Close to the Knives

Close to the Knives
David Wojnarowicz
Earlier this week, as I walked to the subway in my Brooklyn neighborhood, I was flagged down in front of the CVS by a skinny and exuberant twenty-something (if that) boy holding an HRC binder, “Can you spare a few minutes to talk about gay marriage?”

It makes me think of this book.

If you want to understand the path from being an outcast (danger, fear, edge) to living in the suburbs on Wisteria Lane, it starts here.

How did we get from the queer eighties – AIDS, life on the street, violence – to the New York Times wedding announcements section and to the corporatized political processes of today?

Sometimes it takes the fire of anger to throw light on the truth. Wojnarowicz’s honest and frank memoir has, by illuminating a painful and tragically shortened life in an uncaring time and place, made our world today that much less dark.

Read and remember.

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