If You Build It, Treasure Hunters Will Come

People like the Christo and Jean-Claude, the artists behind the Central Park Gates, are endlessly fascinating to me. They first conceived of the idea of blanketing the walkways of the park with large arches of saffron fabric in 1979, and despite two decades of people wondering quizzically, “you want to do what?!” they stuck with it. They funded the massive $20 million installation completely by themselves, and they oversaw every aspect of its installation.

Last weekend Ana and I made the trip to New York to visit my best friend Dan and check out the much-heralded Gates. The last thing I want to do is give you some mental masturbation about what they mean, what they truly say about the human existence. But I can make two observations: On a cold gray February day, the kind of dreary day when most people would rather be watching Desperate Housewives, these ginormous structures had brought people out to the park in droves. They were sledding, jogging, and in at least one case, forming a search party of 13 to look for treasure tokens.

My second observation, having seen the aerial photographs and first-person perspective, is that the Gates seemed to act as a kind of orange highlighter, tracing every single pathway of the park. I’m not sure if this is what the artists intended, but it sure is an interesting way to pay tribute to the expansive landscaping that comprises Central Park.

If given the opportunity to ask Christo and Jean-Claude one question, though, it wouldn’t be about orange highlighters. No, what I want know is, How on earth do you harness obsessive compulsiveness in such a productive way?

In my experience, having a compulsive personality means indulging in lots of bad habits on the sly. The urge to make a pinky-finger pick, especially when no one is looking, is just too hard to resist. Without the yellow gook known as “No Bite” on my fingernails, I just can’t stop myself from taking a nibble. And of course, when Ana goes to bed, my hands unconsciously reach for “A Treasure’s Trove.”

Sometimes, I confess, these bad habits have a way of bleeding into my encounters with other people. I find myself gnashing on a nail in an office conversation, or my finger rising inexorably towards my nose while driving with Ana. And, as was the case last Friday night, I whip out the book in a pitiful attempt to impress new friends.

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