Wednesday, September 2, 2009

The Final Countdown, Day 7

Now that I'm only here for a week, I'm gonna try to post all the silly stuff I haven't yet, including some small, silly video clips, more photos, and eventually...CRIBS Part Deux (meaning...a tour of my NEW apartment...or Pola's apartment I should say).

First off, however, I wanted to post the video I took of the performance art piece that Liz and I saw on Monday night.

When we were at the Ghetto exhibition, Dorota introduced us to all of her fabulous New York Polish ExPat friends, including the Zarebski family. First off, Ms. Zarebski is one of the most beautiful women I've ever seen -- she has that Edie Sedgwick cool. And I was very flattered when she insisted that she knew me from NYC, that I had to be an actress, and she just knew she'd seen me in a movie. I love it!

Her daughter, Kasia, is around my age and is just as stunning, with flaming red hair, big big eyes, and a dainty gap between her teeth. She, Liz and I hit it off right away and made plans to hang out the next day, after her and her father's performance.

Kasia's father is Krzysztof Zarebski. For those who don't keep up on their controversial performance artists, he is definitely the biggest performance artist in Poland and one of the most respected in the world. He's been working since the 1970s, freaking out everyone from Poland's Communist regime to the USA's Republican politicians with his very brutal work. In fact, Kasia has been working in her father's pieces since she was a little girl and their work together as father and daughter is extremely profound -- adding an entirely new level to the intensely erotic vibe of Krzysztof's work. And they are lovely, lovely, down to earth people to top it all off.

I won't speak much about the piece, but let it speak for itself. It's divided into two parts here, because You Tube won't let me do movies longer than 10 minutes. One thing I will say was that it was extremely evocative of Louise Bourgeois's "Femme-Maison" drawings, which are some of my favorite works of art. Here's one:



Anyway, the piece was really incredible and it was cool to be cramped into such a small space and be so close to the action.

After the performance, we grabbed Kasia away and took her back to Chlodna 25, where we sipped on coffee and chatted...about men, of course. I'm starting to feel a bit like a Sex and The City episode...and I'm not so into it. But alas...this is what we do, no? We were sharing our war stories and Kasia, a native New Yorker with leftist artist sensibilities had her fair share. Honestly -- I'm terrified of dating. I know I don't have to think about all that just yet, but the idea just freaks me out! I haven't done it for...nine years? And I was a teenager then! I am sincerely terrified. I wish I could just throw up a good husband. That'd be nice. And easy.

In an attempt to quell my fears, Liz and I decided to jokingly sign up for an online dating service called "OKCupid," which Kasia had mentioned, just to get a quick sense of what dating in the New World is all about. We filled out the requisite forms, uploaded the photos, and then waited. Slowly, the gawkers began passing by. I could see everyone who stopped to visit my profile. It made feel sick. So weird. So objectified and horrible. Then, men started giving us "star ratings" -- 1 through 5. I didn't want them to look at me. And then I wanted them to leave a high rating. And then, I didn't want them to leave ratings at all and I wanted to slap all of them or give them hugs and say "you'll find the right one some day -- I promise." And then, after about two hours of owning an OKCupid account and getting a "favorite" mark from a man her father's age, Liz cancelled hers. "No way," she said. "I just can't do it. It makes me feel so horrible."

I thought I'd be brave, hold on, see what happened. Just curious. What could it hurt? But I became uncannily obsessed with the activity around my page -- like I was babysitting my cyberself, making sure no weird men took advantage of my precious profile. And I as I perused the sea of men visiting my page, I got very very sad. The whole thing felt so desperate. Everyone seemed so alone and so needy. And I felt so...judged. So I erased my page. And then I erased my MySpace page. And then I limited the information on my Facebook page. And then I dreamed about crawling into a hole and dying.

On that note...I'll leave you with the footage from the performance piece. Oh...and I've decided no dating or even the consideration of dating for a long, long time. I'll just cuddle with Cooper, thank you very much.









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