An outwardly interested guy had approached me in the locker room one recent evening at the gym. I had noticed him on previous occasions checking me out. In an Italian accent he asked me what kind of athlete I was and went on to elaborate on how he admired my muscle tone. I smiled and thanked him for the compliment as I continued dressing. After a lot of small talk, I understand Giacomo is some kind of celebrity massage therapist. He mentions that he had the pleasure of befriending the actress Tilda Swinton some nights ago. When he found out I was a fan, he took pleasure in describing how even more beautiful she is in person. How he massaged her and how hard her inner muscles were, (because she rock climbs). He went on about the fairness of her skin and radiant complexion. The bigness of her glowing green eyes. With his hands gesturing in front of his forehead, he showed how tall she was and illustrated her thinness with his pinky in an upward vertical position.
I had been reminded of her arresting beauty when seeing "Sleepwalkers," the late video work by the artist Doug Aitken installed in the courtyard at the MoMA some weeks ago.
Giacomo wrote down his email and info on a piece of paper and told me to contact him the next time I go to Italy. He conveniently added that Tilda will be visiting him this summer in Tuscany while working on a film in Liguria, and that I should come too.
The next day when I got to the gym, I was handed an envelope left for me at the front desk. In it were two photos of Giacomo with Tilda cheek to cheek.
In case you missed it, "Sleepwalkers" played on a concept of six degrees of separation. Projected on four separate walls, it portrayed the lives of five individual New Yorkers in isolated daily routines, sharing the same city and time of day but never crossing paths. Witnessed through a lens of slick superficiality, "Sleepwalkers" utilized celebrity beauty and architecture to depict simple serendipitous moments. Also appearing in the work was the Brazilian singer/songwriter Seu Jorge, Donald Sutherland, Cat Powers and Ryan Donowho.
