(disclaimer: This episode borrows heavily from the films of Martin Scorcese.)
Vengeance Vellum, Ph.D. drives his taxi through Chinatown, wondering if the job he took is what he is. Look at it this way, he's been a taxi driver for three years, before that a manuscript specialist at the Met. That's what he is. And so too are the people he's seen on the way; they've become their jobs. The gangsters who talk about art like they're insiders, the hustlers, the thieves, the blockbuster curators, the ones who put up expensive retrospectives of their cousin's stuff. Dr. Vellum can't help but wish for a real rain to come along one of these days and wash the scum out of the museum business. Leave the art in the trusty hands of people who want to share objects, not covet them. Who want to inform the museum-goers, not alienate them. Ever since the Dandolos and the Tiepolos came through, he's been praying for rain.
He pulls over to the curb. "You talking to me," he starts, as points the rear view mirror toward himself. "There's no one else here. You talking to me?" But suddenly a guy with very large ears and wearing a long trench coat enters the backseat of Vellum's cab. Vellum recomposes himself.
"The Met," says the large-eared man.
Vellum can't help but think that he's seen this guy before in some of the manuscript material for his Ph.D. The ears are simply unbelievable.
"Stop in Little Italy," adds the passenger. "We're going to pick up a snack on the way. I hope you've got your afternoon free, Vellum."
Vellum looks in his rear view mirror and notices that the stranger is threatening him with a revolver. The lapel of a checkered suit shows just inside the trench coat.
---
Gus's fear gradually turns to boredom as the black market auction draws on and on. Every once in a while he wonders what happened to that sharp young man who bought the Limoges tea set, and his friend with the bright red coat who bought the Dickensian London map. But then comes another item, and another, and as Gus squirms in his seat, he wonders if he'll ever get a chance to take a bathroom break, let alone reconvene with Art Guy in time to get to the art show.
"And the next item," says Loose Cannon, "is Vermeer's The Concert. I don't know what Isabella was thinking hanging this in such a gloomy place. It's up to one of you now to rescue it."
A man dressed in a tuxedo in the front row lets out a chuckle.
"I'm sorry, did you want to have the first bid?" says Loose Cannon.
The gangster replies, "No, my apologies, it's just funny the way you put things."
"Funny?" says Loose Cannon. "That's interesting. I've never thought myself much the comedian. Funny in what way?"
He says, "It's not a big deal, I just thought the way you put it was funny."
"Okay. Funny how? Come on, funny how?"
The man chuckles again, this time a little more nervously.
"Funny like a clown? Like I'm here to amuse you? Out with it now, funny how?"
An intern says to Loose Cannon, "He didn't mean anything by-"
"He can speak for himself; he's a big boy," she interrupts, moving up to the front of the stage. She peers down at the gangster in the first row. "You think I'm funny, right? Don't leave me out of the joke. What's wrong with you? Are you going to speak? What are you, two? How am I funny - what's funny?"
The gangster sinks into his chair and despite the feeling of fifty eyes on him, lets an inexplicable smile catch his lips, a smile that has probably been transmitted by Loose Cannon's threatening grin.
Feeling like she's made her point, she steps to the back of the stage.
"You know what I think is funny?" she says.
The auction dungeon is silent.
"Watching you dance," she says. With that she pulls out a sixteenth-century engraved crossbow and begins loading and firing it at the gangster's feet. He jumps up out of his chair and skips around the arrows as they land in the dirt around him. The place is suddenly alive with laughter and applause.
Gus almost makes a break for the exit, but the tuxedoed man who brought him in puts a hand on his shoulder. "Stay until the end," he says. "Don't you want a ride to the Met for the exhibition opening tonight?"
---
Our hero feebly tries to talk his way out of going with the Met curator named M.O. Manhattan to defeat the mafia. But he can't seem to find footing in the conversation.
