At St. Mark’s bookshop the other night, after skimming through “the sex issue” of Time Out: New York, I picked up the “American Autumn” issue of Ad Busters. I was so moved by it, the beautiful images, the elegant words, and its overall extremist/fanatical take on the world. Then one piece more than any other stood out and shot through me so intensely: a visual essay in tribute to the great John Berger.
I’ve heard rumors that certain things in the world are so powerful, they can reconfigure the way your mind works, even your genetic code. The musings of Timothy Leary on the way LSD can supposedly be used to reprogram your personality, all the way down to your DNA, come to mind first, then the more obvious suspects: hardcore pornography, narcotics, trauma.
How must a child feel, growing up with the understanding that it is alright to dispose of a fetus (a stage it only recently left), for no reason other than that it was ill-timed, an inconvenience, or simply unwanted?
And in its relentless machinating there are only two experiences that give us any sense of the real: death and love.