losangeles – The Waiting Room Project

Mentally Healthy

RakefetwaitingMH — Edelman Mental Health Center, L.A. County. May 2017 ©2017 Rakefet Abergel

Here’s another guest photo from one of our regular contributors. I don’t have the story of why she was at the Mental Health Center, she is one of the mentally healthiest people I know. Maybe she was waiting for a friend. Notice how the fence outside the window is set up to keep people in. Hmmm.

Having other folks send me photos brings new perspectives to the Project that I truly appreciate. Thus far we have 6 outside contributors and are always looking for more. Please email me via the link with your shots of waiting, or if you have any philosophical commentary on waiting or any of the photos, please feel free to leave a comment. The Waiting Room Project belongs to all of us. Remember, “They also serve who only stand (or sit) and wait.”

Less to Dress

Commerce

Waiting_select_180 — Ross Dress for Less, West Los Angeles. April 2014

Not much to say here. Other than the expected crowd never materialized. Looks like a waiting line at Disneyland without the fun. This particular store was pretty bleak-half empty shelves, half-empty store. I don’t think we even bought anything, there wasn’t much to buy. But I love the photo.

Kaiser Medical Center, WLA

Medical

Kaiser Medical Center, West Los Angeles. February 2014

Kaiser Medical Center, West Los Angeles, February 2014

I had taken my mom to Kaiser for some tests before a minor procedure she was having. While she waited, I prowled the halls looking for some of the multitude of waiting areas found in any hospital. These are two of the most interesting photos.

The West LA medical center is huge. Several buildings cluster around a central courtyard: the main hospital, medical offices, gift shop, cafeteria, parking structure – all the usual suspects. More buildings lurk behind the main wing. It serves thousands of people daily many of whom will wait in these rooms, or ones just like them.

Stanley Kubrick at LACMA

Culture, People Waiting

Waiting_select_071 — LACMA, Los Angeles. June 2013

Jake, Terry, and I want to the L.A. County Museum of Art one fine June day to see the Stanley Kubrick exhibit. We were sitting at one of the cafe tables having coffee waiting for our alloted time when I snapped this photo. The exhibit was fabulous. Memorabilia, equipment, scripts, letters, props, production sketches, stills, and notes from every film he directed, some projects that never came to fruition, and photos from the beginning of his career as a young photographer for Life magazine. We spent an engaging couple of hours exploring the intricacies of his thought process and visual style. I learned about a his early films, read letters he wrote to some self-righteous clergymen about Lolita, saw a wonderful miniature model of the War Room from Dr. Strangelove, special lenses he used, and a wealth of other fascinating exhibits.

I took this photo of Jake through one of the lenses Kubrick used during the filming of LensJake 2001: A Space Odyssey, that ended up on Jake’s Facebook page as his profile picture. It is still there as his page has been “memorialized” by FB which means existing friends can still post to it – no new people can be added – and presumably will be up for as long as Facebook exists. His friends post messages to him from time to time and I occasionally put up things I think he would have enjoyed. Somehow it helps keep his spirit alive. For whatever reasons, I haven’t been back to LACMA since that day.

A Symmetry of Chairs

Doctor's Office, Waiting for Jake

Waiting_select_053 — Doctor’s Office, Pacific Palisades. May 2013

This is the waiting room of the doctor who Jake was seeing, down the hall from the previous post. Aside from my new-found preoccupation with waiting rooms, the absolute symmetry of this room demanded a photo. Since I was the only one in the room, I had the luxury of taking several pictures until I achieved the perfect framing. The room was brightly lit and the chairs were uncomfortable. I guess this doctor had better time management so his patients wouldn’t have to wait too long. Good thing. They were so uncomfortable, I got up and wandered the halls discovering the photo in the previous post. They could go as a set, I suppose.