Most years, the entire Slate staff spends two days working and playing together at the Mohonk Mountain House near New Paltz,  New York. Day 1 is mostly devoted to outdoor recreation.

Day 2 is full of meetings, brainstorming sessions, and podcast recording, followed by evening revelry.

Culture editor Dan Kois writes: Here is the playlist that Forrest Wickman and I created for the Slate retreat Monday night dance party. We prepared more than four hours of music, and it wasn't enough, which led to some frantic late-night scrolling. I bought Erasure's “A Little Respect” well after 1 a.m., and I will be expensing the $1.29 charge from the iTunes music store. Rarely has there been a more crucial business expenditure.

Forrest's DJ app featured foghorn and gunshot sound effects, and, worried about their overuse, we gave ourselves quotas of seven sound effects each over the course of the evening. I am proud to say I did not go over my limit, nor did Forrest. Several employees danced through nearly the entire night, including senior editor Jessica Winter, art director Vivian Selbo, assistant editor Miriam Krule, and copy editor Ryan Vogt. Julia Turner, as described in the Culture Gabfest, figured out a way to dance to “XO”—exactly the kind of leadership through turbulent waters any media organization would be proud to have.

The dance party closed at about 2:30 in the morning with, as I may or may not have tipsily described it, “the official theme song of Slate dot com,” Kanye West's “Runaway.”

The playlist's title is “Jams.”

Deputy editor John Swansburg writes: For several years now, John Dickerson has led a delightful bit of unplugged counter-programming during the dance party hours, creating a space for those Slatesters who prefer hand-made, artisanal music.

An honorable mention to Lindsey Underwood for her inspired idea to build a human pyramid out of the Slate staffers still awake as the sun was starting to peek out from behind the Catskill Mountains, and her work as general contractor on the project.

The winner of the annual Gilded Otter award for best exemplifying the traditions of Slate magazine, the Mohonk Mountain House, and the Gilded Otter Brewing Company of New Paltz, New York, was senior editor Jessica Winter. In addition, a lifetime Gilded Otter was given to software engineer Chase Felker. Congratulations to them both.