Gallery Gallivant

Been trying to live New York this week (now that I've become reacclimated to being here). Monday, I stopped into a bookstore where a friend works and he was going to a party at MoMA (Museum of Modern Art) when he got off. Even though I was wearing schlumpy jeans and had particles of one kind or another on my shirt, I talked him into letting me go with him.

This was a party for museum employees marking the opening of their new Manet exhibition. Everyone seemed quiet and staid and I realized I had my colorful mardi gras mask from the other night with me, so I decided to put it on and see what would happen. In my mind, I was an elegant man of mystery (I was wearing a dressy jacket), but I probably just looked like a schmuck with a mask.

Nah. Probably something in between. But it was still Halloween, really, and we were in an art museum and I thought the circumstances demanded color and whimsy.

Anyway, I wore the thing for pretty much the whole time and I'm tellin' ya, nobody blinked. Maybe a couple of girls who were working in one of the galleries but basically no one. It was frustrating and cool at the same time.

And I honestly didn't know what people thought about the color I'd introduced to the black and white affair until most of the people had left. I took the mask off when no one as looking (superhero-style, I didn't want them to see it was me) and one of the bartenders turned toward me and noticed and said "Why'd you take off your mask. I liked it."

Okay. But party workers kinda don't count.

However, there was a group of actual party guests at the bar around the corner from the museum that my friends and I went to after the event. They happened to be a group I had been regaling at the soiree, where they were (almost) hanging onto the masked man's every word. Well, at the bar, they essentially didn't notice me. I was just a drab figure, invisible to them now. I made eye contact with a girl I'd spoken to at length in my "other identity"and she didn't even know she'd met me.

So, this is what it's like to be Clark Kent.

I couldn't help but notice that this was precisely the opposite of my Saturday night experience with the same mask. On that night, at Halloween parties where you were expected to wear a mask, I was nothing special with it on and -- in fact -- the mask ruined the way I really looked that night -- and I looked kinda good.

Moral -- Be Different.

Or maybe not. What do I know?


If youse is in New York, tonight -- Nov. 2 -- I'm hosting the Onion Comedy Series at Joe's Pub in the Public Theater on Lafayette Street, just south of Astor Place. Also appearing are Dave Hill, Kristen Schaal and Todd Levin. Show starts at 11:30 PM.

Identify yourself if you come. I want to meet you.

Your devoted correspondent,
Andrew