After the opening [for Doug Aitken’s latest art book, Write-In Jerry Brown President], a group of us caravanned to Lucques for the gallery dinner. Anderson regaled her tablemates over plates of salted cod and lamb-shank with tales of her genius preteen son, apparently being “recruited by the Pentagon.” Pamela Anderson dominated Richard Prince throughout the dinner, though she wasn’t the only power-player at the table. Wherever Prince is, Larry Gagosian isn’t far behind.
Left: Dealer Stellan Holm with musician Anthony Kiedis. Right: Writers James Frey and Bret Easton Ellis.
Bret Easton Ellis finally broke from his seat, bookended by Anderson and James Frey, to join editor Karen Marta and me over a couple of glasses of wine. Ellis’s latest tale of ’80s hedonistic excess, The Informers, premiered at Sundance days before amid some controversy, a topic that seemed to bore Ellis to no end. He was much more excited about his most recent project, a screenplay on the mysterious suicides of Jeremy Blake and Theresa Duncan, two onetime Angelenos who died in New York. Having recently said goodbye to all that to return to the West Coast, he still seemed to be suffering ennui. “I moved back and live here now permanently,” he said, looking askance at the glamorama crowd. “But somehow I thought it would be different.”