Monday, April 29, 2013

THE DRY BONES OF ENVY


As most of my readers already know, my native France, glorious Republique, light upon the nations, has just legalized same sex marriage. My personal thoughts on the matter are far from unequivocal. Though I fully support my gay brothers and sisters, I have a deep seated problem with marriage.  Any marriage - same sex, alternate sex, polysex, transubstantiative sex - whatever the configuration, I just don't cotton to the institution in general.

To my good, liberal friend David Schoffman, the issue resides much closer to the bone. David's twin brother Teddy, a Manhattan gynecologist, recently tied the legal knot with his long time partner, the famous Greek painter Zakkai Sophokles.

(from left to right) David Schoffman, Zakkai Sophokles and Dr. Theodore Schoffman
For David this is calamitous.

The inner voices of petty rivalry deafen David's will and leave him raging in a gulf of bottomless despair. His tangled covenant with his fellow artists is fraught with resentment. He compares himself with others and finds himself wanting. He is particularly antagonistic to painters.

Sophokles, to hear David describe him, is a blowhard of the first order. A tall man of average gifts, "the Greek," as David dismissively refers to him has successfully  parleyed a pastische of derivative, third-rate ideas into a respectable international career. 

Erga Kai Hemerai, oil on wood. Zakkai Sophokles, 2010 (Courtesy Danbury Contemporary)

With the diligent help of the D.C. based public relation firm, Ringold, Wringler and Froth (whose clients include Adihd Holbert, the recently disgraced lawmaker from the notorious 5th district of Nevada), Sophokles is packaged as the raucous genius and glittering visionary who parties hard with young, tinseled Hollywood starlets.

Schoffman tries to conceal his viperous envy behind a cloak of fraternal benevolence. His poor brother Teddy, whose practice thrives on fussy middle-aged mommies of New York's upper east side, finds in the Greek the wild exoticism he so sorely lacks.  The truth is, David can't stand seeing his nebbishy brother as a mainstay of the art world's A list.

Dahlia Danton with Dr. Teddy Schoffman at the annual Contemporary Crisis Silent Auction, New York 2012

  I sympathize with David who ever since the wedding has wallowed in a ditch of melancholy and doom.  He has become a hollow stump of inertia, a stagnant pool of lacerating inaction. He is but a third of the man he used to be.

But really, let's be honest ... Teddy and Zakkai do make a pretty cute couple. 



2 comments:

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