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Autograph Hound


                                                                     Photo courtesy of the author

On Friday, my husband and I went to the Wexner Center to see the Todd Oldham exhibit (if you have the time and means, I’d highly recommend seeing it before it closes on April 15). With the café open, we decided to fuel up before embarking on the exhibit. Just as I was about to chose a table, I saw John Waters (yes, that John Waters), sitting by himself with a shopping bag from the gift shop, with two books (one of R. Crumb, not a shocker there), doing what so many people do these days – staring at his phone. I sat at the closest table and then wondered what to do. Could I approach? Should I? And say what?

I not very subtly took out my own phone and snapped a picture of him just as, what I believe was, his assistant joined him. My husband joined me, as I whispered to him about who was at our nearby table. Ultimately I decided that since I couldn’t think of anything interesting or intelligent to say at the time, my gift to him for all the years of enjoyment of his work would be to leave him in peace. There did appear to be some concern of arranging their ride to pick them up and get them to the airport before traffic got heavy, so peace was probably the best course of action. Still, I’m annoyed with myself, losing out on a potential opportunity.

I did my best to convince myself at the time that what would I do with an autograph if I’d asked for it. After all, I’ve been trying to get rid of a lot of the accumulated clutter in our house. I did post on social media an autograph of Neil Gaiman’s, along with his new book, after hearing him speak at a recent library event, but he’d pre-signed all 2,000 books. In fact, hearing that he’d gone to that much trouble, and knowing I didn’t have the book yet, was what caused me to go buy it before leaving. The few times I have waited in line at symphony events for autographs, like for Philip Glass, I was so overwhelmed all I could say was “thank you.”

Other than photographing and posting the item to social media, there really isn’t much to do with it. It’s not like adults have show and tell. And what would it prove anyway? It’s not like we’re friends.

If I’d been a little quicker and a vastly different personality I might have asked Waters, while filming him on my phone, what he thought of Grey Gardens, which my documentary theory class had recently discussed (only one female student in the class liked it, with one male student claiming he was close to walking out). I had thought of John Waters during this second viewing of the film (for me), thinking how similar to his own fictional characters these real women in that documentary were. Now I’m more annoyed with myself.

I heard he would be having an upcoming show at the Wexner, so maybe there’ll be another chance encounter.


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