Scream 4

Having been subjected to an EL-AL-worthy screening at Sotheby's this week, I was taken past lines of docile-looking policemen to the 10th floor where Munch's 'Scream' was on display along with other stealthfully framed art-nuggets.  Nuggets, because some of them seemed quite literally to glow in the simulated daylight.  I have to admit that I was not just a little disappointed.  I have been to Oslo, seen the Thielska in Stockholm many times, and this crayon version, despite the hype and the staging and the 'poem' underneath--- well, it didn't knock me out.  In fact, I couldn't really 'hear' it.

Okay.  I wandered around, admired the glossy Picasso and the Gauguin, both of which looked freshly painted or maybe repackaged.  The clever frames, and the combination lighting--- a little seductive, but you definitely know you are not in any museum.  It is more like an upscale 'store'-- Prada or Armani-- or Harry Winston.  The whole scene-- with the well-dressed employees, their precocious formality and sly solicitous condescension,  resembled not merely a 'set' but a bit of a 'set-up'?

In fact, watching the actual sale, there was a distinct scent of staginess.  The auctioneer's comments  seemed scripted, the waving hands like a scene from Wall Street 4.  In a debt-fueled catastrophic world economy, zeros seem almost arbitrary and fictional.  I mean, who are these people--- and why are they here, abusing and distorting the art market, and who really cares?  I'm sick of seeing super-sized engagement rings and Vera Wang weddings.  How many hedge-fund-financed apartments have I visited lately with the required Richard Prince Nurse, the Damian Hirst, the Jeff Koons hideosity, the stock Warhol, Twombly, Richter... ad nauseam?  Even the Double-Elvis which used to excite me--- it all seemed like wall-treatment, not art.  It's oversized, and overdone, and --well, it feels downright cheap to me.  What happened to small pictures that draw you in-- paintings done in squalid damp studios in absinthy nights of unrequited passion, of wet lamplight and shadowy women behind doorways?  Something intimate and personal?  Something only you could own?  A painting on the wall that seduces-- every night-- like a kind of visual Sheherezade?

Honestly, it is not sour grapes.   I will venture that even the Basquiat Boxer didn't inspire me.  It all looked rather flat and frankly I don't want to own these things.  Okay, I am jaded and have seen 35 years of auctions now--- London, Paris,  especially New York.  I coveted these things when they were new and affordable.  I even invested, in those days, when Apple stock was a shot in the dark at $22.00.  But today the Scream felt like some Michelin Man version of what I used to admire.  A cartoon.  I do not want Mickey Mouse on my wall, diamond dust or not.  I have maybe outgrown these over-used pop-icons.  I'm sick of seeing Elvis and the Beatles and too-many Marilyns.   In a gallery in dark cold Norway where the 19th century seems a bit closer, the Scream has some authority, some meaning.  But here at Sotheby's among the well-dressed-- and the captions and the overweighted catalogue descriptions- it just looked a little Casper-esque.   Maybe the Warhol version would work for me-- and at 1/20th of the price and an extra layer of irony, it would seem a bargain.

Besides, it is Scream 1(?) of 4.  Did Hitchcock do Psycho 2?  He did not.  The shepherd who screamed 'Wolf' too many times? Remember the anecdote about the British philatelist who bought two of the rarest and priciest airmail stamps in UK history?  He immediately destroyed one.

How many of these artists at auction would make it today?  Would anyone pay attention to a Bonnard or a Delvaux or a Twombly unless he got raves in the Wall Street Journal and a one-man show at Gagosian's Basel booth?  Would Gagosian recognize a badly-dressed true artist on the street with his artwork?  Would anyone do a studio visit to someone who lives in a basement flat and has a vision?  Unlikely.  A certain amount of creativity in our culture has to do with reinforcement--- with  reward and recognition and then the courage or motivation to go on.  Not to mention money.  All of which taints the artist in a way--- too hard not to want to please, or to displease for attention, or to shock the audience or-- better yet, jolt oneself into some kind of artistic epiphany because the average collector maybe spends more time on Madison Ave at Saint Ambroeus having a morning latte or savoring the pretty amazing hot chocolate.  Imagine these people unable to distinguish between a bottle of Two-Buck Chuck and a fine Chateau Lafite except by pricetag,  especially if you switch up the bottles.  Well, there you have the art market, for some.  

My own mirror dates me with no mercy.  But I, unlike these 9-figured paintings, never expected to be timeless.  One of my photographer friends made a comment today--- he picked up a book on The Lost Vanguard of Russian art and remarked 'I never get tired of looking at these'.  A thumbs up for him.  And yes-- a few of these things in our lives: the NYC post-storm sunset-- the moon over the East River--- my wall of books-- the face of someone we truly love-- some of my pictures, like small deep windows,  the soul of the artist mixed with my own now from so many hours of intimate 'seeing'.

Still, personally, I like my music loud and my art quiet.

