While the gossip mill continues to swirl with word that Bono is buying the top two floors of artist Julian Schnabel's crazed pink tower on West 11th Street in the far West Village, we've got some big news today about the building: Julian has christened it! The thing is, no one seems to quite understand the name, which happens to be Palazzo Chupi. The Villager asked GVSHP's Andrew Berman for his translation:
"I have no idea what 'chupi' means, unless it means 'big, ugly building that never should have been built'. ? He's obviously trying to pretend that this looks somehow Florentine or Venetian, when, really, it looks like a Malibu Barbie house that exploded or something."In fact, it seems no one knows what Chupi means, and it appears in no Italian dictionaries. Which means now we know there's at least one more Schnabel inside joke we're never going to get.
· Bono, Chupi, and the Mysteries of Schnabel's 'Hidden Palace' [The Villager]
· SchnabelWatch: Julian Schnabel Has Lost His Mind [Curbed]