a scientific experiment has worked once before in a certain location it is more likely to work there again than in a new, untested location.
Probably. There is an English scientist named Rupert Sheldrake who believes that physical locations have a sort of "memory" he calls "morphic resonance." Basically, it says that if someone was creative in a location before in the past, it is easier for someone to be creative there again in the present. It is also verifiably true, as he points out, that if a scientific experiment has worked once before in a certain location it is more likely to work there again than in a new, untested location.
What Is Your Favorite Chelsea Hotel Story?
Well, it's a place that many legends passed through, and I'm very impressed that genius director Stanley Kubrick used to visit sci-fi author Arthur C. Clarke's apartment here when they were making "2001," but my favorite story is the great night I spent with my boyfriend Jeremy Blake there.
It was in a vast and powerful snowstorm, and we had been dating three months or so. I remember before we went to bed we were making out in the window, looking out at the street filling up with snow, it was almost completely quiet and we were overlooking the electric Chelsea Hotel sign, and how it was lit up and haloed by all this snow, and I remember later the wild noises that the hotel made late that night, like some madman in the basement playing a church organ made with the hotel's old radiator pipes.
Since that night we've been together ten years now, and Jeremy has had shows at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum and all over the world and I've written some stuff I'm really proud of and I'm about to make this great rock and roll film for kids....And our fantastic night in the Chelsea was the night of fireworks in December 1995 that kicked it all off.
We moved to L.A. in 2002 for work, but we'll be back to make my film early next year and I've been thinking about us taking a place in the Chelsea for our eight month stay. It's a good luck place for us and for our work.
We look forward to your return!
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