Photographing Everything

W

andering around back streets is one of my things. Often I do that on my way to someplace else. That’s what happened this time.

I was walking to my car from the arts district on Julia Street after White Linen Night, an event in which most of the crowd dresses in white clothes in the heat and humidity of later August and wanders from gallery to gallery. Most of them are drunk.

You see a number of the art fans walking around in their white clothes with big splotches of red on them. That happened after somebody elbowed them and knocked their wine all over their crispy clothes. The elbowing was accidental. Drinking red wine was not.

That’s the gallery’s fault. Free wine and beer is free wine and beer.

Anyway.

The chair. It was left on a loading dock for a building that is now lofts after being a manufacturing plant. It’s hip. The chair is not. The chair looks like a hotel chair that was either stolen or thrown away.

Stealing it would be a good trick. Imagine getting off the elevator in the lobby carrying it. “Sir, where are you going with that chair?” “To my car.” That sounds like something I would do. Once, during a long tour we brought the tour poodle with us. I was walking through the lobby to the elevator when I heard, “Sir, you can’t bring a dog into the hotel.” “This isn’t a dog.”

Context matters. I knew something the desk manager didn’t know. I had already discussed it with senior management and they gave their approval. Of course, they wanted a non-refundable deposit. I spent most of the night telling him to pee on the carpet. He wouldn’t. He’s good dog. He walked to the door when he need to go out. At three o’clock in the morning.

And, that’s the story.

Of the chair.