my earlier life (part 2)

[note #27]

In 1981, David Wojnarowicz made a short film called Heroin—silent, five-minute, black-and-white, super 8.

It opens on a man shooting up in a kitchen in the East Village. After he fixes (I always turn away as the needle goes in), the film becomes a montage of people who have seemingly fallen where they stood, their bodies now distorted—folded over a couch, crumbled in a doorway, curled on the floor—once the hit reached their brain and shut out the lights.

One of these fallen angels is a man on a rooftop, his right leg bent at an awkward angle, one of his hands upraised, the other on his heart. I take a screenshot—it reminds me of that Caravaggio, The Conversion on the Way to Damascus, where Saul has fallen from his horse, blinded by the presence of God.

I was going to say without the horse, but then I get it.

UPCOMING WORKSHOPS / EVENTS

10-15 aug / Memoir as Bewilderment / Fine Arts Work Center / Provincetown MA

11 sept / On Literary Kinship: Reading + Conversation Between Friends, Nick Flynn +

Marie Howe / Kaatsbaan / Tivoli NY

5-10 oct / Memoir as Bewilderment / Omega Institute / Rhinebeck NY