The Book of Frank

A boy-meets-girl story from New York's seediest streets, Black's (Me and Kev) latest mocks the holy trinity of the art world-sex, drugs and pretension. Frank, a Manhattan civil servant turned homeless indigent, whose months-long silence has become ``an integral part of my performance piece,'' falls deeply in lust with Henry (real name Henrietta), a hipper-than-thou dilettante of the East Village art scene. In a bizarre mating ritual of public self-destruction, Frank woos her with violent happenings (``in protest of the boring stagnation taking place in the arts, in life, in our hearts'') that purport to expose fraudulence and elitism but whose real aim is to impress the girl. Yet what starts as a simple come-on becomes an ironic-if obvious-commentary on the rise of insincerity and the death of art, as Frank is anointed art's new savior by the very frauds he meant to expose. Henry, however, remains decidedly unimpressed. For all its insider knowledge of the art world replete with familiar East Village locations, bizarre cast of rock stars, witch doctors and drug addicts, The Book of Frank never breaks new ground. Black's witty observations, however accurate, are as predictable as the art he ostensibly satires. (Oct.)