Fire in the Belly

by Cynthia Carr

  “Will they allow me on the moon if they realize who I am completely?” January 31, 1984, in Fales 1, 1, 17, and Diaries, ed. Scholder, p. 196.

  13 Pressure Point

  “That corner”—Second Street and Avenue B—“no longer belongs to the city of New York” Marcia Chambers, “Lower East Side Drug Trade Evades Cleanup,” New York Times, July 5, 1983.

  “retail drug capital of America” Marcia Chambers, “Going Cold Turkey in Alphabetville,” New York Times, February 19, 1984.

  while seizing 160,000 packages of heroin Jane Gross, “In the Trenches of a War Against Drugs,” New York Times, January 8, 1986.

  “use the junk population to burn down the area. The deed is done” Jeff Gottesfeld and Spencer Rumsey, “Drug Bust! ‘Operation Pressure Point’ Hits Avenue B,” East Village Eye, March 1984.

  “they’d paint pictures for it” Sylvia Falcon, “Let Paintings Be Stupid,” East Village Eye, March 1984.

  “Paintings are doorways into collectors’ homes” Carlo McCormick, “Sweet ’N’ Low,” East Village Eye, March 1984.

  “beginning of an era of ‘souvenir’ art and tourist boutiques” Nicolas A. Moufarrege, “The Year After,” Flash Art, Summer 1984.

  “adventurous avant-garde setting of considerable cachet” Carlo McCormick and Walter Robinson, “Slouching Towards Avenue D,” Art in America, Summer 1984. This piece also appears in ABC No Rio Dinero, ed. Moore and Miller, p. 40.

  “simulacrum” of bohemia Craig Owens, “The Problem with Puerilism,” Art in America, Summer 1984.

  “AIDS virus had been discovered—by the French” Thomas Steele, “CDC Director Says Announcement of AIDS Cause Is Forthcoming,” New York Native, April 9–22, 1984.

  “ran a story on April 22” Lawrence K. Altman, “Federal Official Says He Believes Cause of AIDS Has Been Found,” New York Times, April 22, 1984.

  “he saw it as allied with the French” Shilts, And the Band, pp. 460–62.

  “the kind of reaction that Lydia liked best” Joe Vojtko, “Dangerous Combustibles: A Memoir from a Room at the End of Everything,” Review, December 1, 1997.

  “colors that brought me close to fainting” DW to Hujar in Fales Series 2, Box 4, Folder 37.

  people who saw “unarguable truth” in violence DW, Close to the Knives, pp. 172–73.

  14 A Burning Child

  “I rejected her” Fales Series 4, Box 7, Folder 13.

  sent a reporter to cover this exotic event Douglas C. McGill, “An Art Auction-Benefit with East Village Style, New York Times, February 26, 1985.

  “We do and show what we like” Grace Glueck, “East Village Gets on the Fast Track,” New York Times, January 13, 1985.

  Cooper analyzed it Dennis Cooper, “Odd Man Out,” Artforum, October 1999.

  finally changed at the end of 1985 Erik Eckholm, “City, In Shift, To Make Blood Test for AIDS Virus More Widely Available,” New York Times, December 23, 1985.

  “know all they need to know about AIDS” Shilts, And the Band., p. 533.

  no one knew how likely it was for someone infected with the virus to actually get AIDS http://www.thebody.com/content/art31903.html.

  “Dean Savard is taking an extended vacation from his gallery” Carlo McCormick, “Art Seen,” East Village Eye, May 1985.

  Nina Leen’s historic 1950 portrait of the abstract expressionists A group of New York painters including Willem De Kooning, Jackson Pollock, Robert Motherwell, and Mark Rothko wrote a letter in May 1950 to the Metropolitan Museum of Art protesting the exclusion of abstract artists from a show on contemporary painting. Nina Leen photographed fifteen of the painters in November 1950. The photo appeared in Life in January 1951 with the caption “Irascible Group of Advanced Artists Led Fight Against Show.”

  “The cigarettes etc are what I need to stop in order to keep the change stronger” Fales 3A, 5, 155.

  one of fourteen artists selected to show that summer (from two hundred applicants) Kim Levin, “Cryptanalysis,” Village Voice, June 18, 1985.

  he’d based the piece “on his childhood and life experience” Mina Roustayi, “Had You Bought the Brooklyn Bridge …” Brooklyn Affairs, June 1985, in the Creative Time Archive (MSS 179) at the Fales Library and Special Collections, New York University, Series 1, Box 2, Folder 58.

  alchemical, magical, and religious symbolism, and had created, for example, many paintings of figures on fire See http://www.philipchristianzimmerman.com.

