These are the text messages I received from my wife Rachelle the other day:
Rachelle: I’m not sure I think that’s a good idea.
Rachelle: Look, if you’re putting a pretend cast on our three year-old boy’s arm in order to attract the attention of celebrites at the Film Festival, you truly are a horrible father.
Rachelle: Because you’re using him as bait!!
Rachelle: You are exploiting a child.
Rachelle: Yes, even if he agrees to “play dress up for daddy.”
Rachelle: Jesus. Don’t ever, ever make me type, “play dress up for daddy” again.
Rachelle: Really???
Rachelle: That was actually your tag on Lava Life?
Rachelle: That is maybe the creepiest thing I have ever heard in my life.
Rachelle: I think I might vomit.
Rachelle: No, really. I cannot continue this text conversation.
( TWO HOURS LATER )
Rachelle: Really??!! You got Hugh Jackman to sign Jones’ fake cast for me???!!
Rachelle: That is the best thing you have ever done in your life.
Rachelle: Way better than that prank you pulled on the restaurant manager!
Rachelle: No, it was a good prank.
Rachelle: Yes, a really good one, I don’t think he saw it coming at all, but this, this is HUGH JACKMAN!! What did he smell like? Did he like what Jones was wearing? What did he write to me?? Jesus, did you touch him, did you put your hand on him at any point? What did he feel like? Did he talk to Jones?!
Rachelle: For the love of God, just try to remember what he smelled like!! Try. Try as hard as you have ever tried at anything in your life.
Rachelle. I know you have seasonal allergies and it diminishes your olfactory sense, but just concentrate, goddamit, what did he smell like? Was it the ocean? Was it the moon and stars? Was it roast beef and pumpkin?
Rachelle: Really?!!
Rachelle: Roast beef and pumpkin, I knew it!!
Rachelle: I don’t know how I knew it, I just did.
Rachelle: Yes, sometimes my friends and I talk about that sort of stuff.
Rachelle: Really?
Rachelle: You truly want to know what my friends think you smell like?
Rachelle: Jesus.
Rachelle: Okay then.
Rachelle: Ottilie said she thought you smelled like the interior of an old airplane, one that still carried the ghost smell of crappy sandwiches and cigarette smoke.
Rachelle: Well, if you don’t believe me you’ll just have to ask her yourself.
Rachelle: Just out of curiosity, what do you think you smell like?
Rachelle: Really?
Rachelle: I have to say, that was a very unexpected answer.
Rachelle: Was Hugh very concerned about Jones? Did he want to know how he “broke his arm?”
Rachelle: Okay then, “fractured his wrist.”
Rachelle: Hit by a pitch?
Rachelle: You told Hugh Jackman you hit our son with a hardball?
Rachelle: Jesus, Pickle.
Rachelle: NO FUCKING WAY!
Rachelle: You got him to sign, “Rachelle, play dress up for daddy, love Wolverine?”
Rachelle: OMG, that is the sexisest thing ever, wait until I post a photo of that in my Annex Parents group! That’ll knock Vivian off the front page for a day or two!
Rachelle: And did you touch him? What did he feel like? Was there any give, or was it all rippling, equine power?
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As fate would have it, actress Chloe Sevigny was sitting at the table directly beside us.
Subtly, like a panther at night, I went back to the patio, had a look around, came back to the bar, stretched a few times, and then discreetly took a photograph of Sevigny as she ate lunch.
This is what happened after I returned to my seat and sat down:
Chloe Sevigny: I know what you did.
Me: Sorry?
Chloe Sevigny: I know what you did.
Me: Last summer?
Chloe Sevigny: (Dripping with sarcasm) Oh, you’re so clever! You should write for Hollywood! Look, I know that you just took a picture of me without permission. I saw you, asshole.
Me: Lady, I don’t even have a clue who you are.
Chloe Sevigny: Don’t give me that bullshit, you know damn well who I am!
Me: Are you a homely 16 year-old boy dressed up like he’s in some metal hair band for Halloween?
Rachelle: (Urgent whispering) Pickle, just apologize and the shut-up so we can move on, okay?
Me: (To Rachelle) I didn’t do anything wrong! I just went to the patio to see if they had better looking servers out there! I’m not apologizing for that!
Chloe Sevigny: (To Rachelle) I feel sorry for you. Your life must be a real challenge.
Rachelle: Oh, I know, it is, it is. He did the same thing when we saw some actress from Law & Order at the airport. He said he was taking photographs of the luggage for a gallery show, but of course…
Me: It wasn’t some actress, damn it, it was Angie Harmon!
Rachelle: And then her football player husband came over and asked what was going on, and my husband’s nose began to bleed!
Chloe Sevigny: (As if this was the most hilarious thing she has ever heard in her life, Sevingy does a spit-take the way you would expect from a bad, over-rated actress.)
Me: It was the dry air from the plane trip.
