And Renee Ricard hides in his room. If Sienna had waited until the holidays to stop by maybe she could have caught the slug fest that went down in the lobby between Renee and The Painter.
Sienna wants to hear Edie's voice and has been told that the brilliant artist René Ricard might have rare film footage he shot back in the day. Sienna is familiar with the hotel: Her father's guru still has a practice on the seventh floor.
I take Sienna behind the front desk and introduce her to the legendary proprietor, Stanley Bard. "You look like Edie," Bard says delightedly. "What was she like?" she asks. Bard shrugs. "When she wasn't using, she was fine. But she was a drug addict. I remember Nico, I remember Ultra Violet.… It was like a cult." He directs us to Edie's old place on the first floor. "It probably hasn't changed since she left," he says, and he may well be right. Sienna, squinting as she surveys the room, says, "This is where she had the fire. This is where she crawled on her hands and knees." Back at the front desk, she asks Bard what caused the fire. "Candles and cigarettes," he says with the stoicism of one who has endured more than a few youthquakers in his time. "The usual."
René Ricard, meanwhile, is not answering his phone. Nevertheless, the consensus is that he's: a) upstairs and b) too volatile to be approached directly by Sienna. "You can't go up there," Bard says. "He's paranoid." He turns to a passing hotel resident. "This is the girl who's going to play Edie," he says. "Can you take her up to see René?" The tenant edges toward the elevator. "No, man, I just got back from Europe today. I can't. He's crazy." I ask another. "Don't ruin my day," he replies. "He's crazy." Finally, another painter—a young Texan in a cowboy hat who sits all night in the lobby working on a picture of the lobby—strides over and says to Sienna, "I'll take you up, ma'am. I can do this."
We go up to Ricard's floor. "Stay here," the cowboy says. We sit on a bench near the elevator and watch him disappear behind a corner in the hallway. We hear hammering on a door. Then we hear kicking of cowboy boot against door. Then we hear hammering, kicking, and yelling all at the same time: "Reneee!" The cowboy returns. "He's not in. Or he's not answering." (Cowboy, otherwise known as guy who paints in the lobby, I know you read the blog, send us your comments. Or, what about some of the other Chelsea folks who participated.)
"I love this place," Sienna says. "I want to stay here."
(Source: Blogger NYLove, courtesy of Vogue, Jan 06)
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