I went to a wine store and all I got...
The real art was the balloons we sculpted along the way.
There’s a wine store around the corner that my roommates and I hate. Their selection never changes, and it’s mid anyway, while the people who work there—one woman in particular—are so unwelcoming it’s genuinely confusing. All three of us have been personally victimized by this woman for the mere crime of asking for a dry red. God forbid a customer requests a bottle of wine under $20.
Anyway, it was Saturday night. My friend Nate’s birthday. We were all several drinks in and hoping to swim deeper. Our preferred wine store was two blocks in the wrong direction, and it was cold.
So we stopped in, hopes and expectations low, but determined to make the best of it.
And what do we find but a full blown party, complete with a DJ, colored lights, red velvet ropes and a singular pair of gold stanchions, and a clown.1
Why their new “luxury wines” shelf needed such a celebration, I don’t know. Why a clown was an appropriate way to celebrate, I can only guess. But we did leave richer than we arrived, because we got the wine (mid), and we got balloon animals.
The rest of the night went as they often do: board games, a passionate argument about whether my unripe bananas are actually plantains (they aren’t), the finale of The Traitors, and some casual substance abuse. It wasn’t until the end of the night, when only Nate and I were left standing, that we realized the enormity of the gift we had been given.
Behold: Hector.
Where do I begin?
His creation was totally spontaneous and totally anonymous. Which one of us decided to arrange him, we’ll never know. And yet the piece is rife with symbolism and meaning that only deepens the more you look at it, the more angles you view.
We spent two hours that night analyzing and dissecting Hector.
His phallic nature, the heart trailing strands of DNA. The primary colors. His placement in the bowl, right above more phallic symbols: the (unripe) bananas and the onions. The way Hector could be a metaphor for love and sex, or an ad for heart disease. His temporary, ethereal nature. The overwhelming, clownish menace of it all.
To me, Hector is the perfect modern art piece.
A group effort.
Accidental, surprising, thought-provoking. Silly and layered.
Only possible because we took a different turn than we usually do and found ourselves in the middle of something totally surreal.
Given to us freely, shared amongst friends.
He still stands on the butcher’s block, inscrutable, deflating a little but no less dominating, a pop of color and mystery in a dreary winter world.
So that was my weekend. How was yours?
An actual clown, not the woman who judges us for buying cheap wine.