"What the tiger, along with a four- to five-foot reptile called a caiman, was doing inside a cluttered apartment in the Drew Hamilton Houses at Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard and 141st Street remained a mystery yesterday. In a news conference at the scene, Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said the police became involved in the case on Wednesday when the apartment's resident, Antoine Yates, called to say he had been bitten by a pit bull. When the police went to investigate, Mr. Kelly said, Mr. Yates met them in the lobby. He went to Harlem Hospital with bites on an arm and a leg. On Thursday, the police got an anonymous tip saying a wild animal was somewhere in the city. On Friday, another call directed them to the exact address. On Friday night, the police found no one home, but talked to a neighbor who complained of large amounts of urine and a strong smell coming through the ceiling, Mr. Kelly said. The neighbor said her daughter had seen the tiger. Yesterday, the tiger's existence was confirmed. after a hole was cut in the apartment door."

First the Siegried and Roy tiger debacle yesterday, now this situation.
Coincidence? I think not.

Had a full-tilt art day this day what with being one of a group of featured artists at a benefit for Burchfield-Penney Art Center and think I sold one of the 13 Conflagration steel silkscreens. I gave one to Liz (sneaking it into her home during a party and installing it myself) and I don't know if I can bear to part with another. It's a syndrome following creating one-of-a-kind pieces.
After the BPAC benefit did another Penney-related, art activity: delivering work to rep myself for an upcoming show of Charles Rand Penney's massive art holdings. As a prop to us the gallery co-conspirators are having each of us sell/show more more more.
A new slogan to put in your car's tailpipe and smoke it:
MAKE EVERY DAY AN ART DAY.
So, at the art cocktail-fueled (read: turbo-powered) Albright-Knox Art Gallery, enjoying SCOTCH and a smattering of mixer, I was approached by several who wondered just what in hell has happened to my photo column WhatHasHappened. One person, a scholarly type who digs on gin, asked thee question and then complimented me on a piece I wrote for a mag about a Middling City landmark. Then he said Well, with your expertise and all and connections to the university I wondered if you might come by the building where I work and look at it and give your opinion about its architectural style.
This was one of those beautiful moments that my life seems to gather like hued pearls washing up on an autumn beach on a windswept night after a slight white wine buzz: a moment when Yours Truly is confronted with a slight dose of Surrealism and maintains composure.
He's explaining the building in great detail, inside and out.
Finally I said, in my most authoritative tone, the one which sort of propels me outside my self to regard myself somewhat incredulously, Well, I'll come by and take a look at it and tell you what I think.
What I think. Here's what I think. Lots. But I am more interested in snooping about the mysterious third floor he mentioned more than anything. Then maybe, if I get busted snooping, I'll mutter things like Ionic... Doric and some Late-Gothic flourishes over the obviously Sullivanesque Moorish touches of stately Republic lines, just to throw them off my course.
Actually now I'm on the prowl for a rickety old stage, with musty velvet curtain, for my video sequences.
During the man in the snippet's ramblings I was transported back to my days as a temp at an arch firm, when I'd eat a sandwich or something in the en plain air boardroom while paging my crumby fingers through catalogues of arch suppliers and other building-related bric-a-brac. How one time I thought I'd follow along that crafty path.
Moving, along.
Last night I told Kate (of Kate and Tom, The Apple Maker, fame) Well, Kate, you know you've had a good party when you end up with a two-foot skid mark across your hardwood floor.
I won't even ask you to guess who created said skid mark. Or to what internationally-renowned rock and roll band it happened. Or how many brazen femme dancers happened to be around in a circle when said skid mark occurred.
Most memorable, to date, post-party artifact of a party thrown by Yours Truly:
(in the famed Richmond Avenue house, where I was den mom and cruise director)
(a mere moment of many of that home's untold, screenplay-worthy tales)
From the basement, packed with oddities left behind by several, including the wacked Viet Nam Vet landlord, Ralph, I procured some antique lamp parts, including stands. One after-party-morning I discovered that one of my guests had lost a still-buttoned shirt cuff around a lamp stand.
The End.
Love.