Blockbuster is hoping to use its time in Chapter 11 to restructure a crippling debt load of nearly $1 billion and escape leases on 500 or more of it 3,425 stores in the U.S. Maintaining the support of Hollywood's film studios during the process will be critical so that Blockbuster can continue to rely upon an uninterrupted supply of new DVDs.

In the last two years, Blockbuster has lost more than a billion dollars. Once the most ubiquitous name in the DVD rental business, Blockbuster has been crippled by interest payments on its massive, outstanding debt.

According to the LAT the major movie studios are ready to support Blockbuster during its restructuring, especially since Movie Gallery Inc. went belly-up last spring. The big losers in the bargain will be the debt holders and landlords leasing the 500 stores all over the country.

[LAT]

DR. SELMAN: Great coat!

HILLY: Thanks!

GEORGE: So, Dr. Selman, you think I might be bipolar. But I gotta tell you, having tried Wellbutrin—it was only for a week, but I know the effect. Today I was in a funk, couldn’t motivate, paralyzed in front of the computer. And I had just half a hit of Yankee Doodle marijuana, and I was up, ready for action.

DR. SELMAN [to HILLY]: George mentioned you passed along some Lamictal samples.

HILLY: Well, yeah. There was a day when Georgie was thinking about taking Effexor, and we found the samples you’d given us, but they’d expired, and I had an appointment with Dr. Lamm. He gave me the Lamictal for George. I didn’t mean to be interfering.

GEORGE: It’s kind of nice, just knowing that they’re there.

DR. SELMAN: If you’re going to take them, you have to take them in a very specific way.

GEORGE [to HILLY]: How’s my Christmas spirit been?

HILLY: O.K.

GEORGE: I don’t know if you remember, but she is really into Christmas and presents and carols and—

DR. SELMAN: If you take the drug, you start out with one pill a day for a week, and then you can go to two pills a day—don’t go beyond that. If you develop some kind of rash, stop the pills. This was originally an anti-seizure medication, but the drug has been approved for bipolar disorder and depression.

GEORGE: But do you think, if I just have a half a hit of Northern Lights or Yankee Doodle after being in a funk, it’s like a little nudge toward getting me out of that—

DR. SELMAN: I would venture a guess that the risk of you getting a rash from Lamictal is less than you getting arrested for marijuana possession.

[Silence.]

GEORGE: I’m kind of worn out right now. I’ve been going to bed at 6 a.m. and waking up at noon every day, and I had some of the Yankee Doodle this afternoon.

DR. SELMAN: You’re stoned?

GEORGE: No, mildly. Around 1 p.m., I had some before I did my errands.

DR. SELMAN: Why do you call it Yankee Doodle?

GEORGE: ’Cause that’s what it’s called on the little container.

DR. SELMAN: You’ve been more depressed than usual?

GEORGE: I sure was—until I had the Yankee Doodle! Now I feel great. Totally relaxed. I will admit something: I did the Yankee Doodle to cool out, but I almost lost it at Blockbuster. The Blockbuster by our apartment closed, our membership was transferred to 51st and Eighth. I wanted to cancel our membership, so I called Blockbuster and they said, “You have to go to the new location.” So I went down there today, and I just knew something was going to go wrong. I approached the manager very politely, gingerly, and she said I couldn’t cancel my membership without my card. I said loudly, “No, actually I’m going to cancel my membership today, right now.” And she said, “Well, you need your card.” So I said, really obnoxiously, “You know, I don’t have my card. I lost it. It flew away. Now I need to cancel my membership here, right now. Where’s the manager?” She pointed to her nametag. Everyone in the store was watching us. It was kind of scary; there was a police car outside. She ended up calling the 96th Street Blockbuster, found my information, and I got it canceled.

HILLY: Those people at Blockbuster and Duane Reade are diabolical. With the exception of a very few, they’re completely rude.

GEORGE: But they have terrible jobs ….

HILLY: Guess what? That’s their problem.

GEORGE: They haven’t had the same advantages.

HILLY: Look at that movie The Pursuit of Happyness—Will Smith’s character comes from nothing and does what he can to make a better life, and he prevails, and that’s what those people from Blockbuster could do. They’re apathetic people who rely on government money, on tax dollars that we’re forced to pay—

GEORGE: Hilly, watch it. This is crazy.

DR. SELMAN: Why mention the Blockbuster incident?

GEORGE: Because I’d smoked my Yankee Doodle and yet, during a basic confrontation, I almost lost my cool. I was shouting at this woman. I apologized to her later, and I had $10 in my hand I was going to slip her. She was wearing a Santa hat.

DR. SELMAN: So you abused the poor clerk?

HILLY: Oh, come on, you know what that woman should have said—“I’m so sorry, sir, there must have been a misunderstanding. Let me see if I can make a call and work out something special.”

DR. SELMAN: That would have been the nice thing to do.

HILLY: She’s just a lazy, pathetic waste of life!

GEORGE: It’s just a few days before Christmas, and I want to be merciful and charitable.

DR. SELMAN: So how are you feeling, Hilly?

HILLY: Things have been pretty good. Except that—

GEORGE: On Sunday I threatened to blow my head off. But not seriously. Hilly was cleaning up, making all kinds of noise, and she said, “Is it O.K. if I clean the kitchen?” And I said, “Actually, I’d rather blow my head off first.”

HILLY: The night before, he said that it would be helpful if, in the morning, I were to do some things to help him wake up. For example, to get coffee and wave it in front of his nose while he’s asleep, because the scent will help him wake up. And I said, “Maybe if I got up and did some chores,” and he said: “Yes, exactly.” So even though I would have preferred to stay in bed, I went out and got coffee and came back and poured it into a mug and walked into the room and waved it around. Nothing really happened, so I left it in there. A while later, he got up and was sitting on the couch. I’d done one load of laundry, and I said, “George, would it be O.K. if I cleaned the kitchen?” Because I thought that would be another thing that would help him wake up. And he said, “I’d rather blow my head off.”

GEORGE: I knew it was going to be really loud, and I was trying to read the paper—

DR. SELMAN: How would you blow your brains out anyway? You don’t have a gun or anything, do you?

GEORGE: No—it’s like if I’d said, “I’d like to go for a bike ride.” An escape.

DR. SELMAN: How did you feel when he said that?

HILLY: I felt very upset, and I thought, Well, O.K. So I went down to the basement—which is really scary and filled with cockroaches and cobwebs—and stayed down there for two hours, sitting on a straight-back chair with my feet propped on top of the washing machine, reading Centurion magazine. And then I went upstairs and quickly got dressed and left. I understand frustrations. But if you had said, “I’d really rather you not clean the kitchen and, please don’t take this the wrong way, but I think I need to be alone for a while,” I would have said, “O.K., give me 10 minutes, I’m just going to throw on an outfit. I’ll be out of your hair.”

GEORGE: Remember, you were flipping through a magazine—snap, snap, snap! And I said something like, “Why don’t you try reading it?”

DR. SELMAN: You know, some people might say, “Thank you, Hilly, I would really like it if you cleaned the kitchen, I appreciate it.”

GEORGE: I know. It’s just … ahhhh … a morning thing. Another reason has to do with Christmas. She wants to do the 12 days of Christmas, where we give each other presents every night, there’s carols playing nonstop and—

HILLY: In my room!

GEORGE: I’m not finished! She wants me to spend $500 on my big present to her. She wants something from Oscar de la Renta, a dress or something, ha-ha!

[HILLY hands GEORGE a collage she’s made of Oscar de la Renta fall fashions and prices.]

GEORGE: See what I’m talking about—$7,500, $1,800?

HILLY: Those are retail prices minus—I’m anticipating a 60 percent discount at the sample sale.

GEORGE: You’re not dating an investment banker.

HILLY: It could possibly be that you show up and the clothes are actually 80 percent off or 90 percent off! There’s no way to tell. And the thing is, aside from an engagement ring, this is the thing that I covet the most. It’s so far out of my realm. This is a sample sale! I won’t be here. There’s a possibility that you could go and find an Oscar de la Renta dress that normally would have sold for $3,000 that you could buy for $300. [HILLY begins speaking very loudly] If you had any idea—

GEORGE: Oh, God. You see what I have to live with?

HILLY [continuing to speak very loudly]: —how happy that would make me. I mean, I would cry tears of joy, I would love it sooo much.

DR. SELMAN: Here you have the opportunity to make her so happy. Why would you not do it?

GEORGE: Because in the next five weeks we have Christmas, New Year’s, our five-year anniversary, her birthday and Valentine’s Day. Could this be a present for all those?

DR. SELMAN: I remember last year you ran out of the Polo store.

GEORGE: Had a panic attack.

HILLY: Oscar de la Renta—

GEORGE: Stop talking so loudly. Please. Do you hear that?

HILLY: Oscar de la Renta or not Oscar de la Renta, I would just like something filled with thoughtfulness from you. If it’s not something like an engagement ring, then something that’s a token of love, something that makes me feel pretty, something that makes me feel loved, something that makes me feel like you put thought into something that you know I would love. Like—and I have no idea how much they cost—but one of those Cartier love bracelets. It’s a simple gold bracelet, but it’s locked because it means that your love is everlasting. You can’t take it off. Or, I don’t know, you said something about a book. Well, maybe not just one book—but what if you think, Well, gosh, Hilly loves jewelry, why don’t I find some really rare books that are out of print and hard to find, about some jewelers from the 30’s and 40’s and 50’s, and buy a couple of them ….

