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COUNTERCULTURE
The Quilt: Stories from The NAMES Project
Last month, a character on "Star Trek: The
Next Generation", speaking of her own death
said, "Death is the state where we exist only in
memories, and so is not an end." The NAMES
Project speaks to the gay community on that
same concern, to the need to address the finality
of existence that death represents. Deaths by
ADS cany an extra level of grief, as did that
"Star Trek" episode-death as untimely,
capricious, inglorious, unfair. Loss of artists, of
babies - of people - before their potential has
had a chance to realize itself is the greatest
tragedy of AIDS. No book could capture
snapshots of these memories of grief and love
better than The Quilt: Stories from The
NAMES Project.
The Quilt's greatest value is its ability to let
us read between the lines to discover the
personal stories of those PWAs represented by
panels and to make what those panels represent
stronger and clearer. Written by Cindy Ruskin,
photographed by Matt Herron and published by
Pocket Books, The Quilt ($22.95) collects and
brings together panels and the stories behind
them. Those stories are of strength and pain
and love and rejection and acceptance and
loneliness and loss and growth - all the things
that AIDS has come to represent to society. At
times, The Quilt is almost unbearable, as page
after page tells a heartbreakingly true story -1
started crying at page 23. The Quilt's status as a
chronicle is also important - a moving section at
the end of the bode describes its initial
unfolding in Washington at the March and is a
valuable historical resource as well as a strong
depiction of the Quilt's power to reach out to us
emotionally. The importance of documenting
the suffering that AIDS has brought cannot be
underestimated, and for that purpose alone,
The Quilt is invaluable.
Having had the actual Quilt in Atlanta the
week after The Quilt's publication encourages
a reviewer to compare the emotional impact
of the two. In person, the Quilt's grief is
communal, allowing people to grieve
together. Its ceremonies have been created
both to absorb grief as we are reminded of it,
and to purge it by reminding us of the love
that created il Its strongest impact is in its
size - so huge and yet the grief of our
community can only be expressed by
something of that size. In print, The Quilt's
grief is the grief of minutiae - the details of a
life drawn at a quilting bee. This grief we
experience at home,
alone, at quiet times.
We hear the stories
behind so many
panels, so many
lives, see the
beautifully creative
ways people have
devised to
communicate the
love and the grief
that manage to occupy the same space with
the amazing piece of fabric; in that sense,
there is very little real difference in the impact
these two versions of Hie NAMES Project
have - they both devastate and celebrate,
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- tJ~~A -
Tracy ChapmamMusic By and About the Rest of Us
Neil Young, Joan
Armatrading, Joni
Mitchell, Suzanne
Vega, Phoebe
Snow-comparisons to
these artists don't do
Tracy Chapman justice.
While it's not difficult
to hear those influences
in Chapman's debut
album, "Tracy
Chapman," her words
are her own
experiences, her music
a unique blend of new
folk, rock, reggae and
jazz. From the album's
opening lines (from
"Talkin' Bout a
Revolution" don't you
knowlthey're talkin'
about a revolution!it
sounds like a whisper)
to the closing lines
(from "For You" look
at me fosing control/thinking l had a holdlbut
with feelings this strongll'm no longer the
master/of my emotions) Chapman maintains a
clarity of vision rarely recorded in these days of
Heavy Metal and Techno-Pop. That vision is
rich in shrewd observation of the lives of people
not seen on prime time television except in
crime dramas and movies-of-the-week about
"rising above it all."
Songs like the haunting a cappella "Behind
the Wall" (about domestic violence and the
response it receives-or doesn't-from law
enforcement) combine with love songs like "If
Not Now..." for a well-balanced forty minutes.
Chapman tackles racial
violence, gentle love,
and general injustice
with the same smooth
vocal, a style that
instantly draws the
listener to the
words-and these
words are worth
listening to again and
again.
While earning an
anthropology degree at
Tufts University, the
Cleveland-born singer
began singing in folk
clubs in the Boston
area. She was
approached on more
than one occasion by
small record
companies to do an
album, but refused,
deciding instead to first
get her degree.
Chapman credits Suzanne Vega's debut for
opening the door for her music. The album is
a slightly embellished version of her solo act.
The band, which includes Joni Mitchell's
husband Larry Klein on bass, backs up
Chapman's music with artful grace and
subtlety. Music with the social and political
content of this album has rarely been heard
since the 60's on a major recording label. If
"Tracy Chapman" is a harbinger of a change
in that policy, the world may finally begin
hearing music by and about the rest of us
soon.
- KC Wildmoon
simultaneously.
Negatively, just as the size of the Quilt in
person can overwhelm us with sadness, the
constant presence of The Quilt in print can allow
a person to wallow in grief and face its
devastation all the time, with no escape. At least
when the Quilt is in person, we are eventually
pushed forward by time to leave the grief
behind; with The Quilt in print, there is no
for. The NAMES Project in all of its forms
reminds us that much of our beloved friends is
still here, in our minds and our memories, and
that death really is only one kind of end.
The close proximity of Quilt publication and
Quilt arrival in Atlanta is also a challenge to the
survivors. Atlanta is a "second wave" city, but
the second wave of this epidemic is beginning to
crest here. We have reached deep into our
pressure to go on because half a room of panels
have yet to be seen and it's almost dinnertime.
One of my reactions to the Quilt in person was
that I was glad that it came and I was glad when
it left; there is a time to grieve and a time to be
allowed to escape from grief. This book may at
times have to be deliberately put aside.
With The Quilt in print, we also lose other
things, like the presence of friends to console us
or the many wonderful textures of the panels -
no way in a book to so directly and tangibly
convey a leather teddy bear or a silk gown. But
these are trade-offs, the gives and gets of using
different media in expressing grief. The
opportunity to have such a beautiful "memory"-
al as a way of extending and deepening that last
stage of existence is one we should be thankful
pockets and our hearts, to create AID Atlanta, to
fund Charlie Brown's PWA Christmases and
Memorial Days, to console our friends upon the
first diagnosis, to bury them when the final
diagnosis comes. But AIDS will not say to us
"Thank you, I've taken enough from you now.
You can resume your life as before." It will
continue to take; our challenge is to continue to
give. The Quilt and The Quilt have come
together to raise that question to Atlanta's gay
community, which has been characterized as
non-activist, some would say complacent and
comfortable. How we respond is how we will
be remembered by the generations that follow
us. Cleve Jones' passion and commitment are a
vivid reminder that we teach best by example.
- A1 Cotton
Higher
Ground:
Voices
of
AIDS"
A Play by!
Rebecca 1 June 21-25
Ranson | 8:30 pm
/Is / )
f I Horizon
i Theatre In t
tlie L5P
* Community!
Center
1083
^ Austin Ave.
Call j
874-7926
for
ytesenations
(tickets $15)
h M'Vm
Proceeds benefit Atlanta MAPWA, (Atlanta Association of People
With AIDS) and SAME, (Southeastern Arts,Media Sc Education Project)
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