this may seem like a no-brainer, but it's really nice having lots of friends. it really takes the edge off of things like working-all-the-time or freezing-ass-cold-outside. my partners in crime come in many flavors, but the unifying theme seems to be that they're all social and fun and up for anything - a lovely combination, if you think about it.
you need good wingpeople for events like the museum of contemporary art's first fridays. after years of talking about it, i finally managed to think about it at the right time and rounded a group of people to check it out. i was a little sad to go without my blogmate and mb (who were off gallivanting around the caribbean), as the standing plan had been for the two of them so serve not so much as wingpeople, but as home base, so that when we got tired of prowling there were friendly faces to whom we could report our findings.
friday night at the MCA is exactly what you think it would be. over-priced mediocre wine in plastic cups, DJ spinning house music, lots of beautiful people in fabulous clothes... and as it turns out lots of not-so-beautiful people whose attempts to dress fabulously fell a little short. after a good deal of initial apprehension, i felt much better after i had noticed the striking amount of non-fabulousness. given how many people showed up (alot, especially if you consider how cold it was friday night), i also got a little bit of a boost from being in the smaller cohort of people who managed to put down our drinks to actually inspect some of the art.
the highlight was most definitely tino sehgal's live-action "kiss," featuring 2 dancers engaged in a performance arty PG-13 makeout session. in and of itself it was pretty interesting, and you could station yourself in a corner such that you also got a pretty good view of all the museum visitors trying to figure out if what they were watching art or drunk people. also topping my list of favorites was the giant multi-media oyster-shell on hinges, guarded by some sort of oyster-shell natzi who would only let you climb in and listen to the waves crashing on the inside if you took your shoes off and looked relaxed enough to appreciate the full effect. finally, there was the room full of rock concert bootleg videos, projected in black and white onto weird slanty screens. it's not that it really broadened my horizons to watch silent, slow motion footage of a non-descript 70s punk rocker in leather pants masturbating on stage, but peoples' reactions were quite varied and very funny.
all in all we called our first dabble at first fridays a success and pinky swore to go back when the weather was warmer and we didn't have to battle it out in the coat check line when it was over.
i finished my weekend on sunday night at a very different kind of function, as my friend j.s. graciously hosted all of her jewish friends for brisket, latkes, and all-you-can-dreidel. i'm sure there's a whole circuit of jewish professional singles functions, but as conscientious objector to such functions i have little experience with what is, at least to me, a pretty strange social phenomenon.
i found myself sandwiched at the end of the kitchen island between a rather slimy neurologist who wanted to talk to me much more than i wanted to talk to him, and an attractive and rather slick non-neurologist who wanted to talk to me much less than i wanted to talk to him. the cute one on the right at least absorbed that it was probably his job to save me from the greasy one on the left, but he couldn't quite commit enough to the conversation and as such things just got incrementally more awkward by the minute. i'm not sure how the other people at the party were faring (they at least seem to know each other better than i knew any of them), but when the hostess plopped the piece-de-resistance "better than sex" cake on the table it was like someone had hit the reset button, and suddenly we were all in the same boat of awkwardness together.
when you take a room full of people who are all tipsy and willing to say slightly inappropriate things about "better than sex" cake strange things are bound to happen. there was alot of thoughtful chewing, i think because the consensus was that "better than sex" appears to be a relative thing. trying to be coy with the boy on the right while specifically not encouraging the boy on the left was really really hard, and in the end i gave up and went to play dreidel with the hostess.
i'm thankful for the many social opportunities i am afforded by virtue to knowing the right people. stay tuned for my next installment, in which i report on my rekindled romance with evan dando of the lemonheads, and the always delicious chocolate buffet at the peninsula hotel. thanks for listening.
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