GEORGE: That sounds more like it. I’ll go down to the Strand.

HILLY: No, you can’t just go down to the Strand for these types of books, and I don’t just want a book on, like, fake jewelry—

GEORGE [to DR. SELMAN]: Do you hear that tone? You know what book she got me recently? It’s called Blame It on the Dog: A Modern History of the Fart.

HILLY: It was a stocking-stuffer; it was a joke!

GEORGE: Here’s my problem. I have to rent a car—she’s flying to North Carolina, and I’m going to drive there a few days after. That’s going to be a thousand dollars, then I have to get 15, 20 presents—

HILLY: I already bought presents from both of us—meaningful, thoughtful presents—for everyone. You’re off the hook! You don’t have to buy presents for anyone! I have Christmas cards ready—

GEORGE: Hear how loudly she’s talking? The tone?

HILLY: It’s like I’m trying to help, but I know you don’t want to talk about it—

GEORGE: O.K.! I’ll get you the dress! But then what happens on the fifth anniversary and then your birthday?

HILLY: It’s not about that, George, it’s about the thought. I told you about the 12 days of Christmas!

GEORGE: Ugh!

HILLY: When I sent you the e-mail, I said it’s not about the cost. I gave you a box of tea. It could be a coupon for a hug—

GEORGE: Why are you yelling at me?

HILLY: It’s just about the fun.

GEORGE: It’s only going to get worse if we get married. Ten times worse.

HILLY: Because it’s my anger and sadness at the thought that you really don’t care.

GEORGE: That I don’t care? Come on. Didn’t I take care of you last night? Carry you to bed practically and bring you juice and gave you massages ….

HILLY: Yes, and that was really sweet!

DR. SELMAN: George, why would you not—first of all, if you’re faced with a choice to make her really happy, the dress or the ring—I would think you would choose the dress. But that said, even if you give her the dress, at this point you’ve basically sucked all the air out of it.

GEORGE: Well, I’m not working at Goldman Sachs, I didn’t get a million-dollar bonus. I paid the rent this month and she postdated a check, then there’s Con Ed—

DR. SELMAN: Hilly, do you think he’s reasonable with the not being able to afford it? I take it you are in on what the finances are? He’s saying that the dress is an unreasonable gift—it’s too much money.

HILLY: This is the thing. [Indicating the collage] This is just a guideline to show you what I might like. I don’t know if any of this stuff is going to be at the sample sale. The act of love for me is the thought of George going there and finding something—

GEORGE: How about a scarf?

HILLY: That’s $75 dollars.

GEORGE: Really? I thought you said I had to spend 500!

HILLY: I don’t know if it’s going to be there. No one can tell me, but you have to go and see. If you can’t find anything, that’s fine—the fact that you went and tried for me is enough.

GEORGE: Didn’t you say it’s at 10 a.m.?

HILLY: That’s the thing about a sample sale, you have to take a Xanax before you go, ’cause they’re lethal. But just go and if you don’t find anything, fine. But maybe you’ll luck out. It could be a scarf, a bag, something, it’s just—

GEORGE [moaning]: Ugh. O.K., I’ll do my best. But this is just nonstop, it’s all you want to talk about for the past couple weeks, it’s Christmas this, Christmas that and presents and —

DR. SELMAN: I take it you’re not into that stuff.

GEORGE: I’m not “Bah, humbug.”

DR. SELMAN: You sure had me fooled.

GEORGE: I just don’t want to think about it all the time. I’m doing my best.

DR. SELMAN: You yelled at the girl wearing a Santa suit.

GEORGE: I didn’t take pleasure in it. Right afterwards, I went to this health-food place, waited in line for 10 minutes for a smoothie—Berry Blast—and this new girl screwed it up. Put way too much ice in there, so it had no flavor, and I said, “Don’t worry about it,” because she was getting trained. There’s the Christmas spirit …. What’s wrong? Are you crying? Why? Come on, I’ll do all that stuff.

HILLY [crying]: I don’t care about that.

GEORGE: What’s the matter? I’ll do it! We’re just talking—it’s O.K. Please, Hilly. Come on, I’m really sorry.

DR. SELMAN: The tissues are right there.

HILLY: I was just trying to make it easy.

GEORGE: I know. But you were screaming at me. I’ll do it, I’ll get the—

HILLY: It seems like it’s such a horrible ….

GEORGE: Look at what this holiday does to people. Can we talk about one positive thing? How much fun are we going to have with your parents? Isn’t it going to be fun?

DR. SELMAN: You started out saying you were depressed; you responded to an offer of Hilly cleaning the kitchen with a suicidal threat. Isn’t it possible—and you verbally abused—

GEORGE: I think I was let off the hook on that one.

DR. SELMAN: —the poor hard-working girl wearing a Santa hat—isn’t it possible that maybe you’re a little bit off when it comes to what she’s talking about? Like maybe there could be a little bit more generosity of spirit here—

GEORGE: Spirit, definitely, but maybe not so much generosity of cash that I don’t have.

HILLY: No, no ….

GEORGE: But let me just stop there. You told me you wanted this present, this dress, and it costs $500. Now I understand what a sample sale is. I don’t want to be accused of being heartless and cruel. It’s a personality difference here. I’m not into this day and the commercial aspects, and you are.

HILLY: Another thing: You’re on the Internet all day—you can look on Craigslist for a piano teacher and, for $50, get me a piano lesson.

DR. SELMAN: Are you planning on getting her anything?

GEORGE: Of course, of course. Look, it’s the 19th. I would love to get you piano lessons. This is one thing that I’m in awe of Hilly about, is she is a classically trained musician, and her father is this renowned bassoonist. You play any piece of music and Hilly knows it cold.

HILLY: You could get me a keyboard and headphones so I could practice. I could pay for piano lessons myself.

GEORGE: I’ll do whatever you want! If you just … I can’t ….

HILLY [voice quavering]: It’s just going to be so depressing to me, when everyone around me in my life is always telling me that I should get an engagement ring, and I’m patient because I understand your qualms and stuff and I appreciate those. But the thought of getting a last-minute, un-heartfelt … just because you’ve run out of time and it’s the day before Christmas Eve and the stores are crowded and you have a panic attack and you end up getting me a T-shirt that says “I’m With Stupid” or ….

GEORGE: O.K., I’ll put more thought into it, but can you have a few less thoughts about Christmas? Because this is getting to be too much. I’ll get you everything you want, O.K.?

DR. SELMAN: George, did you know that she feels this way before this session began?

GEORGE: We have this debate every year. I am surprised at this reaction now. She did say the other day that she wants a ring because she feels old at 31.

DR. SELMAN: Why would you be surprised at this?

GEORGE: I’m surprised that she just started crying. I feel horrible. I thought we were just having a friendly debate.

DR. SELMAN: I’m curious, though. You had no idea that she felt very sad at what she perceives as some sort of withholding, or a lack on your part of generosity. That correct?

HILLY: He’s more than generous with me.

GEORGE: She wants a ring; she wants to be engaged.

DR. SELMAN: So that’s the bottom line?

GEORGE: It’s our fifth-year anniversary, she wants me to get her a dress, she wants presents and, you know, things.

DR. SELMAN: The dress wouldn’t have really made it.

HILLY: The thought behind the dress is that it’s something that I know I could never get myself. It would make me feel very pretty and glamorous and beautiful, like a princess—and that’s what boys are supposed to make the girls they love feel like.

DR. SELMAN: So it’s something you wouldn’t get yourself, just like you wouldn’t get yourself a ring?

HILLY: Right.

DR. SELMAN: But did you know this in advance?

GEORGE: Yes.

DR. SELMAN: So why would you then put yourself through this, because you just said, “O.K., I’ll do it”?

GEORGE: Well, it’s too late now, but next year let’s try Christmas without presents and maybe just go to church. Do that every other year. We can play the Christmas music. That’s a legitimate thing—no need to exchange presents. That doesn’t make me a freak.

HILLY: But it’s one of my favorite things in the whole world! Has been since I was a little kid.

GEORGE: I’m not kidding you, Dr. Selman, for the month of December this is all she thinks about.

DR. SELMAN: Why would you not just give in to it and get her something, make it look good and you spare yourself all this grief?

GEORGE: Yeah, all right.

DR. SELMAN: Why wouldn’t you?!

GEORGE: I still have four days to do my shopping! I’ve had other things to think about. We live together and it’s the only thing on her mind. O.K., I’m really cheap. But like, those dresses cost thousands of dollars. I’ll take care of that. I did already get you that stuffed animal dog, didn’t I? That was something. Have we been having fun living together?

DR. SELMAN: I feel like we’ve sucked the air out of Christmas.

GEORGE: Well, don’t people have trouble during the holidays?

HILLY: But you have to think about the good parts of it, about how it’s the time of year when you spread good cheer to all of those around you.

GEORGE [sighing]: What’s your favorite Christmas carol? What are some your favorite Christmas movies?

DR. SELMAN: What are some of your Christmas memories that have led to your attitude about Christmas, George?

[Silence.]

GEORGE: I don’t have any bad memories. What about you, Hilly?