  “I’m too wound up crazy to travel with them” DW to Hujar, circa June 11, 1985, in possession of the Hujar Estate.

  he would declare the enterprise a failure October 7, 1985, journal of Keith Davis, in author’s possession.

  “Peter I feel crazy but I think of you” DW to Hujar, June 25, 1985 in possession of the Hujar Estate.

  “I don’t feel any sadness for David. I wish he were dead” August 3, 1985, journal of Keith Davis, in author’s possession.

  15 Hello Darkness, My Old Friend

  “nobody was interested in what I was doing” Barry Blinderman, “The Compression of Time: An Interview with David Wojnarowicz,” Tongues of Flame, ed. Blinderman, p. 53.

  “Nobody bought a thing” Anthony Haden-Guest, True Colors: The Real Life of the Art World (New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1996), p. 140.

  “no longer felt inclined to cast pearls before swine” Patti Astor, letter to the editor, New York Magazine, August 24, 1987.

  “It’s all such a blur” http://www.wigstock.nu/history/index.html.

  listings for forty-seven neighborhood galleries Liza Kirwin, “The East Village: A Chronology,” Artforum, October 1999.

  allowed only to listen in via telephone Lisa Perlman, “AIDS Victim Begins School by Phone,” Associated Press, August 26, 1985.

  “their efficacy in reducing transmission has not yet been proven” http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00000610.htm.

  “the government should not be in the business of telling homosexuals how to have sodomy” Shilts, And the Band, p. 586.

  he heard about Caven Point Sylvère Lotringer, “Steve Brown,” in A Definitive History, ed. Ambrosino, p. 42.

  “I think that’s one of my jobs” C. Carr, “Karen Finley,” Mirabella, November 1990.

  “that someone can be both good and gay” Jeff Yarbrough, “Rock Hudson: On Camera and Off; The Tragic News That He Is the Most Famous Victim of an Infamous Disease, AIDS, Unveils the Hidden Life of a Longtime Hollywood Hero,” People Magazine, August 12, 1985.

  using what Marguerite called “revolting colors” Mysoon Rizk, “Marguerite Van Cook and James Romberger,” in A Definitive History, ed. Ambrosino, p. 97.

  “springing out like cartoon animation” Fales Series 3E, Box 6, Folder 257.

  “bodies in lotus positions with enormous hard-ons” DW, Close to the Knives, pp. 184–85.

  short films like Baby Doll Sargeant, Deathtripping, p. 170, and see http://web.mac.com/tessahughesfreeland.

  “power plays embedded in the sexual act” DW, Close to the Knives, p. 189.

  “I feel too self-conscious about living, and it’s driving me crazy” Ibid., p. 206.

  “The image of the deer being hunted is transferred to the kid” Gideon Gil, “Artists Work to Help Fight Child Abuse,” Louisville Times, December 6, 1985, in Fales 6C, 9, 46.

  “none of the last fifteen or twenty minutes happened” Fales 6E, 12, 116.

  16 “Something Turning Emotional and Wild”

  “So did the duck. So did the dog.” Gary Indiana, “The No Name Review,” Village Voice, January 28, 1986.

  “the smell and taste of him wrapped around my neck and jaw like some scarf” DW, “Losing the Form in Darkness,” East Village Eye, February 1986.

  “he said something about not seeing each other so much” DW to Frangella, Fales Series 2, Box 2, Folder 9.

  “You self-imitate to meet demand” Judd Tully, “The East Village: Is the Party Over Now?” New Art Examiner, March 1986.

  “at the end of its
collective gestures” Fales 3A, 4, 69, plus DW discusses the machine symbolism in his work in Fales 8B, 16, Audiotape 092.0247.

  “the wall of illusion surrounding society and its structures” Fales 3G, 6, 280.

  “The Other World where I’ve always felt like an alien” DW, Close to the Knives, pp. 87–88.

  “the imposed hell of the suburbs” Ibid., p. 207.

  “sometimes failed to show up for filming” Fales 3A, 4, 58.

  “get away from my life as it was” DW, Close to the Knives, pp. 216–17.

  “nature’s incessant struggle and cyclical compulsions” Mysoon Rizk, “Looking at ‘Animals in Pants’: The Case of David Wojnarowicz,” TOPIA: Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies (“Nature Matters: Materiality and the More-Than-Human in Cultural Studies of the Environment” issue; Toronto) 21 (Spring 2009): 137–59, and http://pi.library.yorku.ca/ojs/index.php/topia/index.