Rachelle: We were getting on a flight, not off.
Me: No we weren’t.
Chloe Sevigny: (To her friend) I think it’s time for us to leave.
Me: You know what? A real fashion icon would want her photo taken, she’s be flattered, and you know what else? Hilary Swank carried you in Boys Don’t Cry, she carried you! Your careers have really gone in different directions since then, haven’t they?
01 Jan 1999 — FILM ‘BOYS DON’T CRY’ DIRECTED BY KIMBERLY PEIRCE — Image by © CORBIS SYGMA
Chloe Sevingy: (Gives me the finger, drops a bunch of cash on the table and leaves without finishing her meal)
( I have saved Chloe Sevigny’s unfinished burger and am in the process of selling a photograph of it to the fetish site, Unfinished Celebrity Burgers. However, I will be putting the real leftover, which is in a ziplock bag in my fridge, on Ebay, but am happy to take offers from anybody reading now. )
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I recently sent him some Medieval manuscript images that I found online and asked him to explain them to me. These are the results:
You should think of the images of the illuminated manuscripts of the 8th to the 15th century as the Instagram of the day. In this particular “post” we see a Medieval version of the Kardashian sisters as they conjure magical spells while encircling a tree. These young women are almost certainly witches, and when the community uncovered their black magic, they would have surely been tied to wild horses and torn apart while the townsfolk cheered and threw potatoes. (Note the surgically enhanced breasts. The cosmetic surgeons of the day used to insert clay molds beneath the skin in order to achieve the desired shape. Mortality rates were very high with this procedure. )
This is a highly skilled depiction of some very put-out dogs standing in a field. One of the dogs, the white one with the regal collar around its neck and the small erection, looks slightly ashamed. He likely offended the commoner dogs (note the mottled colours and blunt expressions that characterize the serf animals) by questioning their religious values and then attempting to rape them. Think of this panel as one that prefigures Cute Overload.
Monks did more than just illuminate manuscripts. For recreation they played other monasteries in a Medieval version of Ultimate. Of course, a frisbee had not yet been invented, so the monks used a scapula, also known as a human shoulder blade. These were festive occasions for the monks, characterized by excessive drinking (They brewed beer, too) and the ribald singing of team songs. This image of the bat is the team crest of the Carthusian Bats, a formidable franchise known for their vows of silence and ferocity on the field.
This is the equivalent of a Medieval paparazzi shot or stolen cell phone photo. It captures the King and Queen in an unguarded and intimate moment as they enjoy a hot tub. The Queen, obviously spent after intercourse in the hot water, catches her breath, while the robust King, carrying his Holy Ejaculate Saucer, heads off to enjoy the pleasures of his many concubines. This image should be thought of as one you might find on 4chan.
The beatified and sacred have gathered in this image for an annual event in which awards are given out to the holy. It happened once a year, was very secretive, and is vaguely analogous to the Academy Awards. The holy would each have a vote, which they cast in private, on such categories as, “Best Performance While Living Atop A Pillar,” or “Most Holy Self-Flagelator Of The Year.” It was very much looked forward to by the participants, and they all hoped to win, even if they took a public stance of humility and abasement—just look at the attention they paid to their wardrobe for this event.
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I’m a huge fan of Homeland, the show in which she’s the star, and it was startling to see her. I think that the thing that was most surprising was that she looked exactly like she did on TV. This shocked me, as I always imagined that in real life celebrities were somehow unrecognizable. You know, they were all much smaller than you would have imagined, much more average and disappointing– just less. However, Claire Danes looked exactly as she was supposed to look.
She was in a bit of a hurry, like she always seems to be on Homeland, and was rushing to add some sort of “healthy potato chips” to her checkout pile. Nobody else in the place seemed to be paying any attention to her, but I was trained on her like an owl. I was giving her a suspicious look (are you actually Claire Danes?) while also trying to give her a receptive, warm invitation to small talk. No doubt, she had seen my type before, many thousands of times, I suspect, and managed to avoid creating anything that might be misinterpreted as space in which a conversation might open.
It was driving me fucking crazy, that.
She was just four feet away from me and when I felt the moment slipping away, I blurted out, “That Mandy Patinkin (one of her co-stars on Homeland) sure can sing!”
I wasn’t quite looking at her when I said this and the declaration clearly caught her off guard. She gave me a quizzical look, like she does on Homeland when she’s trying to figure out a complicated mystery, and then nodded her head, a wary smile on her face, “Yes, yes he can.”
“It’s like God just filled the man with talent,” I continued.
Claire Danes gave the cashier a look that suggested it was very difficult to be a star, and then handed her a credit card.
“Personally, I think he should be doing the Super Bowl halftime show and not Beyonce.”
As she was passing by me she said in a clipped and sarcastic voice, “I’ll pass that on to him.”
“Enjoy your Super Bowl party!” I shouted cheerfully.
Claire Danes did not look back at me.
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