HILLY [pulling out some photos]: I’ll show you something.

GEORGE [to DR. SELMAN]: Pictures of me—oh ho ho. Pictures of me, circa age 7, that Hilly Photoshopped with a Santa hat and driving a sleigh and smoking a pipe—

DR. SELMAN: Is there pot in that pipe?

HILLY: See, his cat Baba’s a reindeer.

GEORGE: Ha ha ha. That’s funny. [To HILLY] I’m sorry for throwing pizza at you the other night.

[DR. SELMAN laughs looking through the photos.]

HILLY: You can have one if you want.

DR. SELMAN: I’ll take George smoking a pipe. Yankee Doodle in there! You guys are like opposites in some ways. She provides all these emotional, fuzzy moments, and you’re like, you know, “Why don’t I just blow my brains out?”

GEORGE: That’s not me all the time. Don’t I get really sensitive? Cry during movies.

HILLY: He did this thing to me—that my mom always did—because I like to hug him for a long period of time.

GEORGE: I cried during The Love Boat once.

HILLY: And he pushes me off. My mom does it, too: “Get off me!”

DR. SELMAN: Where would you ever find another girlfriend like this?

GEORGE: I know! I agree. And I love her.

DR. SELMAN: Why don’t you show that, then?

HILLY: I just wish that you would enjoy thinking about something that you think would make me happy. The obvious things are materialistic: Oscar de la Renta, a Verdura cuff bracelet, anything from Lanvin. Something thoughtful—if you made me a memory bowl. That would be so heartwarming, and it wouldn’t cost money.

GEORGE: How do you make a memory bowl?

HILLY: You think of all of the heartfelt, funny times we’ve had, and you write them on little pieces of paper, roll them up and put them in a container. Anytime you have an argument or something sad happens, you go to the bowl and you pull one out, and it gives you a warm, fuzzy feeling.

DR. SELMAN: That’s nice.

GEORGE: O.K., I’ll do that, and I’ll get you a fancy present. Will it sweeten the deal at all if, after this session, I take you somewhere of your choice, like Café Luxembourg?

DR. SELMAN: Why don’t you just give her the ring already?

HILLY: Well you know, the other thing you can do—because I investigated it, I went to many stores and I asked them: You can buy the ring without the stone and then later on, when we’re rich and famous, you just put the stone in. But that’s up to you—do it when you want. But I just want you to know that, even though I work for a fantastic and wonderful jewelry company, my ideal ring costs about $60,000, and it’s from Harry Winston. I don’t expect to have that. And even if you did give it to me, I wouldn’t wear it every day, because it would be too flashy. I want something that comes from the heart. I want something that maybe was your Gimma’s or something that you find at an antique store. Something plain. I don’t care about any of that other stuff. I don’t.

—George Gurley

[Postscript: For Christmas, George ended up getting Hilly two sweaters on sale at Ann Taylor, two books on fake jewelry, Godiva chocolates and a candle from Bergdorf Goodman.]

[To be continued.]

Prior Articles:

George and Hilly published 12/11/06
George and Hilly published 09/18/06
George and Hilly published 08/14/06
George and Hilly published 09/11/06
George and Hilly published 08/14/06
George and Hilly published 08/07/06
George and Hilly published 07/31/06
George and Hilly published 07/24/06
George and Hilly published 07/17/06
George and Hilly published 06/26/06
George and Hilly published 06/19/06
George and Hilly published 05/29/06
George and Hilly published 05/15/06
George and Hilly published 05/08/06
George and Hilly published 05/01/06
George and Hilly published 04/17/06
George and Hilly published 04/03/06
George and Hilly published 03/20/06
George and Hilly published 02/6/06
George and Hilly published 01/23/06
George and Hilly published 01/16/06
George and Hilly published 12/26/05
George and Hilly published 11/14/05
George and Hilly published 11/07/05
George and Hilly published 10/24/05
George and Hilly published 10/17/05
George and Hilly published 10/10/05
George and Hilly published 10/03/05
George ’n’ Hilly, Back in Couples, Turn on the Doc published 09/26/05
But Should We Get Married? Part III published 08/29/05
But Should We Get Married? published 08/15/05
Should I Get Married? My Hilly Joining Me In Couples Session published 08/08/05

DR. SELMAN: What did you guys do for Thanksgiving?

HILLY: I went to my friend Alex’s parents’ house in Connecticut.

GEORGE: I went to Kansas City. And yesterday morning, my dad was about to drive me to the airport, and he was in the kitchen and spotted something out the window. He lives on top of a hill in the middle of a ranch, and there were three turkeys in a field, and he grabbed his shotgun. We hopped in his car and went down, and he shot one turkey out the window—not easy—and then got out and shot another turkey in the head. Then he was wringing the thing’s neck, twirling it around, and threw it in the back of the car, and it started flapping around, and I started freaking out, jumped out and ran home in the rain. I don’t know if I’m cut out for that kind of thing—providing for my family.

DR. SELMAN: So, Hilly, you missed out on all that fun?

HILLY: Ha ha.

GEORGE: When I came back last night, how would you describe my mood?

HILLY: Really sad and kind of scared.

GEORGE: I was excited coming back and seeing Hilly, but after being there—it was a perfect week, I think I only got depressed twice. Once while watching Short Cuts, because I feared I was like those characters, these horrible people—

DR. SELMAN: You could be like your dad.

GEORGE: That’s the thing, I can’t be like him. I’m in awe of him—he’s got kids and grandkids and a great marriage and writes his newspaper column. Going back to the hunting: Hilly and I were in Blockbuster and—

HILLY: There was this scuffle. A customer, a 6-foot-7 Asian guy, apprehended a shoplifter. The guy said, “I saw you stuff those DVD’s into your bag”—and the guy was pretty disheveled and dirty; didn’t look exactly like he was homeless, but pretty close—and he started denying it. So the Asian guy grabbed him, and it turned into a real fight, and George ran out.

GEORGE: Hilly was in line, and I was closer to the action—like I could be caught in the crossfire if the guy had a gun. You know how I always say, “If the shit goes down, I’m going to be ready”?

DR. SELMAN: I remember you have fantasies about saving people—

GEORGE: Doing something heroic. I could’ve joined the fight. The uncool thing is, I didn’t think of protecting Hilly. I was like, “I’m getting out of here.” Plus I’d made her wait in line to pay for the videos.

DR. SELMAN: What do you think, Hilly?

HILLY: It wasn’t that big a deal. The people who work at Blockbuster are practically criminals themselves, because they’re so stupid and apathetic and rude.

DR. SELMAN: So why do you feel inadequate in that situation?

GEORGE: I’ve always prided myself on—I’ve been in that kind of situation and confronted the force of evil. Two weeks ago, a friend got tickets to see Robert Pollard; before I got there, I had beer, sake, and then at the show I had beer, vodka, vodka, vodka, vodka, vodka, vodka, and we were at the Bowery Ballroom, and someone on the upper level poured liquid on my head. I thought it was an accident. But then it happened a second time, and I had my vodka soda, and I hurled it up at these two hipsters and completely doused them—it was beautiful. And then I gave the two middle fingers and a really mean look. And this girl congratulated me. Then I got another vodka soda and a big cup of water and went back and looked up at those guys and pointed to the water and pointed to them—in other words: This is coming next. So I really took care of that situation.

DR. SELMAN: So you need drinks in order to—

GEORGE: Yes, courage. And then I had a sip of my friend’s tequila, and the place started spinning and I fell over into a woman. Went home, threw up and passed out on the couch …. But at Blockbuster, it had the appearance that I wasn’t protecting Hilly, I was saving my own skin; it was like I was pulling a Jackie O.—

HILLY: No—don’t belittle her. Anyway, with the exception of sometimes when you’ve pushed me into moving traffic, for the most part you protect me.

DR. SELMAN: Why weren’t you together for Thanksgiving?

GEORGE: Had to do with money. So back to Kansas City: I stayed with my grandmother and we had a great time, driving around looking at various houses she lived in and—

DR. SELMAN: Was there ever any consideration that you would spend Thanksgiving together?

GEORGE: We postponed it—a ticket for Hilly would have cost like $700.

HILLY: It sucked, but Christmas is right after Thanksgiving, and to me it’s extremely important that, for my parents’ sake, he comes for Christmas.

GEORGE: We might have needed—did we kind of agree that it was O.K. for us to have a few days apart? This is not relevant to our relationship, but I did have the feeling that I got a weeklong furlough in Kansas City—

DR. SELMAN: A weeklong furlough?

GEORGE: Like I’m back in jail, meaning Manhattan Island. Now, I guess the big issue—and it really wasn’t a big issue for me; I didn’t know how to react, I was mildly stunned at first, I don’t know how to react to this—

HILLY: I don’t think it’s brutalizing turkeys; I think it’s more a romantic way of looking at life. Your father’s lifestyle is—

GEORGE: That, actually, was not the issue I was referring to just now. What’s the other thing that happened?

[Silence.]

GEORGE: See, it’s a non-issue. Amazing. You’re going to have a field day with this one! Hilly stopped taking birth control and didn’t tell me for six weeks.

[Silence.]

DR. SELMAN: No wonder she stayed out of Kansas.

GEORGE: What do you mean? Let me say that again: Hilly stopped taking her birth-control pills and didn’t tell me for six weeks. Reaction?

