Statement of Record
I think you’re going to like my new work, by the way. I’m anxious to show it to you. (Letter from Joan in Berlin to Steven in New York, undated, 1987.)
I never forget Joan’s birthday because it is the same as my mother’s, September 1. I never forget the date on which Hitler invaded Poland and started World War II because it is the day my...
When you’re twenty-six and it’s 1991 and you walk into an emergency room in Tucson with a racing heart, everyone thinks you’re on coke. “We aren’t the police,” they say, hoping you’ll fess up. They believe they’re being wise and supportive, the nurse and the other nurse, and...
For years I tried to put together a picture of my grandfather. He was an Egyptian Romantic poet of some notoriety. All around me were his books and photographs from my mother’s childhood. His portrait, painted at the turn of the century, hung framed in the hallway along with a portrait of my grandmother by the same artist. Legend has it they met on a London bus when...
He could barely grip the doorknob as he staggered into the house. Inside, the darkness was thick, heavy, grim. It took a few minutes for his eyes to adjust to the various hues of blackness, for his thumping heart to accommodate the shadings and gradations of fear and dread. The smell of Jack Daniels escaped from his mouth in between hiccups, like puffs of...
So, what’s new? ‘Some wankers are doing shit to the place where I live and I can’t do anything about it’? Okay, how about:
Hitchhiking with the Ghost of Jim Morrison: Golden sun and blue sky. It’s there, always there. There, even now, behind that gray cloud-carpet suspended above the Pacific Coast Highway. I am standing at the onramp to this scenic highway with my thumb in the air, a bandana-wearing hippie-hearted hitchhiker...
I don’t know why Vitagraph made this scene so long. They didn’t make any long scenes like this with me, probably because long scenes like this are obviously too boring and I’m too amazing.
Statement of Record