On Monday, the New York Times reported that a woman enrolled in an adult education class at the Metropolitan Museum of Art “accidentally fell” into the 105-year-old Picasso painting “The Actor,” causing a vertical six-inch tear in the lower right-hand corner of the work of art.
The article skims over the details of the incident, almost immediately launching into the details surrounding the painting’s restoration. I, on the other hand, began obsessing over this woman’s fall. Did she trip over someone’s outstretched foot? Did she faint due to low blood sugar? Did someone push her? Was it another person in the class that was envious of this woman’s superior standing? Was it the teacher fed up with her incessant dumb questions? These questions continued to spiral until the inevitable…It turned into an episode of Gossip Girl…
Serena van der Woodsen wandered aimlessly around the gallery, occasionally tossing her head to throw back her untamed golden mane and wondering if anyone could tell that the dress she was wearing was actually supposed to be a shirt. She loathed pants and generally refused to wear them.
Serena was mesmerized by the shapes and colors of the paintings. She had never been inside of the Met before even though she used to eat lunch on the steps of the museum quite often when she was in high school. Art is cool, she thought. Maybe I’ll be an artist.
Thirty seconds later, she was bored. Why had she come here? Oh yes, it was because she’d received an anonymous note saying that she should meet here for some important information regarding her father–an elusive man for whom she’d traveled to the ends of the earth (Europe) to track down. When her detective work failed, she attempted to capture Mr. van der Woodsen’s attention by having the European paparazzi take pictures of her nip slips. That too failed.
So now she was at the Met in the room she had been told to go, but after waiting for 15 whole minutes, she was nearly ready to throw in the towel. To keep herself occupied, she sexted her latest potench BF Nate, the boy she had long ago sexed while he was dating her best friend, Blair. Nate was having a bromantic coffee date with Serena’s ex-boyfriend turned step-brother, Dan. Dan was full of insecure whiny-talk about how he was in love with Vanessa, Nate’s ex-girlfriend. Nate was bored of Dan and he’d been bored of Vanessa for months now, so he was relieved to get Serena’s sext:
@ the Met in just my shirt. Meet me soon b4 Picasso steals my <3
Nate leapt up. “Sorry, Dan. Gotta go.”
“Is everything okay?”
“Serena forgot to wear pants again. She needs my help.”
“Uh, yeah, forgot,” Dan said, holding his fingers up to quote the word.
“Whatever, man,” Nate said as he buttoned his overcoat. He dashed out of the coffee shop and hailed a cab. Dan went back to reading The Unbearable Lightness of Being and dabbing the corners of his eyes.
Serena hoped Nate would arrive soon. Her platform heels were killing her. She had sexted him in the hopes that he would carry her out of the museum, or at least switch shoes since they both happened to be the same size. Nate pretended to be embarrassed about this, but really he enjoyed secretly trying on all of Serena’s high heels. She called them “sole mates” and thought herself very clever. Indeed, it was the most clever thing she had ever come up with.
Just then, a bald man wearing an expensive suit who played Caleb on The O.C. and Mr. Whitmore on Lost approached Serena.
“Oh my God,” Serena uttered with some difficulty–her mouth was nearly sealed shut by her extra-strength lip gloss.
“Serena,” the man sighed, embracing her.
“Dad,” she uttered again, still struggling to regain full mobility of her mouth.
“I had to see you, Serena,” he whispered. “But you mustn’t tell anyone that I’m here. My life depends on it.”
Just then Nate ran into the gallery. Typical! he thought fiercely as he saw Serena wrapped in an older man’s arms. “Serena!” Nate shouted. He bounded towards them and shoved the man away. “Lay off, Picasso! Whoever you are!” Naturally, Nate had interpreted the sext to mean that a man named Picasso was hitting on Serena in the museum.
Caleb/Mr. Whitmore/Mr. van der Woodsen stumbled back into an oblivious cluster of adults, one of the museum’s classes. He bumped into a woman and sent her flying directly into Picasso’s “The Actor.”
“Oh-ohhh!” the woman cried. Mr. van der Woodsen regained his balance and dashed out of the gallery. Serena tried to run after him, but between her torturous heels and Nate’s grip on her arm, she couldn’t move. An alarm had gone off and the room descended into chaos.
“Nate! What are you doing!” Serena cried. “Get out of here! Give me your shoes first though!”
“Serena, what is going on?” Nate demanded. “Who was that Picasso guy? Why was he all over you?”
Meanwhile, two museum guards had rushed over to the fallen woman and the Picasso painting. One helped the woman up. The other talked frantically on his radio.
“I…I don’t know what happened,” the woman cried. “Someone must’ve bumped into me.”
“Did anyone see what happened?” the guard cried out. People were now gathering around, frantically whispering and pointing at a six-inch vertical tear in the corner of the painting.
Serena managed to finally liberate her lips. “Yes! A woman tripped and fell into her! An…an older woman wearing a bulky cardigan and corduroys! She looked like she lived in Connecticut, or maybe even Massachusetts! She left the room as soon as it happened!”
“Serena,” Nate said in disbelief. “What are you doing?”
“Nate, give me your shoes, and go,” Serena demanded. She didn’t want to lie to him, but she didn’t have a choice right now. “I’ll explain everything to you later tonight. Just…trust me?”
Nate looked into the shallow blue pools of Serena’s contact lenses. He knew that she was hiding something, but mostly he was just disappointed that she didn’t want to come home with him and fool around at his apartment. Today was a bad day, he tweeted on his Blackberry.
“Nate,” Serena repeated.
“Huh?” he looked up.
“Your shoes.”
Nate sighed and slipped out of his brown oxfords. “You have some major explaining to do later,” he told her, eyes sulky underneath his mangs. Angry, dejected, and shoeless, he shuffled out of the museum. Oxfords on, heels in hand, shirt barely concealing her lady parts, Serena dashed out of the gallery to try and find her father.
Uh, oh. Looks like N.’s entering his Blue Period. And now S. will have to be quite “The Actor” to protect her secret. Good thing that on the Upper East Side, the art of lying is a timeless craft. You know you love me. xoxo, Gossip Girl.
UPDATE: I just discovered that the actual casting choice of Mr. van der Woodsen in the real life Gossip Girl show is none other than BILLY BALDWIN. Amazing.
Photo Credits: www.clevelandleader.com, www.people.com, www.chstv.com, www.gossipgirlinsider.com
January 29th, 2010 at 2:53 pm
this bit or writing is quite good. I especially like the Gossip Girl Text.
Brilliant.