DR. SELMAN: People in Kansas are friendly until you go to the abortion clinic.

GEORGE: If you really want to—

HILLY: I have no desire to be pregnant right now, and I was not concerned greatly about it being an issue. I had to stop taking it because I had to schedule an appointment with my doctor; she doesn’t believe in prescribing birth control more than four months at a time. And I had to reschedule it because of work, and then one week led to another—

GEORGE: O.K., I’m going to play the role of Dr. Selman now: Hilly, that’s immaterial. The main issue is: Why didn’t you tell George? Right?

HILLY: Because I knew you would have flipped out!

GEORGE [as DR. SELMAN again]: I understand that, Hilly, but don’t you think George would have freaked out more had you gotten pregnant?

HILLY: Well, I’m sick of dealing with George freaking out about every little thing.

GEORGE: I do freak about little things. One example is, every time I come back to the apartment, it’s been rearranged. Furniture has been moved, pictures have been—

DR. SELMAN: Are you guys actually having sex? Because if not, then it doesn’t really matter.

GEORGE: We’ve had sex twice since our last session [three weeks prior]—one time on Queen Noor’s bed at the Ritz. Used a condom. Hilly had the, whatever, presidential suite, for two nights; Queen Noor wasn’t there, but she stayed there once.

DR. SELMAN: Do you usually use a condom?

GEORGE: No, I paint a map of China on her belly.

DR. SELMAN: So why use a condom this time?

GEORGE: Because I thought, “Well, now I need to use birth control. She went off birth control.”

HILLY: He wanted me to buy condoms for him!

DR. SELMAN: I think the thrust here is that George is saying that you didn’t inform him that you were not on birth control, and he was under the assumption that you were.

HILLY: Well, whatever—there are a lot of things George does that he doesn’t inform me about.

DR. SELMAN: But the issue being that if you had sex, then you could conceivably get pregnant.

HILLY: Not if he’s drawing his little cartoons everywhere!

DR. SELMAN: You could still get pregnant that way.

HILLY: Well—

GEORGE: You can. But it’s—listen, I don’t want to dwell on that so much. We didn’t use a condom last night.

DR. SELMAN: What’s the issue then with the birth control?

GEORGE: Well, she’s going to get back on it. Right?

DR. SELMAN: So you’re not on it yet?

HILLY: I started this morning.

DR. SELMAN: What would you have done had you gotten pregnant?

HILLY: I don’t know. I guess I would have had an abortion or discussed it with George, but—

GEORGE: Well, if that had happened, that would have been a terrible—

HILLY: I don’t condone abortion—I never would imagine having one. And immediately it wouldn’t be my first idea. But considering that during that time I was also drinking and smoking cigarettes, it certainly couldn’t have been good for the health of the fetus. If I get pregnant, I want to do it intelligently and become completely healthy. I am pretty firmly against abortion unless it’s an extreme situation.

GEORGE: I’m against it.

DR. SELMAN: Would this have been an extreme situation?

HILLY: No. Aside from—I really did not, I really was not concerned that it was going to happen—

DR. SELMAN: So what’s your concern, George? It sounds like she had the situation well in hand.

GEORGE: I didn’t want to risk her getting pregnant. I can’t even fathom that. I don’t think I’m capable of that kind of responsibility right now. It’s funny, though—when I was in Kansas, I was driving around listening to “Alice’s Restaurant” on NPR, and I thought, “Wow, if I had a mini-Hilly here next to me, I could explain this song to her, and wouldn’t that be nice, and—”

DR. SELMAN: So, in other words, if she had gotten pregnant, you would have been fine?

GEORGE: If she had gotten pregnant—see, I can’t even go there. I can’t imagine—

HILLY: Maybe there’s some subconscious thing going on in my brain that made me intentionally stop taking it, because there’s resentment I harbor that it’s yet another responsibility I have to take on. I made it clear when we started dating that I didn’t really even believe in birth control. I went to three doctors and asked about options, but you made it clear to me that you thought it would be best to be on the pill. My doctor agreed and I knew that I loved you, and so I thought, “Well, let me try this.” I tried it, I got really sick, I had to try different kinds, blah blah—and you know, has it ever come up in conversation? I don’t think so.

GEORGE: I apologize for not being supportive and communicative about those feminine issues—

HILLY: It’s not just a feminine issue. It’s that you don’t have to wear a condom—whoo-hoo!

GEORGE: I understand. I’m apologizing. You have to do this, and I just take it for granted. However, I think there’s another factor that supersedes all of this—that you could have gotten pregnant. [To DR. SELMAN] Don’t you think she should communicate to me whether or not she’s on birth control?

DR. SELMAN [to HILLY]: First of all, I congratulate you—I think what you just said was fabulous. Ha, ha! And really cuts to the heart of a lot of things.

GEORGE: What?!

DR. SELMAN: She said she unconsciously went off birth control because of these other reasons—that this is what she has come to think of.

GEORGE: Oh-kay. And you’re congratulating her?

DR. SELMAN: I think she’s being very open and honest. It makes perfect sense to me.

GEORGE: Well, people can be honest about a lot of things, but that doesn’t mean—

DR. SELMAN: And it’s also insightful.

GEORGE: Yes. But someone could argue that it’s also—irresponsible? Or destructive? Or … crazy? I’m not doing that. I’m saying someone else could.

DR. SELMAN: This is a fundamental issue in your relationship that’s not really been—

GEORGE: She’s saying, “I got off birth control unconsciously because I resented your behavior.” I mean, that’s worse behavior.

DR. SELMAN: Well, it’s all her responsibility.

GEORGE: O.K. … O.K.

DR. SELMAN: Then if it’s all her responsibility, then if you just follow the logic that it’s her body and she can do what she wants with it—

GEORGE: Shouldn’t you be saying, “O.K., but Hilly, it might have helped if you had raised this topic before, either here or with George”?

HILLY: Well, it’s hard to talk about something, especially if it’s so serious, when most of the time I get yelled at because I’m not talking enough, and then when I do start talking, you say: “You’re driving me crazy! I’m trying to read!” I don’t mean to deflect from the issue at hand, but you brought up the whole topic of Christmas—which I know you hate, you hate Christmas, you don’t want to go see my parents, whatever—

GEORGE: What? I do, we’re going. We’re going to drive there.

HILLY: I started talking about Christmas, and you said, “I don’t want to talk about this now.” So maybe I find it difficult to talk with you about certain things.

GEORGE: I just think getting pregnant might be a slight overreaction … I mean, an extreme thing to do to—I don’t know—express your resentment. But anyway, our fifth anniversary is coming up. What do you want to do?

HILLY: Have ….

GEORGE: What?

HILLY: Nothing.

GEORGE: What?

HILLY: Nothing! I think—that I’d rather talk about something else.

[Silence.]

GEORGE: How does that common-law stuff work? If you live with someone for how many years, when do the common-law rules start kicking in? Just wondering.

DR. SELMAN: I think you have a ways to go before that. So if it was so great in Kansas, why did you ever leave?

GEORGE: It’s complicated. Yeah, I love New York.

DR. SELMAN: You long to go back to Kansas, but there’s really nothing there for you, is there?

GEORGE: It’s just—New York is tough. Mary-Kate Olsen smiled at me the other night at Bungalow 8. Think she was looking at me. She might have been looking over my shoulder. Anyway, that put a bounce in my step. O.K., Hilly? What else? I brought you back a T-shirt from Kansas City.

HILLY: You got me a T-shirt. Thank you very much.

[to be continued]

—George Gurley

Prior Articles:

George and Hilly published 09/18/06
George and Hilly published 08/14/06
George and Hilly published 09/11/06
George and Hilly published 08/14/06
George and Hilly published 08/07/06
George and Hilly published 07/31/06
George and Hilly published 07/24/06
George and Hilly published 07/17/06
George and Hilly published 06/26/06
George and Hilly published 06/19/06
George and Hilly published 05/29/06
George and Hilly published 05/15/06
George and Hilly published 05/08/06
George and Hilly published 05/01/06
George and Hilly published 04/17/06
George and Hilly published 04/03/06
George and Hilly published 03/20/06
George and Hilly published 02/6/06
George and Hilly published 01/23/06
George and Hilly published 01/16/06
George and Hilly published 12/26/05
George and Hilly published 11/14/05
George and Hilly published 11/07/05
George and Hilly published 10/24/05
George and Hilly published 10/17/05
George and Hilly published 10/10/05
George and Hilly published 10/03/05
George ’n’ Hilly, Back in Couples, Turn on the Doc published 09/26/05
But Should We Get Married? Part III published 08/29/05
But Should We Get Married? published 08/15/05
Should I Get Married? My Hilly Joining Me In Couples Session published 08/08/05

What do we call exhibitions that contain only a handful of objects, but whose significance is historically and artistically huge? Perhaps we need a more inclusive definition of “blockbuster”—one that gauges intensity of pleasure rather than mere square footage. If so, Cimabue and Early Italian Devotional Painting, on display at the Frick Collection, is some kind of blockbuster.