"The exhibition catalogs are taking over the scholarly world," says the curator. "That's step one. I call it the publicization of the private sphere." She's walking extremely fast, and our hero is tripping over the pavement as he tries to keep up.
"Look, I have to be at the Met by 8 PM," says Art Guy.
"Good, that's where I'm going too," says Manhattan. "Everyone is going to be there."
"What do you mean?"
"The Dandolo family, the Tiepolo family, everybody."
"But I thought it was a purely scholarly enterprise," Art Guy says.
"Exactly," says Manhattan. "They plan to take advantage of the recession and publically discredit the field of art history. That's step two. As the public becomes less informed about the importance of art in history, the objects look more and more like objects and not like useful markers of the past."
Art Guy wishes Gus could be hearing this. Then he remembers that he has lost Gus.
"I have to find my friend," says Art Guy.
"The only chance you have of seeing him is by attending the exhibition opening."
"What?"
"Surely he was snapped up by the Dandolo and Tiepolo families at the art auction. Come on, hurry up." Art Guy hustles across an intersection and for the third time that day almost gets flattened by Manhattan traffic.
"Wait," says Art Guy.
The curator stops in her tracks, visibly annoyed.
"Why do you need me?" says our hero.
"Because I read your blog, Art Guy in Jeans. I need you to speak out at the art opening today to credit the field of art history. If anyone in this world can do it, it's you."
Art Guy plays the reception of the compliment with remarkable smoothness.
"Thanks," he says.
"You're welcome, now let's go."
---
The large entrance hall of the Met is filled with elegant fold-out chairs. Art Guy sits down with Manhattan and opens the program. One talk is to be delivered from an Impressionist expert and one from Print-G. Mac. Then is an after-dark private reception for which every room of the museum is open. Our hero gazes around the room. The audience includes a very large selection of checkered suits and purpel-lapel tuxedos. He is surprised to see the young man who bid on the Limoges tea set sitting among the tuxedoed people and wearing dark glasses and a tuxedo. And upon further searching he sees his friend, the woman who bid on the Dickensian London map, wearing checkers and sitting with the checkered suits.
"Which ones are the Tiepolos, and which ones are the Dandolos?" says our hero as quietly as he can.
Manhattan says, "The Dandolos are wearing the suits, and the Tiepolos tuxes."
"Are there any other families I need to worry about?"
"Not that I know of."
Art Guy is excited to spot the Byzantine expert and new boss from the previous episode, Dr. Irish, in attendance. She sits toward the back. If only he could find Gus and get in another conversation with the Byzantinist, they might have a shot of getting out of this mess and starting a new project on the other side of the world. But then Art Guy notices someone he does not want to mess with sitting next to Irish. It's the fiddler from 5th avenue.
---
"My name is F. Ginevra," says the fiddler to Irish.
"F. B. Irish. Good to meet you. What's your field?"
"I love it all," says the fiddler.
---
A few more thugs come in from the back just barely on time. Art Guy notices that Gus is among them. It looks like the Tiepolo have scrounged together a poor fit of a tux and pants for him.
"That's my friend!" says Art Guy, ready to jump up.
"Wait for an opportune moment," says Manhattan.
"Good evening," says a speaker at one end of the rotunda. "You may know me; my name is Fabio Ziani, and I'll be the session chair tonight."
Art Guy laughs at yet another last name reminiscent of the Venetian magnates.
"Allow me to introduce Dr. Darkness D'Orsay," says Ziani.
"Thank you," says Dr. D'Orsay, taking the podium and immediately putting Impression: Sunrise on the screen.
"You've seen it before," says the presenter, with an Irish brogue. Irish beams from the back.
"But have you thought about it outside the elementary narrative of formal antithesis to the Salon?" D'Orsay continues. She picks up the microphone and paces up and down the stage.
"You there," she says, pointing to a checkered-suit Dandolo. "What do you think of it?"
He says, "I agree with you what you're about to say. The public doesn't know how to appreciate this work as anything beyond a pretty picture."
