Fire in the Belly Quotes

“I ended up going into this big art historical argument.' [Barry Blinderman] invoked, for example, Matthias Grünewald’s Isenheim altarpiece, painted in the sixteenth century for a monastery where monks cared for people with skin diseases—so the suffering Christ in that painting shows symptoms of skin disease. 'It’s because he’s the man of sorrows,' Blinderman argued. 'He takes on the suffering of the world. So if Christ were to appear physically today, one of the sicknesses he would have to take on would be drug addiction.”
― Cynthia Carr, Fire in the Belly: The Life and Times of David Wojnarowicz

“As they walked out onto Second Avenue, with David in a body bag, there was one last surreal moment. The singer and composer Diamanda Galás happened to be walking by. She and David had never met, but they'd spoken once on the phone. She shared his commitment to addressing AIDS, in her case through 'The Plague Mass,' which showcased her five-octave range and fierce persona.
Galás does not remember being on Second Avenue that night, but she made an indelible impression on Zimmerman and Glantzman.
She had walked by, but as they were putting David into the hearse, she spun around and ran back, yelling, 'Who is that? Is that David Wojnarowicz?' Zimmerman and Brown didn't answer. What Glantzman remembers is that Diamanda Galás was there at the door, screaming. 'As if our feelings were amplified,' said Glantzman. 'Hysterical screaming.”
― Cynthia Carr, Fire in the Belly: The Life and Times of David Wojnarowicz

“Leaving France after a month with Jean Pierre was less emotionally devastating this time. Still, David felt anger over the constant separation. “This cutting off of emotions because of laws, governments, and borders.” JP drove him to the airport, and David found an empty employees’ bathroom where they had sex one last time. This left him with ten minutes till his plane took off, so they rushed. At passport control, he looked back to see JP, “something indefinable draining from his face.”
― Cynthia Carr, Fire in the Belly: The Life and Times of David Wojnarowicz

“I do not think I will be in love again in my life, except with you. These are honest words.” And they were. His anxiety about the long separation from JP seemed to intensify during the affair with Arthur, especially after he decided that Arthur wanted him only for sex. “I’m still very much in love with Jean Pierre,” he wrote in his journal near the end of May. “I still desire the chance to leave here and live with him in Paris. Jean Pierre was the first man to be completely relaxed and loving with me. Unafraid of my personality or my creative movements. There was room with him to love and live and grow and change. Time has put a distance between us. And my meeting Arthur filled up that kind of empty space.”

Ever since David left Paris, he and JP had tried to figure out some way to get back together. Like dual citizenship—which would have allowed David to work in France but would also require his mandatory service in its military. Then there was the idea of entering a French university, but David didn’t have the money. That May, they had one last pipe dream between them: David would get a position with UNESCO. Jean Pierre knew a woman who worked there and she promised to help, but David had none of the skills or education the agency required.

It would have been easy to lose touch completely. David still had no telephone. Letters usually took about a week to arrive and sometimes as long as three. But now that David finally had some income, he hoped to visit France in August. He and JP had, of course, not seen each other since the previous August.”
― Cynthia Carris Alonso, Fire in the Belly: The Life and Times of David Wojnarowicz