Exhibitions where impact exceeds scale are an indispensable tradition at the Frick. There isn’t space there to mount humongous shows, so the museum’s curators have focused their efforts on the particulars of this or that achievement: Memling’s portraits, Goya’s late work, Parmigianino’s drawings and a solitary canvas by Raphael. The Cimabue show, though it contains a smattering of related objects, has as its foundation two tiny pictures: The Virgin and Child Enthroned with Two Angels and The Flagellation of Christ (both ca. 1280).

Actually, the exhibition’s raison d’être is the latter painting. Acquired by the Frick in 1950, The Flagellation of Christ had been attributed to Cenni di Pepo (ca.1240-1302), better known as Cimabue, though definitive authorship couldn’t be pinned down. Some scholars thought that Cimabue’s contemporary, the Sienese painter Duccio di Buoninsegna, might have painted it.

Close study has confirmed that The Flagellation of Christ is, in fact, Cimabue’s handiwork. Stylistic constants between the museum’s mainstay and The Virgin and Child Enthroned with Two Angels—a painting recently discovered in private hands and now part of the collection of London’s National Gallery—are in keeping with an established Cimabue altarpiece at the Louvre. The Frick picture is the real thing.

Cimabue and Early Italian Devotional Painting is, then, an opportunity for the Frick to show off its “latest” masterpiece. Given the number of extant works by Cimabue—only four other small panels by the artist are known—the recent attribution is vital to the museum and, for that matter, the heritage of Western civilization.

Further scholarship has revealed that the two panels on view were once part of a larger work, though the exact format—diptych, triptych or altarpiece—is a matter of speculation. Whatever form they originally took, one thing is certain: Its constituent parts were cut apart and put up for sale—not an uncommon fate for historical objects made of multiple sections.

Seeing The Flagellation of Christ alongside The Virgin and Child Enthroned with Two Angels is a rare and, perhaps, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Just make sure you don’t pass by the paintings: They’re next to the museum store in a gallery that’s about the size of a broom closet. Whatever intimacy the space affords is lost in the awkward shuffling of feet, rubbing of shoulders and continuous apologies, but that’s a small price to pay for the chance to commune with a master.

Lives of the Artists, Giorgio Vasari’s endearingly hyperbolic art-historical tract, kicks things off with Cimabue. “Destined to take the first steps in restoring the art of painting to its earlier stature”—Vasari was no fan of Byzantine culture—the artist formerly known as Cenni di Pepo grew up “covering his paper and books with pictures showing people, horses, houses, and the various other things he dreamed up.”

Upon reaching maturity, Cimabue would destroy his work when it didn’t meet his stringent standards. Perfectionism may explain his reputation for obstinacy: The name Cimabue is translated as “ox head.” His place in history was cemented by a mention in The Divine Comedy, though Dante does remark that he was eventually eclipsed by his disciple Giotto.

In Flagellation, Christ stands in the center, his arms cuffed around a post, towering above his two tormentors. His gaze meets us with an all-but-impenetrable expression—forlorn perhaps, incisive surely, and resigned. Christ’s head is the most tightly focused part of the composition; its structure is full, the features specific. His tormentors are ciphers and their cruelty oddly pro forma. The two men may be flogging Christ, but their gestures are without force. The droop of Christ’s hands and, in particular, the sinuous arch of his torso contain infinitely more personality, humanity and grace. Of course, that’s the point.

The Virgin and Child, while no less felt in devotional terms, is a very different painting. The symmetry is more stable; the composition is stolid and immovable. The figures are archetypal and, as such, generic. The worn-and-torn surface of the painting hints at a once-resplendent chromatic range.

The Flagellation is in better condition, more fully preserving Cimabue’s touch, palette and authority. Certainly, the London picture lacks the cool and glowing tonalities of The Flagellation. History is enriched by both paintings, but let’s be honest: The Frick’s is the keeper.

The other objects on view help to establish some context. A diptych by Pacino di Bonaguida is included as a means of conjecturing about the original format and arrangement of the two Cimabues. Di Bonaguida’s tempera-on-panel paintings are good enough to call for a more thorough showing of his oeuvre. Any painter able to convey the frailty of flesh with as much nobility, sensuality and painful truth as he does in his Crucifixion deserves greater scrutiny.

All the same, Cimabue’s accomplishment—even on the slender evidence here—renders di Bonaguida a bit player. The definitive attribution of The Flagellation of Christ is cause for celebration. Would that such discoveries were a regular occurrence. As it is, New Yorkers should be grateful and proud it happened here.

Cimabue and Early Italian Devotional Painting is at the Frick Collection, 1 East 70th Street, until Dec. 31.

I love to cook and I have a beautiful, big new kitchen that has a full-size oven, lots of counter space and a big gas stove. The new kitchen calls for new pots and pans, fine china, and all the many utensils and gadgets that would never have fit in the closet we used to call a kitchen. In theory, registering for these things fills me with great joy and excitement. But in reality, it's a stress-inducing, pressure-filled nightmare.

Yogurt maker? Ice cream maker? Griddle? Creme brulee torch? Miniature heart-shaped molds for making molten chocolate cake? Sorting the useful (spoons, spatulas, cutting boards) from the useful-only-in-my-Martha Stewart-inspired dreams requires disciplined analysis.

GEORGE: So the rent check bounced. We had a little bit of a problem with the rent. Hilly paid a fifth of it. Last night, she actually paid the second fifth and the first fifth for August. So I had to get some help to cover the rent.

DR. SELMAN: I’m confused. You were living in this apartment and paying the rent before she moved in. So theoretically you could just pay the rent by yourself, couldn’t you?

GEORGE: Well, sure—but one of the perks of having your girlfriend move in with you is then you guys split the rent and you get to spend more money elsewhere.

DR. SELMAN: Well, George, why wouldn’t you just pay the rent?

GEORGE: Pay the rent on my own?

DR. SELMAN: Why not?

GEORGE: I think it’s more fair if we split it or she at least pays two-fifths. And then I pay for everything else.

DR. SELMAN: Well, how does the check bounce?

GEORGE: Actually, the bank covered it. It was a close call.

DR. SELMAN: You’re complaining that Hilly’s not paying her share of the rent.

GEORGE: Wait, I don’t understand. This is a totally legitimate complaint, but it’s being turned around on me like I have no business bringing it up.

DR. SELMAN: Well, you’re not putting it in a clear way.

GEORGE [ to HILLY]: You agreed to pay half the rent, right? And?

DR. SELMAN: You guys do not communicate!

GEORGE: I asked you four or five times for the second fifth of the rent. And I asked that you return those Blockbuster videos you rented about five times.

HILLY: O.K., now that’s another thing. So I got back from Kansas City whenever that was, Monday night, and he got back the following day, and I rented four movies, and two of them I actually rented that night, because I thought we would want to watch them. Anyway, we didn’t, and they were sitting around. We ended up going away to East Hampton last weekend—

GEORGE: And wasn’t that a great—

HILLY: It was fantastic. Anyway, so you asked me a couple times, “When’re you going to return the movies?” And I said, “As soon as I have a chance.” So we got back Sunday. Monday night, I ended up going out with a friend, so I didn’t get home until about 9, and I was tired. And the next night, I went to see Pirates of the Caribbean. And then Tuesday I went out with Alex, got home, and then you were out all night. Wednesday, same thing—I had a few appointments for work and didn’t get home until 9:30. So it was late; it was hot outside. Meanwhile, all day Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, George was at home. And then he kind of threw a little bit of a bitch fit about the Blockbuster movies.

GEORGE: I thought we were getting charged extra.

HILLY: O.K., hello, you’re at home all day long and Blockbuster is a couple blocks away? I’m at work and—

GEORGE: Making money so you can pay half the rent?

HILLY: The thing is, it’s exactly what Dr. Selman says—we’re not communicating.

GEORGE: This is perfect. You kept saying you’re going to return them, and every day I’d see them on the floor. And I was like, “What’s going on here?” Then today you said, “Oh, could you please return them for me?” And I was like, “Yes.” So I need instruction. I did it, I returned them, and there was no charge—no late fee!

DR. SELMAN: You know, why wouldn’t you just return them anyway on your own? Just take the initiative.

GEORGE: Once again, it’s all turned back on me. I mean, come on. Jeez. Hilly told me she had a dream about having sex with the devil and liking it.

HILLY: That was a couple years ago, though.

GEORGE: We had sex a couple hours ago, right after she told me that.

DR. SELMAN: You know, there’s more than one right answer to these things. You seem to think that it always comes down to you—it’s not always you. It’s her, too. She didn’t ask you to take the tapes back, and she’s not forthright in saying to you, “Look, George, it’s really a hassle for me to meet you at home—I’m really annoyed by that.” She doesn’t say that; she doesn’t say anything.

GEORGE: Everything worked out. You came home, you had a cocktail.

DR. SELMAN: The point is that neither one of you are necessarily communicating. It’s not just you.

GEORGE: What was that thing your mother said, about your relative who was really into starch?

[ Silence.]

HILLY: I don’t want to talk about it. I mean, I’ll talk about your toes.

GEORGE: All right, go ahead—go for it.

HILLY: George has this really weird thing about his toes. He’s really—I’ve almost never seen anyone get as upset about anything. He can be in the best mood ever, and the second I even look at one of his toes or touch them, he gets so angry and almost violent.

GEORGE: Don’t say I get violent.

HILLY: Not like physically violent.

