Who’s Your Page 30 Guy #100DaysofSummer

By notoriouslysinglegirl, August 4, 2024

I don’t think about art when I’m working. I try to think about life.

-Jean Michel Basquiat

“Grab the nearesttttttttty book around you. Turn to page 30. That’s what your love life is like right now.”

On one of my “doom scroll” TikTok days, I ran across this challenge. I have a stack of library books on my table that are way over due . Yes, I go to the library. Actually, I go to many libraries. I’ve got a sort of library fetish.

The first book on my table that I grabbed for the “turn to page 30 challenge,” was Widow Basquiat, A Love Story by Jennifer Clement. It’s a book that was recommended to me by my Padwan.

The book was published in 2014. The library had to order it for me from a different branch. And I had to wait a couple weeks for it to be available.

Widow Basquiat takes place in New York City circa 1980. A wild place. A hot bed for creativity and hip hop culture. Thats when Jean Michel Basquiat became an avant- garde street artist and painter swiftly achieving worldwide and now eternal fame. At the age of 27 before his death, Jean-Michel spent his life with his lover and muse Suzanne Mallouk.

The book is an excellent read that transports you back to the 1980’s as you see Susanne’s life start to unfold before that fatal moment on page 30 when she meets Jean-Michel. Jennifer Clement does an amazing job with her poetry and prose. She makes you feel like you are actually living Suzanne Mallouk’s life.

It’s like you are literally a fly on the wall watching Suzanne grow up through her abusive father who was a painter. Though not an artistic one, more of a blue collar guy who painted walls for a living.

And then she meets Jean -Michel Basquiat in New York. Their journey together is tumultuous. Full of drug induced love drama. And a bit of rage.

As I was reading Widow Basquiat, I loved Susanne because no matter what happened to her, she got back on her feet and figured out something new. She was a bartender, a drug dealer, a painter with a million dollar art show, and of course she was Jean Michel’s muse.

It’s true, Jean Michel Basquiat cheated on Suzanne with Madonna, Debbie Harry and so many other people. However, Suzanne and Jean-Michel always found their way back to each other. And their relationship was kinda like two black holes colliding.

One of my favorite parts of the book was when Suzanne’s mother stole a pair of her big Jackie ONasis sunglasses. I found that part incredibly relatable with my own mother. and also the ending when Jean-Michel passed away and Suzanne chooses to go to medical school and become a psychiatrist.

The story reminds me of a conversation I once had with a young 26 yr old hairdresser. Her boyfriend had passed away a year earlier from crashing into a wall with his car. He was a reckless kinda guy living life to his fullest. He died at 27 yrs old just like Basquiat.

After his death the hairdresser fought the city council to change the street signs where his crash occurred. She also didn’t think the police investigated the crash appropriately. She was inspired to go to college and study forensics.

Page 30

Page 30 is perfectly titled Jean-Michel Basquiat. “He smells of leather, oil paint, tobacco, marijuana and the faint metallic smell of cocaine” starts off the prose that explains to us who Jean -Michel is. Just reading the words we can start to see him take form in front of our eyes like a hologram of sorts.

I love how Jean-Michel can not get a cab to stop in New York. Even while wearing Armani suits and with five thousand dollars in his pockets. He needs Suzanne to hail him a cab.

This reminds me of when I once wrote a story where my protagonist fell in a Nordstrom’s shoe department while she was trying on a pair of red six inch Christian Lou Boutains. She falls and hits her head. SHe’s rendered unconscious. When she opens her eyes she sees a man with blue eyes, bearded, smelling of musk and stale cigarettes. He’s asking her if she’s ok. He’s got an accent French, Portuguese, Spanish? She really can’t place where the accent is from. Then he just disappears.

The guy in my story actually manifested as a real person. He did have a quite peculiar accent that I would have never placed unless he told me where he was from. I read him the story I wrote and he said “that’s me!” I guess you can say he’s my page 30 guy who much like Jean-Michel, inspired me to create a magazine.

And yes he keeps coming back. he needs me for something. Probably not for hailing a cab. It must be for something more.

Try the experiment. Pull out a book and turn to page 30. Is that what you’re love life looks like ?