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Civil Liberties
Three Audreys
Lil’ Audrey had heard that joke weeks before at school, but she didn’t think people, even her Daddy, should be telling jokes about the dead. Besides, she knew Octavia’s grandson, Skeeter, was one of Dr. King’s followers.
June 1990The Park This Week
“This must be the utmost high point in the history of Tompkins Square Park,” I told Jim Brodie, coming back from a poetry reading three weeks ago.
January 1990A Matter Of Degree
It’s not the mere existence of pornography that troubles me. We’ve always had it. It’s the amount of it that’s the problem. Never before, to my knowledge, has the world had so very much printed and cinematic pornography. It will not go away by itself, so it cannot be ignored.
June 1985Thoughts On Censorship
What is true for a person, in other words, is not true for a republic; from our private life we can, like a dictator, ban anything which offends us; but in our life as a citizen in a democracy not only can we not ban from the public realm that which offends us, but for our own protection we must fight for its right to exist.
June 1985Words
The words pornography, obscenity, and erotica — and the emotions they evoke — create an endless debate which quickly twists into confusion when terms are vague and law is complex.
June 1985Reluctant Resister
I had finally reached, within the secret recesses and labyrinths of this jail, the silent center and perfect still point of human suffering. Behind those thick steel doors, entombed in concrete, curled in a tight fetal position on a cold metal bed, lies the suffering body of Christ.
July 1983The Depths Of A Clown
An Interview With Wavy Gravy
I got spotted by a plainclothes cop, who called the Secret Service and the FBI. He started patting me down and felt this bulge in my pocket. He said, “Is that a gun?” and took it out and these teeth started clicking on his hand. I said, “Quiet, our leader is speaking,” and he gave me back the teeth and said, “Get out of here, you’re too weird to arrest.”
May 1983