GEORGE: This is a perfect example of her doing something to purposely annoy me. And it’s infantilizing me. You know, it’s “This little piggy went to the market, this little piggy stayed home—”

DR. SELMAN: You do that to annoy him?

HILLY: So why do you take bubble baths?

GEORGE: I also don’t like her to touch my belly button. I’m a big boy. Now tell the story about the starch and your relative and how your mother warned you.

HILLY: Well, my granny has this thing: She’s kind of crazy. She’s so sweet and stuff. She and my grandfather divorced when my father was in high school, and she’s been pretty much alone ever since. My mom has always thought that she is really crazy—a spinster living alone and with a cat, and she’s really, really anal retentive about overstarching her clothes and linens. She uses a ton. And she always says, “Oh, I have my starched white shirt on today. Oh, how I like to wear a starched white shirt.” And she just repeats herself and goes on and on.

GEORGE: And your mom said—

HILLY: My mom has been warning me, basically since the day I moved to New York, that I am ultimately going to be her, my granny, and that I am going to be alone in a studio apartment with a bunch of cats and a stack of old New Yorkers.

DR. SELMAN: This is what your mother tells you?

HILLY: And wearing starched shirts.

GEORGE: Because you have a tendency to drive people a little crazy? Is that it?

HILLY: Yes.

GEORGE [ to DR. SELMAN]: Now you see there’s some basis to this, and it’s not just—and I’m not complaining exactly, I’m just saying it’s a two-way street. Speaking of moms, after I told my mom that Hilly hadn’t paid her share of the rent, you threatened to tell her about the mold in the bathroom, the dirty dishes—

HILLY: I was being facetious.

GEORGE: And how I’d tricked you into having sex during Inside Deep Throat. [ To DR. SELMAN] Did you see that documentary?

DR. SELMAN: I don’t know how I missed it.

GEORGE: No great loss—bunch of geezer warhorses claiming to have invented blowjobs. Did you see Deep Throat?

DR. SELMAN: I actually saw it in a movie theater when it first came out.

GEORGE: Wow. Wow. Awesome. I don’t know why, the documentary turned me on. Maybe it was a very angry Gloria Steinem glowering and insisting that Linda Lovelace had been forced to be in the movie. No, it was Camille Paglia that really got me excited. Love her. But I tricked you into having sex, right?

[ Silence.]

GEORGE: You don’t want to talk about “the trick”?

HILLY: No, I don’t feel comfortable talking about “the trick.”

DR. SELMAN: What is the deal with the rent?

GEORGE: I think she would prefer if I paid all of the rent so she could spend her money on pedicures and her hair and various other things.

DR. SELMAN: Do you have a problem with that?

GEORGE: She makes more money than I do. She has a fancy job—and I also pay for everything else. Con Ed. Phone bill.

HILLY: I don’t use the phone!

GEORGE: Well, whatever. I buy the Puffs Plus. The paper towels. The kitty litter. The light bulbs. The food.

HILLY: I buy paper towels!

GEORGE: I pay for 95 percent of everything.

DR. SELMAN: Well, how do you feel about that? She makes more than you and you pay most of the expenses? What are you getting in return?

GEORGE: I don’t lose sleep over it exactly, but it’s a mild irritant. And it sometimes makes me paranoid—worried that, you know, this is a pretty good deal for her, or someone like that. I have these thoughts that maybe you’re hoping I’ll forget about asking you for your share of the rent. And I thought we had an agreement: You don’t have to pay half the rent, but almost half, or what you were paying before you moved in with me—something like that would be nice.

DR. SELMAN [ to HILLY]: Would that crimp your lifestyle?

GEORGE: I’ve also taken her out to dinner hundreds of times, and she’s paid for it twice.

DR. SELMAN: What you’re saying is that you’re basically supporting her even though she makes more money than you, and she spends all her money on manis and pedis and her hair?

GEORGE: That’s maybe an exaggeration, but it does sometimes feel like she’s my daughter.

DR. SELMAN: She’s your daughter?

GEORGE: Sometimes.

HILLY: First of all, it may sound really archaic and ridiculous and hard to believe, but I just am of the school of thought that the man is in charge of finances. If you’re not making as much, then take over mine. Deal with it. I’d gladly hand over all of my finances to him if he would manage them for me. I would love that. Then the other thing, I’ve always been really bad with money my entire life. I’ve just been horrible—I’m sorry! And, you know, whatever.

GEORGE: I’m still bringing my wallet into my bedroom every night, hiding it, because I don’t like leaving it on the coffee table. I think she’s going to get in there in the morning and take out $20.

DR. SELMAN: Why would she take your money if she’s making more money than you?

GEORGE: She’s done it before. Listen, it’s not so bad. It would be nice if I could leave my wallet out, not have to stash it.

HILLY: Part of who I am requires money. I don’t just look like this because people hand me free Gucci shoes when I walk down the street. People don’t like automatically say, “Oh, you look great—here are some extra highlights.” Or, “Maybe you want to get your teeth whitened? That would be great.” I have to pay for all this stuff, and that’s what girls have to do, and it’s expensive and it’s maintenance, but that’s what being a girl is. And if you want to date a big, fat, ugly chick like that slut at Siberia—

[GEORGE answers his cell phone.]

GEORGE: Hey, Kurtis, I’m in therapy right now. You’re on speakerphone.

[HILLY gets up and leaves the room.]

KURTIS: Hilly is the best thing that ever happened to George! All right, bye.

GEORGE [ to DR. SELMAN]: Friend of mine from high school. Sorry. Oh, boy. No more mushrooms.

[ To be continued.]

—George Gurley

Prior Articles: George and Hilly published 07/24/06 George and Hilly published 07/17/06 George and Hilly published 06/26/06 George and Hilly published 06/19/06 George and Hilly published 05/29/06 George and Hilly published 05/15/06 George and Hilly published 05/08/06 George and Hilly published 05/01/06 George and Hilly published 04/17/06 George and Hilly published 04/03/06 George and Hilly published 03/20/06 George and Hilly published 02/6/06 George and Hilly published 01/23/06 George and Hilly published 01/16/06 George and Hilly published 12/26/05 George and Hilly published 11/14/05 George and Hilly published 11/07/05 George and Hilly published 10/24/05 George and Hilly published 10/17/05 George and Hilly published 10/10/05 George and Hilly published 10/03/05 George ’n’ Hilly, Back in Couples, Turn on the Doc published 09/26/05 But Should We Get Married? Part III published 08/29/05 But Should We Get Married? published 08/15/05 Should I Get Married? My Hilly Joining Me In Couples Session published 08/08/05

After the jump, the rundown.

-Matthew Grace

Whenever the Van Gogh name gets onto a museum marquee, you’re guaranteed an environment bereft of oxygen. I’m not talking about the crowds. It’s the biographical fog that both obscures and embellishes what is essentially a respectable, not spectacular, achievement.

Poor Vincent isn’t to blame for the hype, of course. Johanna Van Gogh-Bonger, the artist’s sister-in-law and initial overseer of the estate; Irving Stone’s melodramatic biography Lust for Life, Hollywood hot on its heels; and countless museum folk with dollar signs in their eyes—all have worked hard to make the most of the all-consuming, one-eared myth with which we tussle today.

Some of us don’t tussle all that much. Every time I walked through the Met, on my way to Vincent Van Gogh: The Drawings, the paintings of Fra Angelico, literally sublime, beckoned instead. At the onset of the Christmas crunch, I gave up altogether on seeing the Van Gogh show. A friend tells me I didn’t miss much. I hope he’s right.

We shouldn’t altogether begrudge the Met its forays into showbiz, though. Blockbuster box-office numbers ensure that the kind of exhibitions that promise uncommon scholarly and aesthetic pleasures—if not ready accessibility or huge profits—can still be mounted.

Take, for example, Antonello da Messina: Sicily’s Renaissance Master, a tiny, rather specialized exhibition devoted to (as the introductory wall label has it) “arguably the first truly European painter.” Visitors to the Met aren’t exactly lining up for Antonello, but those who do chance upon his work—wedged, as it is, into the museum’s collection of Western painting—seem to be quite taken with it.

Why Antonello (ca. 1430-1479) might be the first European painter is less puzzling than how he achieved that status. Even on the slim evidence on display at the Met—two double-sided panels, four paintings and a drawing—it’s clear that Antonello was conversant with the meticulous pictorial traditions of Netherlandish oil painting. Not that it’s a given that an artist residing in Italy should be heir to all of his own country’s artistic glories. Antonello was a provincial—if not necessarily in achievement, then in geography.

Hard facts on his development and travels are in short supply. Hypotheses abound in trying to explain how this native of Messina and eventual citizen of Sicily—neither of which could be considered a cultural center—came by his sophistication. The curators wistfully conjecture that he may have had direct contact with Jan van Eyck and Petrus Christus, painters of genius and near-genius respectively. The inclusion of Christus’ The Lamentation (ca. 1450), a staple of the Met’s permanent collection, among the Antonellos is an attempt to underline and amplify the Northern European connection.

It’s also something of a blunder, I’m afraid. There’s certainly much to like about the Antonello paintings, especially the irresistibly shifty character featured in Portrait of a Man. But if the curators really wanted to make a case for Antonello’s artistic primacy, better they should have left The Lamentation—and, for that matter, Jacometto’s steely Portrait of a Young Man—out of viewing range. The resulting comparison casts doubt upon Antonello’s status as Renaissance master. The Antonello pictures—at least those at the Met—just don’t scale the same heights.

