I'm just getting around to reading some older stuff I had saved. I was reading Jerry Saltz's review of the East Village show at the New Museum, and I have a couple of favorite quotes to share:

For a time the East Village was the art world's duodenum—no matter how it came out, almost everything passed through it.

...

As with so many others, the East Village was my last chance; probably it was my only chance. I badly wanted to be part of the Soho art world, but it was too codified for a nonperson to get any traction. That scene essentially had 18 artists, eight dealers, seven collectors, and six critics; and I, like almost everyone else in the EV, wasn't one of them. The East Village was a place where just being around or staying up late seemed to confer status on those who couldn't get arrested otherwise.

James and I feel a bit like Jerry in that second quote. Merely by hanging out and seeing lots of art, we have achieved a kind of "status" we couldn't have imagined would come from being art fans.