Someone Else’s Life
January 17, 2008
Don't ask me why I didn't take pictures last night, and why, instead, I've illustrated this story with totally random old pictures from all over the place.
It's what I do.
In honor of its outgoing president, Roger Mandle, RISD held a little shindig at Christie's last night. I agreed to meet some friends there, Brian, Maud, Fee, and his wife Patty, at six o'clock for cocktails and hors d'oeuvres.
I assumed a cocktail party at Christie's would be somewhat highfalutin, but not having a particularly highfalutin wardrobe, I just threw on the only pants I own that aren't tattered blue jeans and hoped there'd be someone there worse dressed than I was. After walking in and signing my name in a registry, I was directed toward the galleries where, I was told, the party was just starting.
I entered the room to find a smattering of gray hair and tailored suits mingling with black shift dresses and designer silk scarves, perusing high-priced folk art, including an extensive collection of antique hunting decoys, some with estimated values of half a million dollars. It made the half-million-dollar condos I saw while apartment hunting the other day look like a bargain.
I looped around one room and was about to head to the next when I bumped into Patty. She had just arrived, too, and was on the phone with her daughter. She waved to me and told her daughter, "Jamie-Baby is here." When she hung up, Patty explained that around their house, I was known as Jamie-Baby. "Because every time Fee gets on the phone with you, he says, 'Jamie, baby! '"
"I have no problem with that," I said. "Could be worse."
We headed to the bar and got ourselves some drinks. "This is a whole different scene than the last RISD party we went to, right?" said Patty.
The last RISD party I could remember attending had been a NYC alumni meetup in a dark, dingy bar in Williamsburg, so I had to agree.
"It's kind of nice," Patty said.
As we entered the second gallery, Brian spotted us and rushed over to say hello. "You made it," he said. Having come straight from work in jeans, I was relieved that Brian fulfilled my earlier hope of finding someone else casually dressed.
Although Patty didn't go to RISD, her husband did, but she went to neighboring Brown, so she knows a lot of RISD characters. Soon she was surrounded by a group of them, and while she played catch-up with old friends, Brian and I peeled off to walk around and marvel at the value of old chairs and weather vanes.
"We had a wind vane on the barn at my mother's house, a lot like that one," Brian said, pointing to a three-foot-wide rooster. "Someone fucking stole it. Now I see why. 20,000 grand for that thing. It's excellent, though, isn't it? If I were rich, my apartment would be filled with this stuff."
If he were rich, I assume he'd have a bigger apartment, too, since his current one would have trouble accommodating a single one of these knick-knacks.
A few minutes later, having had a little difficulty navigating her way through the odd numbering system of Rockefeller Center, Maud finally arrived.
"Have you seen anyone else you know?" she asked us.
I told her my friends Patty and Fee were around somewhere, but otherwise, no.
We talked about people we knew at RISD. Maud mentioned a few who had gone on to become successful artists, gallery owners, consultants, and socialites. One in particular, she said, pals around with Tom Ford, shows up at all the society events in designer outfits, has been profiled in glossy magazines, and so on. I didn't remember most of them, and the ones I did, I remembered as being down-to-earth and friendly, so it was hard to give the same jealousy-twinged head shake that Maud did when she said, "I want that life."
It was funny to hear her say that. Maud has led a pretty full and interesting life of her own -- though I hesitate to mention its fullest and most interesting parts -- and when she went to Greece for spring break our sophomore year, I remember thinking to myself, "I want that life." I've long since given up on wishing for a different life, though -- someone else's life, anyway -- and listening to her rattle off our old school chum's various accomplishments, all I could do was shrug.
"All those clowns had a head start," said Brian. "That's the way it works." That certain classmates born to well-heeled families with well-known names had gone on to become wealthy and well-known in their own right was no surprise to him.
"It's not fair," Maud laughed.
"It's all bullshit, anyway," said Brian.
As I've mentioned before, Brian works for a neon design and installation company. He told us about installing a certain piece by a successful neon artist. The only thing that turns Brian's stomach more sour than a "Neon Artist" is a "Successful Neon Artist." Brian's company had been contracted to install the piece in the corporate headquarters of a Fortune 500 company. A white neon sign to be installed above the reception desk, a simple phrase, in simple lettering: "Don't Worry."
Eighty thousand dollars worth of nonsense.
"How stupid is that?" said Brian. "When I went to the office, I was swarmed by office drones with concerned looks and clipboards.
"Do you do many art installations?" they asked. "Can you handle this?"
"Um, yeah," Brian assured them, "Don't worry, we can handle it. "
"What are your special power requirements?"
"Well—I'm going to need an outlet."
They nodded, scribbled in their notebooks, and repeated the word: "Outlet."
"Can you believe that?" Brian said. 'Eighty thousand dollars. The fucking thing may as well have said, PIZZA."
