The First Friday Art Opening Shuffle

The 'Gallery Owner is Independently Wealthy' Gallery

∞ Artist: Pungent academic who thinks too much about the crisis of post modernism.

☻Free stuff? Copious wine but no snacks (in order to loosen your inhibitions about buying the painting, "Not Again Mommy.")

♥ Hook up potential: Middling. Hard to distinguish downtown alley cat from uptown prickly prig.

► Representative quote: "Five years ago you could have bought her for 50 dollars and a meatloaf special."

The 'We Actually Try to Make Money' Gallery

∞ Artist: Insanely productive Slav desperately attempting to pay the rent with terrifying landscapes in acrylic.

☻Free stuff? Wine, snacks and match books with the gallery's info (quickly devoured by chain smoking, chain drinking friends of the artist.)

♥ Hook up potential: Above average. But avoid making out by the meatpacking plant next door.

► Representative Quote: "He had to quit the whole 'biker gang meth thing' to concentrate on his painting."

The 'Hungry Freak Cooperative' Gallery

∞ Artist: 6 malnourished MFA's meditating on the theme of 'interorificial cranial penetration' in video and paint form.

☻Free stuff? Old Style in cans and a stolen craft-service deli tray. There is also a raffle for a piece of driftwood, on which is scrawled a tiny plea for help.

♥ Hook up potential: Pretty good. Chat up people who are entranced by the video installation of naked people wearing horse heads and slap fighting.

► Representative Quote: "Can you pitch in a couple bucks? We need to get more beer."

The 'Greasy Basement Industrial Factory' Gallery

∞ Artist: Sunlight deprived pot-head exploring the relationship between pneumatic nail guns and Pre-Raphaelite faeries with gossamer wings.

☻Free stuff? Scrounge for contraband consumed by furtive clusters in dark, dusty corners.

♥ Hook up potential: Very good. Grope slumming office workers by the slop-sink in back.

► Representative Quote: "The artist didn't leave his studio for three months. And there's no bathroom in there."

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