#26
Posted: 9/30/12 at 12:46am
I watched the movie again tonight, this time On Demand in my living room. We paused the film a few times to point out unidentified friends and acquaintances. ("There's Ron Goldberg!" "There's Keith Haring!" "There's John Weir!" "There's Michael Cunningham!")
I cried a little bit more at the deaths of lovely Ray Navarro, whose delightful rendition of Jesus presages his breathtaking acceptance of death in the face of blindness and deafness...and Bob Rafsky, whose powerful orations inspired my activism and whose public speaking I considered on a level with John F. Kennedy and the Reverend Martin Luther King.
And I am happy to confirm that I am visible, not on the floor of Grand Central during that demonstration, which was my first, and not in the die-in in the middle of the road in Kennebunkport, which I attended with Reginald Tresilian!
No, I am visible as a blur, in one of the meeting scenes at Cooper Union: the one in which the crowd congratulates Bob Rafsky for having confronted Bill Clinton during the 1992 primary campaign, which put HIV/AIDS into the national presidential discussion.
I am in my usual position, standing behind the last row of the auditorium, applauding for Bob's inspiring activism, visible to the camera briefly as the blur of a white shirt, the blur of a full head of thick black hair (I was younger then, and had hair) and the blur of my habitual black-rimmed glasses (chic now, but far from it then).
I am only a blur, but that is appropriate, since that is all I remember of those years, of my friends' deaths and the deaths of so many others, and my involvement with Act-Up.
I am a blurry freeze frame who once lost friends, acted-up, fought back and fought AIDS.
I cried a little bit more at the deaths of lovely Ray Navarro, whose delightful rendition of Jesus presages his breathtaking acceptance of death in the face of blindness and deafness...and Bob Rafsky, whose powerful orations inspired my activism and whose public speaking I considered on a level with John F. Kennedy and the Reverend Martin Luther King.
And I am happy to confirm that I am visible, not on the floor of Grand Central during that demonstration, which was my first, and not in the die-in in the middle of the road in Kennebunkport, which I attended with Reginald Tresilian!
No, I am visible as a blur, in one of the meeting scenes at Cooper Union: the one in which the crowd congratulates Bob Rafsky for having confronted Bill Clinton during the 1992 primary campaign, which put HIV/AIDS into the national presidential discussion.
I am in my usual position, standing behind the last row of the auditorium, applauding for Bob's inspiring activism, visible to the camera briefly as the blur of a white shirt, the blur of a full head of thick black hair (I was younger then, and had hair) and the blur of my habitual black-rimmed glasses (chic now, but far from it then).
I am only a blur, but that is appropriate, since that is all I remember of those years, of my friends' deaths and the deaths of so many others, and my involvement with Act-Up.
I am a blurry freeze frame who once lost friends, acted-up, fought back and fought AIDS.
Updated On: 9/30/12 at 12:46 AM
