My Friend Serge

People often ask where the name "Atrios" comes from and I generally don't bother to tell the story - I think I did on the blog somewhere once before - as it's complicated to explain without any real payoff. But, basically, I needed a fake name to use on the internets and as I was into obscure references at the time I just grabbed the first obscure reference I could think of, though this one was obscure enough that I couldn't remember it right and couldn't find it on the primitive internet to check. So Atrios it was even though the name I was reaching for was "Antrios." Probably for the best, as I think Atrios sounds a bit better, but there you go.

Antrios is an unseen character in the play Art, by Yasmina Reza, who is the artist responsible for creating the painting which is at the center of the play. It's a painting which is white on white, basically blank, and one of the characters, Serge, purchases it for a large sum of money. This purchase drives his friend a bit crazy - he's horrified by such a ridiculous purchase - and it threatens to break up the friendship of the group of three characters in the play. Much merriment ensues.

As a bunch of old white unelected guys can't handle the fact that things are passing them by, I was reminded of the final bit of the play, spoken by the angered friend Marc who comes to accept the painting:

Under the white clouds, snow is falling.
You can't see the white clouds, or the snow.
Or the cold, or the white glow of the earth.
A solitary man glides downhill on his skis.
The snow is falling.
It falls until the man disappears back into the
landscape.
My friend Serge, who's one of my oldest friends,
has bought a painting.
It's a canvas about five feet by four.
It represents a man who moves across a space
then disappears.