Habit

In his powerful and original video Fast Trip, Long Drop (1993), Chicagoan Gregg Bordowitz examined his life since learning that he was HIV positive; this eye-opening sequel (2001, 52 min.) returns to and extends many of the same themes, charting his personal and political struggles with AIDS. (There’s even another conversation with filmmaker and dancer Yvonne Rainer.) Bordowitz starts off with his daily regimen of 20 pills, then shifts to an international AIDS conference in Durban, South Africa, where local AIDS victims are unable to afford antiretroviral drugs. The video notes that some activists are taking radical steps to address this problem and reports on struggles for drug access in Brazil and India. Other segments focus on friends, acquaintances, artists, and activists involved in the crisis, among them painter and photographer Claire Pentecost, with whom Bordowitz lives, and antiapartheid crusader Donald Woods (now deceased), who reads one of his poems. (JR)

This entry was posted in Featured Texts. Bookmark the permalink.