Christus’ The Lamentation—with its saturated palette, impeccable orchestration of form, crystalline warp of space and cool, and devotional intensity—makes Antonello look timid and sluggish, serious but something of an also-ran. Odd elisions of anatomy and irregularities in compositional structure—the unconvincingly situated right hand of The Virgin Annunciate, for instance—don’t help. A more thorough accounting of the Sicilian master might make a stronger case—and could be thrilling. Perhaps the folks in the Met’s back room are working on it as we speak.

Antonello da Messina: Sicily’s Renaissance Master is at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1000 Fifth Avenue at 82nd Street, until March 5.

Complaisant Combines

Robert Rauschenberg: Combines, another exhibition on display at the Met, is surprisingly moving: Its trajectory is more genuinely sad than anyone could have guessed. The Met didn’t intend that its array of “daring and influential works by one of America’s great modern artists” would offer a parable on squandered artistic promise. But that’s exactly what it is. The exhibition highlights, with devastating accuracy, an artist who sacrificed a small but precious gift for the sake of overblown gestures and careerist ambitions.

The combines are constructions cobbled together from a surfeit of found objects—old sheets, a stuffed Angora goat, blinking lights, socks and a bed, to name just a few. They’re augmented with frantic passages of brushwork that refer explicitly to the conventions of Abstract Expressionism. Though the pastiches of Willem de Kooning and Franz Kline aren’t unappreciative, Mr. Rauschenberg has never displayed an affinity for oil paint—he can’t pick up a brush without swaddling it in irony. Much has been made of the experiments in mixing media, but even at his most “far out,” Mr. Rauschenberg remains a pictorial artist—and a rather academic one. The combines never really go over the top; the flat ground of the canvas is their ball-and-chain.

Influenced by the collages of Kurt Schwitters and the anti-aesthetic theories of Marcel Duchamp, Mr. Rauschenberg isn’t a true Dadaist. Sympathetic to Dadaism’s flagrant, nose-thumbing ethos, Mr. Rauschenberg’s go-get-’em esprit and happy superficiality could never submit to outright nihilism. He’s an amiable guy. Still, it was Mr. Rauschenberg—more so than Jasper Johns, his lethargic coeval in Dada lite—who transformed Duchamp’s aesthetic from a curious sidebar of history to the predigested engine of culture it is now. It’s Mr. Rauschenberg’s example that’s largely responsible for flashy mediocrities like Jeff Koons and Damien Hirst. Thanks a lot, Bob.

Nonetheless, there are a smattering of early works—Honeysuckle, Levee and an untitled piece from around 1955, in particular—that evince a sensitivity to the materials used in their crafting and hint at special correspondences that are more than the sum of their tatters. Had Mr. Rauschenberg explored this tendency on the intimate scale it called for, he might have made an unassuming and welcome contribution to the history of 20th-century American art. As it is, he became the Leroy Nieman of the avant-garde—an unapologetic hack ready, willing and able to reiterate a hugely successful, aesthetically empty formula.

Come back, Van Gogh; all is forgiven.

Robert Rauschenberg: Combines is at the Metropolitan Museum of Art until April 2.

I’m 37 years old, and unless I get confined to a wheelchair and need round-the-clock care (Nurse! Nurrrrse!), I see no reason to get married because, after all, marriage equals death. And as far as kids go, I don’t really want another one of me running around. Maybe when I’m 50.

Then again, I have been a better person the past three and half years since I’ve been with my girlfriend Hilly. More centered, stable, tame, kind and civilized.

No question I’m happier than I was during the relationship with the barmaid who had “TOMMY” tattooed above her butt. And before that, the crazy older Jewish bohemian sensualist who at one point was cuckolding me with her ex-boyfriend and another dude.

But then I think: In this relationship, my life force is crushed. What happened to my freedom? What happened to my balls? Where’d they go? My balls are in her purse. She has confiscated them.

Then again, maybe it’s time to settle down. What about Hilly? Well, I think it’s possible that I may perhaps, you know, “love” her. How couldn’t I? She’s 30, gorgeous and a saint. Funny, fun to be with, incredibly low-maintenance. She’s been so good to me, so incessantly sweet, put up with so much of my selfish, infantile behavior.

Clearly it’s time for us to hash things out before one more item of her clothing makes it into my closet, before one more grooming product magically appears in my bathroom.

I locked up my bike at 96th and Madison. Felt groggy and anxious. But upon seeing Hilly in Dr. Harold Selman’s waiting room, I felt instantly better. She looked great in her sundress and flip-flops I’d bought her. She’d just been to the dentist and showed off her perfect white choppers.

There was another patient there, so we just sat and listened to the white-noise machine.

Dr. Selman welcomed us into his office, and Hilly and I sat down on a couch. He leaned back in an easy chair, popped the top off a Diet Sunkist, and asked what had brought us to see him.

GEORGE: I think we probably had some disagreements. Nothing that specific. Not one incident. Just general patterns of behavior. Maybe me being irritable, that kind of thing.

DR. SELMAN: Have you ever had treatment in the past?

GEORGE: Yes, when I was a kid. I was sort of a troublemaker in school.

DR. SELMAN [to HILLY]: Is this new to you?

HILLY: I’ve been in therapy before, too. This is the first time I’ve ever done it with someone else. I first went when I was 14. My brother was going because he was a troublemaker and he blamed a lot of problems on me. And so the psychiatrist wanted to see me there, too. It didn’t work very well. And then I went again when I was in college, because I didn’t like the school where I was going. And then when I moved to New York, 10 years ago, for a couple years I went to someone. I wasn’t happy with my job and all kinds of stuff.

DR. SELMAN: Are you each aware of each other’s past history of this stuff?

GEORGE: Vaguely.

DR. SELMAN: Have either of you been prescribed medication?

HILLY: Prozac. But I want to wean myself down.

DR. SELMAN: You have any side effects?

HILLY: Um, maybe a little sexual side effect.

DR. SELMAN: Are you still depressed?

HILLY: No, because I take my Prozac!

DR. SELMAN: How’d you meet?

HILLY: In the Hog Pit. In a bar, but sort of through mutual friends.

GEORGE: And then in another bar maybe three, six months later.

HILLY: ’Cause he was really mean to me the first time we met. And so the sparks didn’t really fly. And then when we met next, it was a different situation and he was really nice! So we got along really well.

GEORGE: I don’t remember being mean. I think I was on a date that night.

HILLY: You were sitting at this table and dancing and I was wearing a T-shirt that said “Judas Priest” on it, and Jacqui tried to introduce us, and instead of saying, “Hi, nice to meet you,” you just looked at my shirt and were like, “What’s your favorite Judas Priest album?” and asking questions like that, if I knew certain songs—and I didn’t, because I just bought the shirt because I thought it looked cool. And you turned away, so I just thought, “Wow, too bad—kind of rude.” Because I’d read some of his stories, and they were pretty funny.

GEORGE: All right. But we got along better the next time, right?

HILLY: Uh-huh.

DR. SELMAN: And what is your relationship now? Are you living together?

GEORGE: No. You stay over sometimes.

HILLY: I stay over usually a couple nights a week. But I have my own place downtown. I think we’re both used to living alone. Right? And we all know it’s a difficult thing in Manhattan to find a place that’s big enough for two people to co-habitate that have certain habits. Right?

DR. SELMAN: Certain habits?

HILLY: For example, we can’t sleep in the same room with each other. Because we’re incompatible sleepers. I’m a really hot person and he’s a really cold person. Temperature is a big issue.

GEORGE: Even when we’re not sleeping, just sitting on the couch.

HILLY: It’s actually an issue all the time, and it irritates him a lot. We’ll be sitting there watching a movie, and he’ll turn the air conditioner off. But I get really hot. And if I turn it on, he thinks that I’m conspiring against him, to try to get him sick.

GEORGE: I might say that sort of as a joke. I’m just saying if it goes down to 68 degrees, I’m going to get sick—I don’t think you’re doing it on purpose.

HILLY: But the thing that’s weird is, he’ll be sitting there in boxers and no socks or T-shirt or anything, and I’m there with practically nothing on, and I’m the one who’s hot and he’s cold, and I’ll say, “Well why don’t you put on a sweater?”

GEORGE: Even that doesn’t work—it’s just that cold air.

DR. SELMAN: So when you sleep over at his apartment, you sleep in separate locations? Is that an issue? I guess so.

GEORGE: Not really.

HILLY: I don’t really think so. I think it works out pretty well.

GEORGE: Didn’t you read something about that, that it’s normal?

HILLY: There was an article in GQ. If you look at what doctors have found in recent years about how important healthy sleep patterns are to a person, it only makes sense, if you’re not compatible sleepers, to not sleep in the same bed.

DR. SELMAN: And how long have you been involved with each other?

GEORGE: The second time we met, at this bar Siberia, we went around the corner to this bar Bellevue, and I think it was there she just started kissing me. Kind of late at night, and I think I suggested we start going out right then and there.

HILLY: Yeah, and I said no, because I was sort of dating someone else, and I thought we should be friends. And a couple of days later, I suggested we meet as friends. Then I kissed him again.

