CITY KITTIES ART AUCTION

Having heard through the grapevine that Cassidy was showing some of his original oil paintings at a special auction tonight, I made my way up the steep and uninviting 39 steps of Studio 34 only to be confronted by a very businesslike bouncer who demanded to see my invitation.

"It's cool. I'm with Cassidy," I said.

"Cassidy *who*?" she growled.

"Why, Kyle Cassidy the famous artist and boulevardier. Man about town. I'm with *him*. Must be on the list somewhere." I replied, all suave and debonair.

At this point she looked as if she was about to tip me back down the steep and uninviting staircase, so with a sigh I pulled out a Benjamin and crossed her palm. That seemed to satisfy her and she took my hand and pressed something on the back of it in the darkness.

Anyhow, I was in like Flynn, but very soon began to suspect I must be in the wrong pew. Staring me in the face were some very mean-looking portraits of cats, not the hip kind with berets like back in the day, but actual felines with whiskers. Touring the gallery, it began to dawn on me that I had stumbled into some sort of benefit for homeless feral cats. Quite a shock to a civilized pet-hater like myself.

But, making the best of a bad situation, and noting that there seemed to be no actual live kitties in attendance, I inquired where the Cassidy's were being hung. I was told they were in the rear back gallery, which somehow seemed appropriate. Stumbling past a pile of old tires, chainsaws and some heavy-duty hawsers I finally located the venue in question.

To my surprise, the gallery was showing not Cassidy's original oil paintings but some Polaroids which the artist described as "Telephone Pictures." Well of course my good friend Andy Warhol had pioneered the Polaroid as an art-form back in the sixties so there was nothing new and shocking about that aspect of the work. But Cassidy seemed to think that he was way out on the cutting edge for having taken *his* Polaroids with his telephone.

Of course my idea of a telephone was always and still is a civilized instrument, black in color, with a rotary dial, and attached by a cord to the wall. Taking pictures with it was, I admit, a somewhat outre and advanced idea. So I perused the Cassidy's.

The only one I was really interested in was a small portrait of Trillian Stars treated to look like a Rembrandt self- portrait, with lots of dark background and a dim halo. Unfortunately, Mario del Buongiorno had already bet seven dollars on it, and after having laid out a Benjamin for the entrance fee I had only six singles left in my wallet. I asked where Cassidy was, and Mario said he had been there, sporting some sort of flouncy French cuffs, but had soon slunk away out of embarrassment, not wanting to be seen in public with his ouevre, such as it was.

So I wandered back into the main studio where a musical entertainment was about to commence. I sank down into one of the plush comfy chairs, picked a few cat hairs off the arm and proceeded to itch like the dickens. But my attention was immediately drawn to the chanteuse, a mournful looking young woman dressed all in black, holding an acoustic guitar which she seemed to have spray-painted a matte black. She was introduced as "Nicki Jaine."

To my incredulity her first song began with the words "I sold my soul..." after which she launched into an extended arpeggio and, I fancied, looked directly in my direction.

"Good heavens!" I thought. "Can it be that she's already seen my new poetry collection, "I sold my soul to a big-breasted girl", and has put my title poem to music????!!!!"

Of course she hadn't. She continued in a dark contralto "I sold my soul for a trip to the moon...."

Then she did a most remarkable thing -- took out a saw and a fiddle bow and played "Somewhere Over the Rainbow." I was quite agog, never having heard that particular piece performed on a saw before. Really just the sort of thing that would have gone over well at the Curio Theatre Gong Show.

But then she took up her guitar again and sang some dark songs, including one in German which I very much enjoyed. It was titled "Ich Bin Von Kopf Bis Fuß Auf Liebe Eingestellt", or "My foot is in my mouth, all for the love of you." All in all, a nice act.

Then another slim young woman named Julia Horn took the stage and performed an elaborate dance in her skivvies. The announcer said that she had been studying yoga for "many, many years", which barely seemed possible as she appeared to be about 14 years old and as remarkably flexible as one of those underage Chinese gymnasts who caused such a ruckus the other year at the Peking Olympics.

She busted out some incredible and really horrifying moves, touching the sole of her feet to the crown of her head, and I was afraid at points that she was going to dislocate something. I have to admit that some of her *battements* put me in mind of the Viennese Oyster -- I'm ashamed to admit that it brought out the Humbert Humbert in me, and I had to look away.

Stephen Fisher has forever been trying to get me to try Yoga at his studio, but I'm afraid that until they introduce a special class for geriatrics that's not going to happen. Speaking of other geriatrics, Margie Politzer was there. I've met Margie often at other UC Village events and always thought she was a quiet retired schoolteacher from Queens, living out her life with a substantial pension in a houseful of cats, but it turns out she's a travel photographer, just back from such lively places as Colombia and Oaxaca, and will be presenting a show at Studio 34 on June 6. Just goes to show that one never knows how the other half lives.

All in all a pleasant evening, except that on the way out I fell down the stairs and fractured my fibula. Fortunately the special City Kitties Emergency Ambulance was waiting at the curb (I suspect for just such an eventuality) and they rushed me to the Penn Vet who fixed me up for a modest fee of ninety-five thousand dollars and change. When I finally got home I noticed that the bouncer had implanted the Mark of the Black Cat on the back of my hand. Hopefully I can scrub it off before anyone notices.

--Ross Bender