One last episode until January
Updated 2003-09-15 17:00:00
Credits. Cha, cha-cha, cha-cha. Cha, cha-cha, cha-cha. Cha, cha-cha, cha-cha, cha-cha, whee, go xylophone! Splashy bus! Ohhh, the five-dollar tutu, she is ruined. Cha cha cha.
A cab pulls up to the curb. Carrie, in her silver Manolos and a one-shoulder handkerchief dress (ruined by her black bra), and Charlotte, in a prim-and-proper black dress with a white collar and sash belt (very domestique) and silver Prada shoes (love them!), hop out. Char urges Carrie to hurry, but Carrie can't "hustle" in those heels. Well, you should have bought Prada, you silly thing.
The setting? An art gallery in Chelsea. The exhibit? A woman who is sitting still, with a metronome, atop a ladder made of knives. Wow, I just reviewed a show in the Philadelphia Fringe Festival that's like this. One woman, two boxes, three days. She spent three days being in two boxes, in a circus sideshow tent. I said you can see people living in boxes all over Philadelphia, but art is, I guess, all about context.
The Chelsea gallery is packed with socialites, staring at the performance artist. She's doing this for 16 days, hoping to change the energy in the room, and thus the energy in the world. Okay. Carrie is like me, all, can we go now? Lunch? Now? Charlotte recalls the days when she worked "in the galleries" and "performance art was more theater than installation," but this woman "has taken it to the next level." Yeah, she's the next Gandhi, but without the social change part. Carrie looks around the room, and woof. There he is. Mikhail Baryshnikov. Misha. The H-O-T man. He's looking right at her. Carrie looks, then looks away, then looks back at him. He drops his face into a funny sort-of smile. Woof. I love it when men do that. Carrie gives him a Mona Lisa, then whispers to Charlotte that a man is staring at her. Char looks over her shoulder, in time with Carrie's swiveling neck, but he's gone.
The two friends leave. Char stops at the desk to send her regards to Circe, and as Carrie dabs balm on her lips, Misha appears again. Carrie points him out to Char, who gasps and says sotto voce that he is Alexander Petrovski, the artist. He sees them staring, and Char shuts up. He moves to leave, but Char, star-struck, stops him. His "Abstract #1" was her first big important sale when she was "first working in the galleries." He nods, bored, and says "mmm." Carrie peeks from behind Char at him. Char would gush some more, but Misha puts up his hand and asks what she thought of the exhibit today. Char says, "Very moving. Significant." And what did Carrie think? "Good." Misha says she must have thought it was funny, since he heard her laughing. Carrie says she's "not very arty." So, she didn't think it was "significant?" Carrie goes off; what the artist is doing isn't art. "Oh, please. There are depressed women all over the city doing that and they aren't calling it art. Put a telephone up on that platform and you'd just have another typical Friday night waiting for some guy to call...and if anyone bothered to come down here at 3 AM, she'd probably be around the corner having a Big Mac. Why do you think she has the knife ladders? To keep her from running out and getting a snack." Char tries to butt in with, "She's kidding," and Misha says, "Who are you? Your name?" Carrie Bradshaw. "And you are a comic?" Carrie doesn't quite know what to do with that. Charlotte introduces herself; she just wants to say "how very, very important your work is." Misha says, "So what," and walks away. Char is elated. Carrie just mutters, "You arre a comik?" That's what he said, honey. You were trying to crack with the wise, weren't you? At least he sounded like he maybe thought you were funny. Russians aren't exactly known for their senses of humor.