Keith haring journals (art ebook)

Page 255

After walking around, eating pizza at the restaurant across from the hotel, and

walking,

to the bars.

I

read the

first

chapter of Cities on a Hill, which

about gay

is

compelling reading and, as an objective view, made some things clearer have been.

The amazing

Eighties

exactly the

is

our

my

transformation of gay

same story of what

open and not hide

went through

some ways very sympathetic.

It's

in the closet. In

to

It

was pretty

me

than they

from the early Seventies through the

New

in

many ways

not an easy time to be

York.

who

generation and the preceding one for those of us

lives in the

difficult

I

life

and gay

politics

San Francisco (pre-AIDS and post-AIDS).

liberation in the Castro area of

report on

more

faxed Julia and decided to stay in and read instead of going "out" to Shinjuku

I

a kind of

It is

have chosen to

live

made me proud and

it

in

and maybe an even more

alive,

time to die.

TUESDAY, JULY

2 6

Woke up and went shopping in Harajuku and great. It's

hard not

to

Shibuya. Coughing a

worry or speculate about being

help, especially after reading about

AIDS

"sick,"

until three in the

and

and not

lot

morning

feeling so

coughing doesn't

this

last night.

Walked

around, visited Pop Shop (which was empty) and was sort of depressed and discouraged.

Saw lots more

fakes or versions of my art

a part of the visual culture of Japan

on

kinds of things.

and been assimilated so much

any association with me, but rather appears

lost

all

to

have been here

It

that

all

has it

become such

has completely

the time

and

is

now

akin to "the English characters of the alphabet."

Met Kaz and Tatsuno sation against Indio.

We

cannot

made

their

It

go

to

seemed

alert the press

to the police station in

to

Shibuya

to officially

go well and they may take action before

I

file

an accu-

leave

Tokyo.

or do any kind of action for the media until the police have

move.

After the meeting

we returned

to the office

and Fran and

I

went

to eat

something.

We

discussed her next movie and talked about sex and gender roles in Japan, trying to figure out

why people do what

as laid

down

in

they

do or

A guy from was ject.

way they do. Because

the Bible here, the sexual rules

male/female definition and not so

tant art dealers

act the

Swiss Air told

much

me

there

seem more

is

no moral code

a part of traditional

"morality."

a story of a recent dinner he

was

at

with

many impor-

where he asked the Saatchis, "Do you work with Keith Haring?" There

total silence at the table,

and he was

How was he to know? We had a long discussion

culture, particularly

later told

he shouldn't have brought up the sub-

trying to figure out Japanese understanding of

me. Through trying

to

answer

their questions

about

my

American

situation in

2

19


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