all or nothing #29 - how do you say goodbye?
table of contents
1.events 2.words 3.missed connections 4.horoscope 5.listen
»current
ai means love by connie makita
new york city is cool and all, but it’s still just a little cluster of islands (kind of) with too many people on them. i guess it’s fun being surrounded by water and having some really tall buildings or whatever, but what actually makes the city cool is the people. and this exhibition really exemplifies that. with a series of intimate portraits, not only does the viewer get a glimpse into how Japanese culture is perceived, but they also get very unique insights to some fascinating individuals. the exhibition is on view at our 119 hester street spot until september 18th!
»looking back
passageways at SPRING/BREAK art fair
well, that happened. some say it can be real hard to say goodbye, but not us. and you know why? because of all the new friends we met on our little art fair vacation. it truly was a spring/break to remember. we painted, we nearly fainted, we cried, but we survived, we drank then gave thanks and, ultimately, took a big old step forward. we’ve never done an art fair before and, quite frankly, it was really scary but in the best way possible. thanks to everyone who came out and supported. it meant the world :)
words
+”i been looking for my baby for 3 days”+
does anyone really observe summer until its "official" end on september 21st? and what would that observation really even entail? like, other than being shirtless, sunburnt, and drunk on a sunday afternoon, summer is less of an actual practice and more of a conceptual mindset. like most people, i think summer ends right after labor day. there's one more big blowout to release all your warm weather demons and then you're back in the trenches of school. well, in theory, at least. if you're washed up, old, and just reaching your prime like me, though, then you haven't been in school for quite some time now and the summer didn't actually provide any pause other than seeing a bunch of other people somehow take pause, even though they work careers that operate 12 months a year. which then just leaves you with mad questions. the biggest of which is how the f*ck do all these galleries close in august??? rent in new york city is soooooooooooo expensive. like all those o's in that "so" correspond with the absurd number of zeroes paid for rent in nyc. yet not only can all these art people afford to close their galleries for at least a month, but they can also go on crazy vacations around europe, or island hop in locales their ancestors colonized. and, as a descendant of a colonized people, let me tell you, i take great offense seeing your carousel instagram posts frolicking through the crystal clear waters of my family's oppression. but, hey, who wants to be in new york in august? i know i don't. also f*ck the hamptons. long island still isn't cool just cause it has a chic nickname. if i'm going to spend multiple hours on a bus, i better be crossing state lines. also, i have a question for new yorkers: how is it a vacation to go to place where all your uppity judgmental neighbors also have a house and are still going to be there judging you? how is that an escape? if i feel like taking a break from the city, i'm not trying to go to a smaller microcosm of all of the city's worst sh*t. honestly, summer always just gives me anxiety. i've always felt like i was never doing enough to make "this summer" memorable. it's sort of like new year's. everyone hypes up the night and then you end up on a forever chase for an appropriately epic event for your expectations and, before you know it, you just end up at an overpriced bar or at a stranger's house surrounded by a bunch of other depressed people pretending to be happy or drunk enough to believe they actually are. maybe i'm projecting, but that's what i think summer is like as an adult. nothing changes once you're out of school. summer is just more time. and, honestly, with climate change ramping up, seasons aren't really even going to be a thing in a couple of years. we're just going to have too hot and too cold. and miss me with the seasons of my life sh*t, we get it. you manifest, you're mindful, good for you, but the rest of us are just wading through one phase of life: bullsh*t. and to jump ahead of the comments we won't get because no one seems to care enough to comment :( i understand seasons correspond with the earth's orbit, or the earth's axis tilting, or whatever the solstice/equinox is. but what's happening in the sky right now doesn't add zeroes to my bank account, or cure my depression that's unfortunately not seasonal. no, the sky continues doing its thing just as the earth keeps spinning and time keeps moving forward. so, in closing, goodbye, summer. even though, as we established, summer doesn't really exist, i'm still a little sad to say goodbye nonetheless. and my curmudgeonly attitude is just a mask for my sadness because it was actually a pretty good summer for us. well, other than the continued war, violence, and political turmoil around the world. but we live in new york, so we're fine. anyway, now that summer is over, it's time to break out your sweaters and pumpkin spice lattes because this autumn is going to be the most wholesome yet.
missed connections
+9.5 ai means love opening
You: undefinable, indescribable, a pure concept
Me: still looking for the right words
Description:
conversations overheard, the game of telephone translates the intention, words become puzzles and meanings become nothing, so where does that leave our love?
