A Conversation With Alice Sparkly Kat

Guilty Pleasures is a monthly interview series, featuring a conversation with one artist about their so-called guilty pleasure.

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For this month’s Guilty Pleasure interview, I spoke with Alice Sparkly Kat. Alice Sparkly Kat is an astrologer. Their goal is to bring reconstruction and historicism back into astrology and to bring mysticism back into storytelling. Their astrological work has inhabited MoMA, Philadelphia Museum of Art, and The Brooklyn Museum. They're the author of Postcolonial Astrology. Their website is alicesparklykat.com.

Janet S. Frishberg: So I want to hear about this April obsession that you mentioned.

Alice Sparkly Kat: Okay, so I got into BTS before the pandemic, through erotic fanfiction that I became completely obsessed with. Then recently, Min Yoongi’s been going on his solo tour, and you had to be an official ARMY member to even be in the running to get the code for maybe being able to buy a ticket.

I didn't get the code, but a friend of a friend did. I ended up paying like a whole month’s rent to see Min Yoongi live. I got up at 6:00 AM and went to the venue, and there were people camped out with tents. Apparently the cops were coming to clear people the whole night too, so these are the people who really stayed.

There's three lines, no signs. I got a floor ticket, so I wanted to try to get really close and just got in one of the lines. A few hours later, an employee of the venue came out and everyone stampeded them. There was this dangerous crowd situation. I was kind of in the middle of it. No one was moving.

People had unofficial wristbands, which apparently were fan distributed. Everyone was confused; there was no staff. It was also raining. We were all wet. Then they sent a new notice through email, telling us to go into this plaza. And they penned us in there for several hours, in the rain.

Eventually they started pulling groups out randomly to receive an official wristband, and people were cheering. It was like the rapture.

The whole time the staff were like, “No jumping, no running, no yelling.” I felt like a wild animal, we were still penned inside. Eventually, we got inside and I got pretty close to the stage, maybe ten feet away.

JSF: Wow, that’s impressive.

ASK: Yeah. During soundcheck, he comes out wearing a tracksuit. His hair is undone. He does three songs. Then he takes time to stand on the very edge of the stage and look down at us with disappointment for how we behaved. After that, he just leaves, like, “See you later.” And we have to stand there, crushed with each other. Also, they made us throw out our water and weren't selling any water. And, we were going through sub-drop.

We’re all dehydrated. We're anxious. And I realized that we're his paypigs. He's like a findom. He showed contempt towards us and then gave us no care.

Then after three hours, he performed. It was crazy—someone in the audience had passed out and as soon as the music started, she came alive again.

So, that was my experience. It's a guilty pleasure because it's like, God, I didn't know that side of me. I just wanted to be humiliated. Through the distance, but also the money, because I paid like a whole rent to have this experience. It was very intense.

JSF: Did you feel different afterward?

ASK: I felt so different. Usually I like to be in control of things, at my own schedule. But for this, I had to reschedule my whole life to come see him. He actually said, “I want you to take a break from your life to come see me.” It felt like I was giving up all control to be there. It's a submissive experience. So it's enjoyable because of that.

Afterwards, my client work actually improved a lot because I was more willing to be with someone else's power. So yeah, it really made a difference.