{"id":334749,"date":"2026-09-01T11:20:11","date_gmt":"2026-09-01T11:20:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/334749\/"},"modified":"2026-09-01T11:20:11","modified_gmt":"2026-09-01T11:20:11","slug":"jemima-kirke-wants-to-tell-you-about-her-boyfriends-penis-surgery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/334749\/","title":{"rendered":"Jemima Kirke wants to tell you about her boyfriend\u2019s penis surgery"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jemima Kirke\u2019s<\/a> love letter to New York includes a broken penis, a $40,000 diamond onyx cuff and a strange encounter at The Carlyle Hotel. She read it aloud on August 26 at literary group Dream Baby Press\u2019s <\/a>one-night-only \u2018I Love New York\u2019 event. \u201cMy boyfriend and I were there for a night celebrating our one-year anniversary,\u201d Kirke recalls. \u201cHe had just had minor surgery the day before on his penis \u2013 he was in pain, and sex was out of the question. But like my acting teacher always says, \u2018When you\u2019re in the creative state, there is no such thing as distraction, only potential for inspiration.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

So begins Kirke\u2019s reading of a never-before-told story, one in which an unexpected run-in with Tessa Dahl, daughter of children\u2019s author Roald Dahl, results in one of her most memorable New York evenings. The Girls actress told this story aboard a massive tall ship (the oldest of its kind, in fact) docked in New York City\u2019s Seaport neighbourhood. Held in partnership with the South Street Seaport Museum and curated by Dream Baby Press co-founder Matt Starr<\/a>, \u2018I Love New York\u2019 brought together an eclectic line-up of New Yorkers to tell their own stories, in a night that felt like one big love letter to the Big Apple. <\/p>\n

\"Pin<\/a>\"IPhotography Daniel Paik<\/p>\n

When I first arrived on the ship, it was still light out, and thankfully for the hosts, a clear, cloudless evening. A few minutes in, I spotted Caroline Calloway<\/a>, writer and internet personality, and shortly after, New York City Council Member Chi Oss\u00e9<\/a>, who, at 23-years-old, became the youngest person elected to that position. Looking back, the sightings feel like a premonition for one of the night\u2019s themes \u2013 on a night out in New York, you truly never know who you\u2019re going to meet. \u201cWhen I was waiting for a drink, I was with some friends and [editor of Interview Magazine] Mel Ottenberg walked by,\u201d Oss\u00e9, one of the night\u2019s readers, later told the crowd of over 400. \u201cAfter he walked past, one of my friends goes, \u2018I thought Mel Ottenberg was Black?\u2019\u201d The audience erupts into laughter. \u201cNew York City, baby!\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Along with Oss\u00e9, Ottenberg and Kirke, plenty of other iconic New Yorkers took the stage (read: ship deck) over the course of the night, and each reading seemed to speak to the magical randomness of life in New York, where the unpredictable is commonplace. Via a slam poem he originally wrote in college, Max Friedlich<\/a>, the playwright behind the critically acclaimed play Job, recounted the time a text from an old teacher resulted in him assisting James Franco on a movie set in Brooklyn, where he was sent out to buy a range of prosthetic penises for a scene. Oss\u00e9\u2019s reading included an anecdote about meeting Azelia Banks on a night out in Chinatown. According to Oss\u00e9, Banks handed him a bar of \u201cBussy Boy\u201d soap, the male hygiene product that was her latest venture at the time. Several years later, Oss\u00e9 would go on to become one of New York\u2019s youngest elected officials and pass a historic law banning broker fees. \u201cI did that with the strength and power of Bussy Boy in my pocket,\u201d he joked to the crowd.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Pin<\/a>\"IPhotography Daniel Paik<\/p>\n

While Oss\u00e9 and Friedlich are both born-and-raised New Yorkers, there were also readers like Los Angeles-born actress and filmmaker Alexi Wasser<\/a>, who, like countless others, grew up fantasising about New York life. \u201cI remember seeing model Jaime King, 15 years old, heroin chic, lounging backstage at a fashion show, smoking a cigarette on the cover of New York Times Magazine and thinking, \u2018Oh, holy fucking shit, I have to move to New York!\u2019\u201d Wasser told the audience. Wasser\u2019s reading later recalled the time she, having finally become a New Yorker around age 40, ended up as the personal assistant to a billionaire, who wired her $100,000 to make her first feature film. According to Wasser, they never spoke again after that. But the chance stroke of luck meant that she was able to fund the creation of her 2024 comedy Messy, and the story, told to the ship\u2019s rapt audience, captured another New York truth: no matter your age, your big break could be around the corner.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As the readings went on, nighttime fell and brought with it a full moon. The moonlight, plus the printed \u2018flirtation cards\u2019 strewn about the ship, only added to the romance of the evening. According to Starr, this feeling was intentional. The host, who\u2019s lived in New York for 20 years, has been throwing events all over the city for years. Since its founding in 2022, Dream Baby Press has held readings<\/a> at a Sbarro in Penn Station, a porn shop in the East Village, a branch of Burger King, and a boxing gym in the Financial District. \u201cI wanted to do something that was my love letter to New York City, and figure out, \u2018What would a real-life rom-com look like?\u2019\u201d said Starr. The scene in front of us, where a trio of young people were dancing happily under the ship\u2019s string lights, indeed looked like it was plucked out of a\u00a0 2000s fantasy of big city life.\u00a0 \u201cI really do feel like our events are like mini romantic comedies.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Pin<\/a>\"IPhotography Daniel Paik<\/p>\n

Cheesy as it may be, living in New York does at times feel like living in a rom-com. But while Dream Baby Press successfully recreated that feeling, the point was less about finding love and more about professing love for the city itself. New York is expensive, tiring and at times downright cruel, but for many of us, there\u2019s nowhere we\u2019d rather be. Perhaps the best example of this was found in entertainer Desus Nice\u2019s<\/a> reading, where he described the time that, after a stint of living in LA, he returned to New York and was greeted by a giant rat running over his feet. \u201cI didn\u2019t scream, I didn\u2019t yell,\u201d Nice told the crowd. \u201cI just said, \u2018I\u2019m home.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n