DR. SELMAN: What about the issues that brought you here?

HILLY: At the risk of sounding trite or clichéd, I think it’s communication. I know that’s an issue with most couples, but there are certain things that are hard for us to express to each other. For example, George frequently asks me what I’m thinking about, because—I don’t know if “upset” is right—you just wonder, if I’m quiet for a period of time, what’s going on. Makes him nervous if I go for a while without saying anything, and I can never really answer the question.

DR. SELMAN: Whose idea was it to go to couple’s therapy?

HILLY: A couple months ago, George was talking about maybe seeing someone yourself, and I said I thought it might be a good idea, because you get sad a lot. I said if you want, I’ll go with you.

GEORGE: It was a mutual thing.

DR. SELMAN: You think he gets sad a lot?

HILLY: Sad and anxious and irritable and angry. I mean, not all at once.

GEORGE: Most of the time, I have a great time with Hilly, think of her as my best friend, and we have our own little special language. But part of me is … troubled. Just about … all kinds of things. General feeling of malaise and uncertainty. Not knowing how to have a stable emotional tie here. I don’t know if I’ve ever had that. I wonder if I can establish that with anyone.

DR. SELMAN: So why don’t you just go for individual therapy?

GEORGE: Maybe I can do that, too.

DR. SELMAN: Going for therapy like this can open up a Pandora’s box.

GEORGE: The other day, Hilly came over to my apartment, my little “sanctuary,” and started ironing and—do you want to tell that story?

HILLY: You can. Well, I just started ironing and I blew a fuse and—it’s actually one of my goals: “I’d like to minimize the number of George’s grumpy outbursts”—so anyway I blew the fuse, the air conditioner turned off, and he got really mad. He sat on the couch and he couldn’t even look me in the eye.

GEORGE: I knew as soon as I went into the bathroom, you’d start doing something, snooping around.

HILLY: His face kind of turned red and he got really upset. And I said, “Well, George, haven’t you ever blown a fuse before?” And he said, “No! Not in my entire life!” And I said, “Well, George, don’t worry—it’s really easy to fix it. All you have to do is find a panel and switch the fuse thingy.” So we just sat there and then I thought, “Well, it’s probably in the basement.” So I went down there and found the fuse box. Then I switched it off and switched it on and then I went back upstairs and I said, “Is it back on?” And you said, “No, no—now you turned my computer off, too!” So I went back down and tried it again, went back up and it still wasn’t working. And I said, “Well, maybe you should call your super.” So he called his super—still couldn’t look at me—then he threw the phone down and said, “On vacation for a month!” And I said, “Maybe I should go and talk to the neighbor—”

GEORGE: No, you didn’t say that—you just went and did it.

HILLY: I did—you just didn’t hear me. So I walked outside down the hall and I knocked on the neighbor’s door, and as soon as I did, I heard George back in his apartment screaming, “Get back in here RIGHT NOW!” And as soon as he said that, the door opened and this guy—this bodybuilder bald man—was staring at me thinking I was a battered victim or something. And I was just laughing. He told me there was another fuse box in the kitchen, so everything was fine after that.

GEORGE: She fixed it. I know the retelling of it sounds gruesome, but soon after we were laughing about it. We went on to have a nice dinner, right?

HILLY: Mmm-hmmm. Yeah, but that kind of stuff happens frequently. These short bursts of anger and frustration. Like the other morning … now, granted, this was very early, like 5:30 a.m., but he was going to drive me to the train station in East Hampton, so I went in to wake him up, and his brother’s cat ran into the room—it’s a one-year-old cat, so it’s filled with energy—and he ran right past me. And I was trying to be very quiet so I didn’t wake everyone else up. And the first thing he said was, “Get that cat outta here! Did YOU let that cat in!?” And I was like, “No, I didn’t,” but I got the cat out. And he was so mad, and it’s almost like, it’s, it’s, yeah, it’s … scary. Frequently I feel I have to walk on eggshells, because I don’t always know what I’m going to do or say that’s going to make him blow up. I have a pretty good idea.

DR. SELMAN: Hmmmm.

HILLY: But then, right after that, he asked me to sit down on the bed to sort of help him wake up for a minute, and we have this thing I do where I scratch his head because it makes him feel better. We call it “scratchy.” And so he just said “scratchy.” And so I just started scratching his head, but then I was getting worried and filled with anxiety, worried about the train leaving. I was thinking, “He’s still sitting here—what if he doesn’t get out of bed in time?” So he could tell that I had tension. So he said, “If you’re not gonna do scratchy right, don’t even bother!” So I had to get up, and I just walked out of the room. Ten minutes later, we were in the car laughing about it. So it’s those little things. We don’t even live together. I mean, it’s more often not like that. Otherwise, I don’t think we would still ….

GEORGE: And what’s this book that you’re reading?

HILLY: It’s called The Irritable Male Syndrome that some friend gave me, and it’s about how a lot of men at points in their lives can experience these different levels of testosterone that can cause them to sometimes to be quite irritable at the drop of the hat.

DR. SELMAN: How often do you think it is like that?

GEORGE [to DR. SELMAN]: Can I go get one of those Diet Sunkists?

DR. SELMAN: Sure.

[GEORGE rises, walks to a small kitchen next to the waiting room, gets a Diet Sunkist, returns.]

HILLY: How often? I don’t know. Like I said, it’s more often not like that. But at any given period of time that we’re together—it usually doesn’t happen when we’re out with other people or in public—although sometimes, like at Blockbuster last weekend ….

GEORGE: O.K., you’ve been talking a whole lot. You’re on a roll. I just wanted to make one thing clear. I’m sort of laughing and cringing through this—I don’t feel good about those outbursts. That would be my goal here, to not do that. But I’m really used to being alone, and I have this idea that for what I do for a living, I need to have this alone time.

DR. SELMAN: What does that have to do with this issue of irritability?

GEORGE: That doesn’t happen when I’m by myself in my apartment.

DR. SELMAN: Well, there’s nobody to yell at.

GEORGE: Exactly.

DR. SELMAN: It’s yourself and the cat.

GEORGE: I know, but I’ve lived that way before quite successfully.

HILLY: Every once in a while you yell at Bobbie.

GEORGE: What does that have to do with anything?

DR. SELMAN: Who’s Bobbie?

HILLY: His cat.

[to be continued]

To begin, there's the struggle of genuine emotion against the cauterizing power of iconic faces. How much energy is spent making film stars seem utterly inhuman-inhumanly beautiful, relaxed and clever-only to expend that much more energy making them seem, when they attach to an indie-style feature, plausibly ordinary? When we first meet Jude Law (he who rose Venus-like from the spume in The Talented Mr. Ripley, only to ruin my marriage and everyone else's), his Dan is meant to be a modest schlub, a lifer at a London paper who writes and edits the obituaries. ("This is me," he says to Alice when they arrive at his workplace, a dour glass-skinned high-rise.) The early dialogue is sharp and promising, as Dan and Alice meet and banter and fall in love. We leap forward in time by a year, and discover that Dan has cannibalized the story of Alice's life as a New York stripper for his first novel. Sitting for the book-jacket portrait, he falls immediately in love with Anna, his photographer. As Anna, the arty portraitist, Julia Roberts starts slowly-she's the living embodiment of a certain style of knit-browed overconcern Hollywood stars fall back on, especially when forced to act with Brits-but she gathers a serious head of steam, and by the credits has delivered a fine performance.

From its tantalizing beginning, Closer turns into a four-part roundelay vaguely in the Neil LaBute mode, in which vengeful sex is had by all, with all, and in virtually every possible config. When the movie wears its own true colors, it works nicely-that is, when Closer is sexy and cold and arch, and people approach one another as virtual strangers. And then there's Clive Owen. With his faceful of sebaceous stubble, Mr. Owen is the one element of true danger in Closer, and all of its desperation and rage comes from his turn as a cockney made good as a dermatologist. (Clive Owen is the one man since Sean Connery born to play 007, but no doubt Byzantine double-dealing in the front office will prevent it from ever happening.) Mr. Owen's Larry could split you down the middle with a look … or will he himself break apart? Unlike his co-stars, who must soldier admirably against their own prettiness, Mr. Owen is that rare beautiful man who's more than once suspected he's butt-ugly. No disbelief here suspended: Mr. Owen's Larry is a man who likes strippers, prostitutes and whatever trade he can scare up on the Net. The most vicious dialogue is given to Mr. Owen's mouth to spit, and spit it does. "She has the moronic beauty of youth," he says, dismissing Alice, who he will later come to beg for sexual absolution. "Have you ever seen a human heart?" he asks Dan. "It looks like a fist wrapped in blood."

Well, except when it's pumping $9 water. Would that this were Clive Owen's movie, a bitter meditation on the cowardly and wretched things people do to one other. But it's the movie of the great toy beauty, Natalie Portman. As a sex worker who may be fabricating her entire past, she's meant to be cheeky and wounded, an obscure object of desire, and the key to Dan's every happiness. Ms. Portman is not at all a bad actress, but she may be too inviolably flawless. When she spits her lines back at Mr. Owen-"When I was in flares you were in nappies." "My nappies were flared"-we sense behind them a life left untouched by sleaze. So it is with Closer, a quiet, gelid, murmuring and deeply uninvolving movie, an utter pleasure to watch-and then forget.