09 Apr 2010

R: My friend P invited V and I for dinner at her fiance's apartment on Columbia's campus. As usual the food was delicious and the conversation spirited, though it was dominated by wedding plans. Since P's wedding is less than two months away it's easily forgiven, and since I look at weddings as personal theatrical productions I actually don't mind it so much. I'm actually looking forward to her wedding a lot.

M: Today was Charlie's last day at the PEPFAR Tremont offices, but it wasn't the saddest of farewells since she will be working the FXB Lab just around the corner. For her adieu, we had lunch together at Savant Project, which is conveniently located just three doors down from our building (us > Tanzania offices > Dunkin Donuts > Savant).

After we were seated, I immediately noticed the paintings haphazardly placed around the serving window. Although I think they were poorly done, I quickly recognized their attempt at being works of Jean-Michel Basquiat. During my Junior year at Wellesley, M and I had watched a film on his short, but inspirational life (titled Basquiat; memorably, it stars David Bowie as Andy Warhol - wigs and all - and Benicio del Toro as a friend of Basquiat); afterward, I gave M a Basquiat-inspired Ben Sherman t-shirt, and then a pair of sneakers, decorated with the artist's graffiti.

I guess I could appreciate their effort but overall was unimpressed, and quite frankly, found their overuse of his signature crown both annoying and uninspired (one painting used at least four crowns scattered among smatterings of paint). "Ripoff", indeed.