Stories

Originally Posted Sunday, November 16, 2014

A perfect Saturday, me with a bum knee.  Put me in a wheelchair and roll me around.  This not being "whole" at this time of the year is frustrating.  I want a speedier recovery.  Yesterday, I just wanted to play, so after a morning at home, I met up with a friend.  I needed to take my car to Costco to get a tire plugged and the tires rotated and balanced.  It would take them all day.  We dropped the car, then she took me to the gym, my hometown YMCA. 

"If any of the women are wearing tights, they will be black," I said. 

"What?" 

"I was just thinking.  I'll bet." 

My friend had on some wild tights like Spiderman on acid. 

"I'm just saying." 

It was true, of course.  I had never thought about it before, but I needn't have.  It is the way in my hometown.  Nothing garish, everything elegantly understated.  Unless it is Versace, of course.  But one does not wear Versace to the gym here.  It is neither right nor wrong.  It is just the semiotics of dress.  There are unwritten codes everywhere.  Where my friend lives, clothes announce your existence in another way. 

My friend went through my wimpy "welcome back to the gym" workout with me.  When we had finished the weight lifting portion, she pointed to a woman on a treadmill in some Spiderman tights. 

"Uh-huh," I said.  "Scholarship.  Wait 'til she gets off and look at her.  You will see.  She's not part of "the crowd." 

The woman stands out like a sore thumb.  She looks like one of the waitresses in that old "Mel's Diner" t.v. show, chewing gum, sort of a dull look in her eyes. 

O.K.  I'm being purposely awful to make a point. 

Later, we went to lunch on the Boulevard.  Saturday.  The Carnivale Cruise Line had dropped off its weekend crowd, but we schlepped into my favorite lunching bar for Wahoo Rubens and white Sangria.  My friend looked super cool. 

"You don't like my tights?" she asked me. 

"No.  But that doesn't mean anything.  I always look like a bum.  It doesn't matter if I like them or not.  Don't quit wearing them because of me.  What do I know.  You know why they wear black, though, don't you?"

"It makes them look smaller." 

"Right.  That's part of it.  The other part is that it is the 'code.'  It is like a gang member wearing colors.  It makes you part of 'the thing.'" 

After lunch, we went to a newish photo gallery in town.  We have tried to go three other times, but it has always been closed for something or other.  I have been directed there by one of my REAL artist friends and by another gallery curator to meet the owner who puts on some major shows here and in Miami.  When we pulled up, my friend said, "Jesus Christ, it's closed."  It looked like it, but then I saw some lights inside.  The front door opened.  "Finally," she said walking in. 

Oh, my.  I lost my breath.  The place was beautiful, the work overwhelming.  The show was called "Identity," and the walls were hung with some major photographers from around the world.  Several of the Chinese photographers' work were like a punch in the gut, big, brilliant. . . beautiful. 

"I'm not going to show here," I told my friend. 

"Why not?"

"Look at this!  This work is powerful.  This guy isn't going to show local artists.  Why would he?  It wouldn't add to the gallery's reputation at all.  Just the opposite."

"I like your work better," she said as if she were objective.

"Yea, well. . . ." 

The owner was engaged in conversation with another fellow while we strolled around.  When we were finished, I tossed a "thank you" his way and started to turn for the door. 

"Are you two from New York," he asked?

Odd, I thought, but my friend looked particularly cool, as I said.  She wore a felt hat and had nailed a look, I thought.  At least it knocked me out. 

"She is," I said, "or should be."  Thus started the conversation.  The gallery owner is from L.A. as was the fellow he was talking to.  I told him how wonderful his gallery was, how strong the work.  Now comes the part where you will be incredulous, I know.  You will say I am making most of this up, but it happens to me often enough so that I am not surprised, and yesterday it happened again. 

"Are you an artist?" he asked. 

"No." 

"Yes, he is.  He's a photographer." 

Later my friend told me she had never seen me nervous before.  "I thought you were going to shit yourself," she said. 

"I wasn't nervous." 

"Yes you were.  I loved seeing that." 

Sure she did.  But it was she who asked, "Do you ever show local artists?"  She wanted to bring some of my stuff around, she said.  Talk talk talk.  He asked what sort of work I did.  Had I shown?  I should bring some around next week. 

I don't know if he will like my work or not.  I doubt that I will get into the gallery.  But that isn't the point of my story, really.  It is about those tights, sort of, or rather about the semiotics of dress.  She looked like she belonged in that gallery that Saturday afternoon.  She looked like the girl you wanted to know.  There would have been no conversation about my photography if she had looked. . . differently. 

She had put an exclamation point on my comments about the way she looked at the gym.  Nailed the coffin shut. 

It is always like that, though.  When I was dating the child who would become a major NYC fashion editor, I had written in my journal that she overestimated herself, that she was just a chubby redneck with too much confidence and not enough awareness.  She likes to remind me of that now. 

All of this, however, is simply to make a point about something, simply, really, to justify my buying the leather chairs, the antique watches. . . whatever.  Whether it is interior design or sartorial choices, everything's a language.  Everything tells a story.  It is important, I think, what stories we tell.  And it is hard being a good story teller. 

Whether the gallery wants my work or not. . . well, you'll be the first to know.