Fun House

So thank God Thanksgiving blend is finished. Jesus, that sounds so retro-jappy/Carrie Bradshaw. But when half your daily spending allotment goes toward that Venti bold no-room with the potential unlimited free refills (I am vehemently anti-Pike), a bad blend can seriously affect attitude. Maybe this is for my New-York-on-$4-a-day blog my gynecologist keeps begging me to write. Along with the comment that if I give him a really valuable piece of thrifty advice, he'll discount my pap smear accordingly. He did. $6.39. He probably didn't even send it in. Do I care at this point? Way cheaper to die than get a diagnosis. Quicker, too. Maybe I should call it 'Dying in NYC on $4-a-day'. I like the sound of that. But I've heard a cemetery plot anywhere in the 5 boroughs is like more expensive than the average UES coop. And smaller. No view, so maintenance might be cheaper. No electric. Low ceilings...etc. ad mortem.

I actually am developing a serious phobia of sounding like Carrie Bradshaw, now that she is dated and maybe the same age I was when I swore an oath against ever watching a single episode, even shading my eyes when I saw them filming live in my 'hood, walking with their Tasti-D-Lites on the day my friend was hired as an extra and was furious when she witnessed me refusing to look. Actually she never forgave me. Actually I don't deserve her forgiveness, for other petty sins I've committed against her. Carrie Bradshaw wouldn't say peccadillos, would she? I wrote this same friend, when she mentioned she had flirted with one of my more dysfunctional exes, wanting a reference. I suggested she take out a personal ad saying "Tax deduction available. Will cook and clean (well, at least at first). Knows the lyrics to Castles Made of Sand and most early Dylan (this is where she begins to lie). Can tell Wolfmother from Led Zeppelin (Pinocchio-worthy). Has a vagina (actually, I've never fact-checked)." Maybe I'm becoming Carrie Bradshaw. I'm confused. Was she fictional or real? Was she the fictional version of the actual columnist? Can you fear becoming the fictional version of someone, or even a cartoon character? My mother used to remind me of a more elegant Edith Bunker. For a while I had fear-of-my-mother-turning into Marge Simpson. I have nightmares about the Simpsons. They terrify me. Even the baby. When I was small I feared the Classic Comic Quasimodo. I'd compulsively dare myself to open to a page, and then I'd feel like I had to vomit.

I have this new terror of early Alzheimer's, like my Mom. Not that she seems unhappy or frustrated. But she's totally lost her sense of humor, her edge. I have to keep checking to make sure I still hate Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm.

When I was there the other day, she was furious that everyone had rice pudding except her. But you've already finished your rice pudding, the caretaker carefully explains. 'No I didn't', she insists and stamps her foot in the most ladylike way, and then wrinkles her nose at us and says in her old snoot-voice: 'I HATE rice pudding!'

It was funny. I made me think, once again, that she is pulling the greatest marital practical joke of all on my poor father who nagged and criticized her for years, and has the patience of an angry flea. Also the fact that she defends Dancing with the Stars, even calls me when it goes on, like it is our private joke and worth the torture of it just to watch him writhe and utter non-verbal expletives.

Tonight I saw Michael Moore coming out of the 92nd Street Y. He is pretty fat. Does he do this to ally himself with middle-Americans who are fat? The ultra-rich, of course, like the extreme poor, are thin. I suggested to my newly-anorexic friend the other day that she is just trying to look rich. It is also easier for anorexics to do New York on $4 a day. I suggested she guest on my non-existent blog. She's not speaking to me either. I'm relieved.

Christmas blend. Blend. Everything is a compromise, everything is a hybrid-- diluted, cut with baking soda and corn-sugar, force-fed. People aren't black or white either. Black people are light brown and blonde, Swedes die their blonde hair Johnhy-Thunders black. Everyone's a blend, desperately trying to distinguish themselves with some pathetic fashion statement, women all incensed if someone has the same dress at an event and trying just as desperately to be exactly like everyone else with ther iphones and kindles and macbooks and shoes. I saw a girl at Sotheby's yesterday wearing literally 9-inch Christian Louboutins looking like a pathetic flightless bird with deformed bloody wings on her feet, walking like Barney in toeshoes, pretending her ass was not the bulgy ass of a 5'2" average Jill but the proportionally acceptable ass of a Victoria's Secret Angel. It was very Cindy Sherman, actually. Or Carrie Bradshaw.

Somehow my son's facebook page is now viewable by me. I don't read the posts, but I have noticed these girls with names like Summer Autumn Revere and Jessica Marble. They seem to be real people, but their names are like sculpted. Who are their parents? My son actually, completely accidentally, has a poetic name. His father's fault. I wonder sometimes if I didn't marry his father for the poetic last name...I mean, I think I was in love, but seem to remember feeling 'above' institutional traditions and probably would never have taken another name, except it sounded so nice... I was a little hypnotized... very Carrie Bradshaw. Then again, there was certainly no Vera Wang white for me. We were married (blended?)at the exact same office as Paul McCartney and his current. The woman who performed our ceremony had an enormous ass. Colossal. Proportionally speaking. My husband remarked on this, and I was convulsed during the entire brief ceremony, didn't hear a thing and he spoke for me-- said I was temporarily dumb-stricken. He was funny. I remember this.

I wonder if my mother forgets she's old, decides that grey face in the mirror is some old person who's come to clean the house. Madness is comforting, in the way that you convince yourself around Halloween that these people on the subway leering at you are just costumes and masks. In the way that you order your Christmas blend just like the Carrie Bradshaws behind you, and you get the same brew, no matter how much is in your wallet. There is some democracy. We all get old, we die, we get cancer, we go mad, we remember, we forget. We pay the same for our Christmas blends; it is not about the portion but the proportion.