  “respective problems we will leave behind in U.S.A. necessarily” Tommy Turner, “Travel Log to Mexico,” October 28, 1986, in author’s possession.

  “use tools, make war, and capture slaves” Fales 3G, 6, 280.

  “life forms that have been abstracted into the ‘other’ “ Ibid.

  17 Some Sort of Grace

  “ ‘getting a letter in the mail has an entirely different meaning’ “ DW, Close to the Knives, p. 67.

  a hagiography William Kelly Eidem, The Doctor Who Cures Cancer (CreateSpace, 2008).

  Revici also gets a chapter Fred Rosen, Doctors from Hell (New York: Windsor Publishing, 1993).

  “concluding that he had violated the terms of his probation” http://www.quackwatch.org/04ConsumerEducation/null.html, and see also Stephen Barrett, M.D., “Questionable Cancer Therapies” at http://www.quackwatch.com/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/cancer.html.

  Now the number was 32,000. And counting. If Kramer’s number was approximate, it was approximately correct. By the end of 1987, there would be about 35,400 dead. For statistics on AIDS deaths, see http://www.aids.gov/federal-resources/policies/pacha/meetings/march-2008/hiv-aids-update-in-us.pdf.

  “this is a death wish” Kramer, “The Beginning of ACTing Up,” Holocaust, p. 128.

  “ ‘Act up! Fight back! Fight AIDS!’ “ Maer Roshan, “ACT UP,” Advocate, 35th anniversary issue, November 12, 2002.

  Three hundred people met back at the center to form the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, ACT UP Kramer, Holocaust, p. 137.

  back of the store, stacked in a pile Fales Series 1, Box 1, Folder 18.

  “to find the lakes and show Peter” Fales 3A, 5, 183.

  “A place of refuge” Fales 3A, 5, 174.

  “talked about how much we cared about each other” Vince Aletti, “Portrait in Life and Death,” Village Voice, December 15, 1987.

  cockfight must have seemed essential to him See the script in Fales 3, 4, 24.

  “I didn’t enjoy the experience” Romberger’s article can be found at http://www.tcj.com/hoodedutilitarian/2010/12/wojnarowiczs-apostacy.

  “symbols of rage and the need for release” DW to Blinderman, October 22, 1988, in author’s possession.

  two scripts for A Fire in My Belly Fales 3F, 6, 277 and 3, 4, 24.

  “register on the brain; sometimes longer” DW to Blinderman, October 22, 1988, in author’s possession.

  seven minutes of footage found on another reel The footage shown and then removed from “Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture” at the National Portrait Gallery came from this “excerpt.”

  “it’s time to move on” Amy Virshup, “The Fun’s Over: The East Village Scene Gets Burned by Success,” New York Magazine, June 22, 1987.

  “if there’s warmth move towards it” DW, Close to the Knives, p. 82.

  “on the floor fourteen stories above the earth” Ibid.

  “emotion distilled” Lucy Lippard, “Out of the Safety Zone, Art in America, December 1990.

  “who seem to have been making better work three years ago” Dan Cameron, “The Season That Almost Wasn’t,” Arts, September 1987.

  “wasn’t enough to erase this rage” DW, Close to the Knives, p. 106.

  “ ‘didn’t have the strength’ “ Ibid., p. 92.

  “ ‘you may not have it’ “ Ibid., p. 96.

  “that’s the T-cells” Ibid., p. 97.

  “I couldn’t answer” Ibid., p. 98.

  “put me in bed and rushed out” Ibid., p. 99.

  “doctor reacted as if his life were being threatened” DW to Stuyvesant Polyclinic, October 23, 1987, in Fales 2, 2, 13.

  “a little further from the dirt road that leads to the lake” Fales 1, 2, 35.

  “the third day of his death” Fales 1, 2, 27.

  “He’s in the wind in the air all around me” Ibid.

  “beaming some kind of joy” Ibid.

  18 Elegiac Times

  “sadness all day and night” Fales Series 1, Box 2, Folder 27.

  $982.50 for one year or $1,015.86 for two years Fales 7B, 14, 53.

  “rent adjustments” upwards Fales 6E, 11, 112.

  $166.53 in the bank Fales 7A, 13, 34.

  “unwilling to leave it behind” Fales 1, 2, 27.

  “It started with Peter becoming ill” Ibid. and Diaries, ed. Scholder, p. 204.

  the sponsoring NAMES Project Foundation http://www.aidsquilt.org/about/the-aids-memorial-quilt.

  “afraid if I experience it I will not be able to control it” Fales 3A, 5, 176.

  emotions everyone had Author’s interviews with DW in January 1990.

