roebling hall

I could claim it was because of all the alcohol I had drank, not the least of which was a nice amount of Johnny Walker Blue Label, or I could claim that it was because I was with only one person instead of fifteen and was able to take things in - there are a lot of things that I could cite - but the truth of the matter is that this art was just so good that it could have no other effect than to strike me, to make me pause and feel something close to what I felt when stoned out of my mind the other night - disparate pieces joining, coming together, unifying, inchoate things stated, planets aligning.

At Roebling Hall, there is this installation piece by Robert Chambers, and this is the thing I am talking about, the thing that basically blew my mind. Sometimes you encounter things at the right moment, like say you are at a bar all night and things just aren't going your way, no one is noticing you and you wonder why it is you even bother, why you came out, and then there is that one boy, who, even in your depressed state, somehow notices something in you, or perhaps on the surface of you (if we were to be totally truthful), and smiles at you, and that smile at that time has more meaning than it would on some other night, a night when the world was yours and every boy smiled at you, this one just one amongst a crowd. And it was something similar, a matter of timing, the last thing seen in the night, and man, oh man, how amazing this room was.

Toward the front of the room is a light box projecting light onto the far end of the room, slowly shifting from reds to purples to whites, creating a nice atmospheric mood on the far wall, a wall on which in the middle hangs a spare wooden recliner, which stretched out as it is you notice how much the form resembles that of a human, the basic outlines, the shape, the same. And then the recliner starts to recline and shift, this occurring as the colors are still changing, and just as I would be hard pressed to tell you the amazing thoughts I had while stoned the other night, so too I would be hard pressed to even begin to try to tell you why I found this piece so affecting and what exactly it was that the movement of the chair, the spareness of the room, and the shifting of the light were able to inspire in me.

And then because, again, there was timing and not only that by the presence of a smiling cute boy, the presence of really good work hanging on gallery walls, I again was overwhelmed, this time by the photographs on display by Simon Lee of people on public transportation. I was incredibly happy and so happy to be there in this room with at least one person I cared about and potentially future ones, and was so happy to be at this point after my sour mood just a couple hours early, a sourness very well justified.

The sourness was brought on by picking up my laundry from the laundromat today, where I had had them wash it because I was too lazy to do it myself, and paid the price for that laziness, paid the price with my favorite pair of jeans in this generally sad world. The jeans I wear every single day, gray women's jeans bought from Forever 21, were not in the laundry I picked up from the laundromat. I went back and they were not there and I was so upset about it and still would be if I thought about it again, rehashed that mental state for the benefit of my diary, but I am not going to because I am feeling pretty good for the most part and Sally Shapiro is playing on my speakers, just as she has been nonstop for the past couple of days, and I love some things so much, my own self and my ability to do things with it, go here or there, and I might take myself somewhere with this sad music playing, might and probably will lie in my bed and think dirty thoughts about this person, that person, but more than anyone my own person.