If you live in Los Angeles and work in a news outlet, chances are you’ve moseyed on down to Shia LaBeouf’s art exhibit, #IAMSORRY, where the Transformers star and toothless plagiarist sits alone in a room, with a bag over his head, constantly crying. You can give him tweets or shower him with Hershey’s kisses, you can get him to take off the bag and take a picture…that’s about it.
Mr. LaBeouf has installed himself directly outside of BuzzFeed’s LA offices for this “performance,” in conjunction with Nastja Säde Rönkkö and Luke Turner, so there is no lack of articles online about what it’s like to be trapped in a room with him. But as I am currently on the East Coast, and I imagine that there’s not much of a difference, I just sat alone in a room this morning with a screengrab of Shia’s face. Here is what happened.
I stood outside my bathroom door this morning, waiting to be let in to see Shia LaBeouf’s picture, and also to pee. I wanted to make the situation as authentic to the actual experience of seeing #IAMSORRY as possible, so I pretended that I was in line with a friend from Buzzfeed.
By this point, I really had to go, plus, I forgot that I had soaked some bras in the bathtub, like, awhile ago. They definitely needed to be taken out of there. But first! What item should I choose to bring in to see Shia?
I went with the bottle of Xanax.
I entered my bathroom, and pulled up a photo of Shia LaBeouf from the exhibit, with a bag over his head that reads “I AM NOT FAMOUS ANYMORE.” I was debating using the photo where he took off the bag, but I felt the experience would be more genuine if I could write about the eye-holes.
My bathroom was super hot. The snow outside was piling up, a veritable storm, albeit the really quiet kind. I could hear my glug of the drain as it disposed of my dirty bra
“Are you Shia LaBeouf?” I asked the picture.
No response.
“What is this all about? Is this a stunt?”
No response.
“I loved you in Holes.”