"That's NOT what I was going to say. Don't put words in my mouth." She paces up and down. "Let's see." She clicks to the next slide. It's Monet's Sunrise over the Houses of Parliament.
"Impressionist scholarship is reaching a crisis," she says. "Beyond the volumes published on Monet's formalism, scholars in related fields look down their noses at the artist and think he's only for museum-goers, not for the history of art." (Disclaimer: this is based on a real paper given at a conference in Paris not long ago, that my friend whose alias is Darkness D'Orsay, attended in December.)
She continues in majestic fashion to explain the lacuna in scholarship that takes impressionism seriously anymore. She concludes by saying, "The public and the private collections that these paintings occupy display them with intentions as divided as the light in Monet's brushstrokes. But hopefully if we step back we can see the picture and attempt to enlighten its viewers."
Immediately the hands go up.
"That's all very poetic," says Loose Cannon L.T. - S.P.S from the back. "I respect your work finding a social history of art for these paintings. But don't you think this lacuna, this gap in the public's understanding of the work, should be embraced for the sake of profit, rather than corrected?"
"I agree," says a Tiepolo. "The more the scholars 'enlighten' the world, the more the public gives into their murky preconceptions that the art belongs to them."
"Here, here," says a Dandolo.
"Well don't just sit there," says Manhattan to Art Guy, "Now's where you say something."
Irish is called upon from the back. "To be honest, I can't believe where this conversation is going," she says. "Scholars need jobs. The field needs support. The public has every right to these paintings, and every right to know something about them besides the obvious. I am an art historian myself, and if anyone has any problem with this fine lady from Dublin and her ambitious project, they'll have to come through me."
Art Guy is then called upon.
He stands up and isn't sure how to follow Irish. "Yep, um, I can't really, I don't know how to follow that. I think the Waterlillies betray a very interesting social history."
Our hero sits down as the floor erupts again with questions and complaints.
"That was crap," Manhattan whispers to Art Guy.
He replies, "Frankly, I'm right with the Byzantinist. This is a ridiculous stream of questions and I don't want to take part in it. I'm going to get my friend Gus."
But then the lights dim to an intimate level and a spotlight shines on a discoball in the center of the Met's reception hall. Print G. Mac enters to a fanfare of "Blue Monday," and holds a Scottish print over her shoulder like a boom box. As she gets to the stage she says, "Have no fear, tonight's gonna be mental."
She then takes the crowd on a whirlwind tour through the story of the Scottish print. It starts in the eighteenth century and centers on genre and Roman village scenes. It's information overload for the Tiepolo and the Dandolo. Art Guy is mesmorized.
After an hour Ziani goes up on the stage and says, "That is very interesting. I'm afraid I have to take back the mic now."
"Stuff it Don Ziani," says Print G. "I'm only halfway through."
'Don' Ziani?, thinks Art Guy to himself.
"Okay!" says Ziani, snatching the mic. Print G. flips him off and walks off the stage. "What a lovely presentation, I'm glad so many famous people could come tonight. I am Fabio Ziani, and feel welcome to speak to me, your new don of Renaissance, Early Modern, and Modern departments at the Met. If not, I wish you all an enchanting night."
"That's a strange job title," says Art Guy to Manhattan.
Suddenly a female voice booms through the P.A. system.
"An enchanting night to you, don!"
A ninja star hits Ziani square in the chest. He collapses to the floor.
Silence siezes the crowd. They suddenly begin to scatter in all directions.
Gus hears something whiz by his ear. Another ninja star hits the Tiepolo bouncer next to him in the back of the neck. Gus has a moment of hesitation, but then makes a break for it. Not toward Art Guy, but off into the museum.
"Get him!" say the other Tiepolos.
And that's when the dim lights throughout the museum, as well as the spotlight that glares into the disco ball, suddenly go dark.
(to be continued...)
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