Artist(s): Essex Hemphill, Alva Rogers, Dennis Cooper, Gary Indiana, and others
Date: April 6, 1989-April 25, 1989
“How is it that these things never get spoken about? On any given night, or more specifically on a night like this, I could sense that it would happen: an image would float down from the ceiling above my head, and I would be transfixed for a few seconds physically paralyzed. I would then feel a panic rise up within and I would struggle as if under 30 tons of water to come up for air and to regain my physical ability to move.
The struggle would continue for several minutes. It would involve trying to feel all of the physical sensations around me, and through feeling these sensations more and more, gradually pull myself out of the encompassing quicksand of paralysis. The struggle would go back and forth between trying with all my might to move my hand or feel the blanket on my hand to being completely numb and oppressed by the weight of gravity. It seemed I had to search through the different centers of my brain in order to find the right place that could make my arm move.
There would be the switch between sensation and numbness, between movement and paralysis. The image would remain with me or float back up to the ceiling, pulsating and glowing, holding me in this state until I could break free. Otherwise, it would become a thick gelatinous mass engulfing my physical body and forcing me to become a part of itself and whatever scene it depicted.”
This issue of THE KITCHEN CALENDAR was designed by video artist Rea Tajiri.