+9.6 spring/break art fair
You: said you wanted me
Me: still unwanted
Description:
mere inches separated us from a lifetime together. what could have been if you hadn’t been so damn precise.
+9.14 outersource reception
You: from venus
Me: from mars
Description
as the dim stars of our light-polluted city sky dully illuminated our faces, that sidewalk felt like outer space and you took me out of this world.
horoscopes
+Aries+
a wave can be a beginning or an end, depending on how you look at it. either it can destroy the sandcastle you’ve been working on for a lifetime, or provide you a blank canvas to create a new one.
+Taurus+
saying nothing is not the same as saying goodbye, but sometimes it says so much more.
+Gemini+
shhhhhhhhhhh! it’s okay. you don’t need to say a word. we’re all already thinking it. just let this moment sit and wash over us. let us be here, now, together. one mind. one body. one spirit. a collective consciousness. thinking everything and everywhere and everyone all at once. if you think hard enough, it will be so. at least i think so. you don’t think so? well, i guess there’s only one way to find out. guess what i’m thinking. is it the same thing that you’re thinking? or did my suggestion of telling you what to think morph your thought process enough to think only about what you’ve been instructed to think about. perhaps there’s no way to know or identify the origin of thought. and really it’s an arbitrary distinction between planted and original thought. ultimately, all thoughts are equal, no? do we not believe in equal thoughts now? and is that even really your opinion, or someone else’s? it’s a genuine question, but i guess you’ll never answer. not because you don’t want to, but because none of us can. come to think about it, silence is the only true form of communication. through silence, there is no power of suggestion or influence, only base, core feelings. communicating that silence is truly the challenge, though. because what exists in the absence of sound? it’s almost like a scientific formula to be solved in figuring out how to externalize the internal without speaking. and perhaps the only way we’ve truly achieved such a feat is through saying goodbye. because everyone knows when it’s time to say goodbye.
+Cancer+
there’s a million ways to say goodbye, so choose one and stick to it.
+Leo+
see you later. it sounds airy and fun, but what if later never comes? optimism sometimes can be the only thing to keep us from drowning in despair, buoying you and breaking the surface of a dark cold sea of solitude; realism is the tether to the earth that allows you to find that true balance and not float away to the heavens in a hot air balloon of fluff. so, if we’re being honest with ourselves, it may be “see you never,” but don’t fret, there’s beauty in the finite, too.
+Virgo+
in many languages, goodbye also means hello. so, when you say goodbye, what is it you’re trying to say?
+Libra+
sometimes a good try is just as important as a goodbye, so bid farewell to right and wrong and say hello to fighting on.
+Scorpio+
a famous Canadian once said, “i said that we could kiss the past goodbye, but you weren't excited.” you see, in this instance, he was excited for a potential future with a prospective mate, but they were less interested and their excitement was insufficient for the famous Canadian, and that made him sad, but, in actuality, he made the mistake of expecting anything in return to his sweet, sweet words.
+Sagittarius+
gracefully ending a conversation is a skill that you must cultivate over the next couple of weeks.
+Capricorn+
can endings ever be happy? i’m not sure. but anything that lasts forever will eventually sour. so while actual endings may not be happy, they might just be necessary. only through the perspective of an end can you appreciate what came before.
+Aquarius+
you cry when you’re sad, you cry when you’re happy, you cry when you yawn, you cry when you smell onions. what’s the correlation? you.
+Pisces+
say goodbye to everything you love.
playlist
+Send us your writing, ideas, notes, observations or anything you want to gallery@allstnyc.com to be considered for future editions of all or nothing+
image credits
artworks by aleksandra dougal from her exhibition, passageways, which was on view at spring/break 2024 from september 4-9