LUCIA

Lucia: "Lonelyboy! I am a big fan! In fact, I asked Alessandra to send you to secret lunch with me so I could invite you to join this summer's group of artists in residence at the Italian Arts and Letters Institute, in Rome."
Dan: "Roth! And Mailer!"

Ugh. Of course. Just of course.

Lucia: "Yeah, and also Sontag, DeLillo, and Ondaatje."
Dan: "I pretend to have read those people but I have not read those people. Mostly because I wasn't born in the mid-'70s like the person that wrote this, and wouldn't have been force-fed DeLillo and Ondaatje in '90s liberal arts college as a result."
Lucia: "Sontag?"
Dan: (A blank, yet somehow doleful, silent stare.)
Lucia: "I'm just saying, diversity is important."
Dan: "And I'm just saying, self-mythologizing white guy whines, constant masturbation and the enlightened mistreatment of women covers my entire oeuvre. When do we leave?"
Lucia: "Immediately after our pranzo d'affari."
Dan: "Great! But wait, my girlfriend is getting a new personality together and I should really be here to supervise..."
Lucia: "Mailer and Roth, huh?"

EMPIRE

Lola: "So the backwards trail of Diana's existence ends up at when she first bought that party house in LA, where she fucked you on the floor..."
Nate: "I kind of remember that."
Serena: "Hey, just walked right the hell in like usual. Listen, sorry I couldn't find that codebook, but I was thinking if I could just steal the other book it might jog my memory."
Nate: "Chuck has it, over at Blair's."
Chair: "No, we're here too. Hi, Serena. Hi, other one. Jenny? No. Vanessa? No..."
Lola: "-- It's Lola. We've been through this."
Blair: "I've done some preliminary codebreaking, but without the advent of software in our parallel universe we're going to have to rely on Nate for the next step..."
Nate: "Yay! I love to help."
Blair: "...Which is too bad, because he is retarded."
Nate: "Aw."

DAIR

Blair: "Hey, what's up?"
Dan: "I've been invited to the Institute of Arts and Letters' summer artists' retreat!"
Blair: "That's amazing! I'm so proud of you! And supportive, like an adult might be."
Dan: "Yeah, but I have to crap all over it anyway."
Blair: "Okay, well, do what you're going to do, I guess."
Dan: "Wait, are you rudely talking on your phone in a museum?"
Blair: "Uh, no. I'm at Chuck's."
Dan: "Okay, I have to go throw a weird fit about that now for no reason."
Blair: "Again, do what you gotta do. I'm busy."