BC and I are back in San Francisco, where, really, I look 10 years younger than I did in New York. I think it’s the predominance of grays and blues in New York, which are just not part of the flattering side of my color chart, a deficiency of green and beige, the near absence of pastels. Upon getting home, I immediately threw on a pink shirt and pulled out my neti pot and washed that city right out of my nose.
Our last day in NYC was spent visiting the galleries in Chelsea, where we didn’t see much to blog about, except for Lisa Yuskavage’s fabulous show at David Zwirner, where green was dominant, her bosomy babes nestled in verdant landscapes, legs spread, a pie in the face… Her mastery over paint and technique forces an engagement with such disturbing imagery, well, disturbing to this homosexualist, and an inquisitiveness into unraveling the almost cinematically spurting content.
Having never been to the United Nations, we walked over from Chelsea. They wouldn’t let us see much, as it was a weekend, and what a dump. The walls were seeping, the grand side entry was completely covered up with security tents, no curatorial will exerted over the awful member nation “gifts” stuffed into every nook and cranny… Isn’t there a feng shui person on staff? This is not the qi of international progress.
We continued our walk back to Times Square and bought tickets for one more show, Impressionism starring Jeremy Irons and Joan Allen. The play seeks to create a theatrical and romantic equivalent of the impressions that the painters of the late 19th century sought to capture on canvas. Unfortunately, the only impressions left on us were closer to those of branding irons. Message after message was seared into the flesh of the helpless audience. We didn’t find out until after that people had been walking out during intermission while the show was still in previews, so the producers cut the play and eliminated intermission. We were trapped! But Barbara Walters was in the audience! When she walked in, just a few seconds before the curtain went up, all heads turned her way and you could hear whispered “Barbara” “Babawa” “Baabaa” like little sheep.