  “Am I a child again in this state?” Fales 1, 1, 20, and Diaries, ed. Scholder, p. 210.

  “the memories in those shadows like films” Ibid.

  a count of 237 Fales 7A, 13, 21.

  “in the most confrontational manner” Fales 3A, 5, 160.

  “witness of your silent decline” Fales 1, 1, 20, and Diaries, ed. Scholder, p. 211.

  19 Acceleration

  aware of himself “alive and witnessing” Fales Series 3, Box 4, Folder 1.

  by the end of the month or face “legal action” Fales 7A, 12, 5.

  “your right to remain in the apartment once proceedings begin” Ibid.

  Dolores usually sent a birthday card Note that David’s mother was now spelling her name “Delores,” though I have stayed with the spelling on her divorce and naturalization papers: “Dolores.”

  “that we will lose touch with one another” Fales 2, 2, 15.

  “things quietly occurring, within absence of sight” Fales 8B, 17, Audiotape 092.0278.

  the FDA had accelerated its procedures Crimp with Rolston, Demo Graphics, p. 83, and http://www.newsweek.com/2008/12/08/gay-rights-2-0.html.

  leave the loft by the end of November Fales 7A, 12, 5.

  time and date in a journal Fales 1, 2, 35.

  “all I can feel is the pressure and the need for release” DW, Close to the Knives, p. 60.

  a piece with “the power to change lives” Jerry Salz, “Not Going Gentle,” Arts, February 1989.

  “can’t believe he is dying” Fales 1, 1, 20, and Diaries, ed. Scholder, p. 212.

  “how to operate a camera on anything other than automatic” DW, Close to the Knives, pp. 138–39.

  “that speaks about the world I witness” Ibid., p. 144.

  an opera that could have a hundred parts, but at least he’d made two of them Fales 8B, 16, Audiotape 092.0247.

  “the heaviness of the pre-invented existence we are thrust into” Fales 3A, 4, 103.

  list of some thirty-five or forty possible images for Weight of the Earth Fales 3A, 5, 197.

  if they chased them toward a cliff they didn’t know about For a discussion of David’s use of animal imagery see Mysoon Rizk, “Taking the ‘S’ out of ‘PEST.’ “ Antennae: The Journal of Nature in Visual Culture (“Insecta” issue) 11 (Autumn): 37–50, and http://www.antennae.org.uk/Back%20Issues.html.

  “within the structures of civilization” Fales 3G, 6, 280.

  “the fear that
I’ve carried through my whole life” Fales 8B, 16, Audiotape 092.0218.

  “The garden is the place I’ll go if I die” Fales 3A, 4, 103.

  “sad and exhilarated simultaneously” November 9, 1988, in Fales 1, 1, 20, and Diaries, ed. Scholder, pp. 216–17.

  “hints at both death and decay” David Deitcher, “Ideas and Emotions,” Artforum, May 1989.

  “a menacing, oneiric aura” Lucy Lippard, “Out of the Safety Zone,” Art in America, December 1990.

  “I am effectively silenced. I am angry” Fales 3A, 4, 103.

  “just for the sexual part of it” Author’s interviews with DW in January 1990. For source photos see Fales 9D, 66 and 67.

  “despite comfort or despite pain” Fales 8B, 16, Audiotape 092.0218.

  “broom clean” and vacant Fales 2, 2, 15.

  into a commercial space Fales 7A, 12, 5.

  “may execute the warrant of eviction” Fales 2, 3, 27.

  “then I had this dream” Fales 3A, 4, 103.

  “Hard to remember now” Fales 4, 7, 13.

  “ideal construction of painting or photos or whatever” February 22, 1989, in Fales 1, 1, 21, and Diaries, ed. Scholder, p. 219.

  New York had 22 percent of all reported cases in the country Crimp with Rolston, Demo Graphics, p. 85.

  washed his hands after handing a PWA a cookie Richard Levine, “Koch, in Book with O’Connor, Traces a Conservative Shift,” New York Times, March 7, 1989.

  who in city government was not doing what The “Target City Hall” booklet can be found in Fales 7D, 15, 132A.

  20 “Like a Blood-Filled Egg”

  “It makes me very self-conscious to sit in front of a tape recorder” Audiotape of DW in possession of Marion Scemama.

  “He wanted to record it before everybody died” Sylvère Lotringer, “Marion Scemama,” in A Definitive History, ed. Ambrosino, p. 132.

  “the growing feeling of death surrounding us” Scemama quotes here are from both author’s interviews and A Definitive History, ed. Ambrosino, p. 132.