The Body Politic

* The politicization of illness may be beneficial.

The body's betrayal is the worst kind of treachery. Physical collapse or failure is perhaps the most potent announcement that one's destiny is completely out of one's hands.

Excruciating pain with its soul-killing, humanity-stripping properties is capable of turning one into a purely sentient creature, devoid of humanity. Its urgency forces the agnostic to remember long-forgotten prayers.

The world of illness keeps encroaching on our well-ordered lives, so I've been intrigued by President Rudenstine's still (publicly) unidentified illness, particularly a recent report in the New York Times noting that "[i]t was his failure to show up for Harvard fundraising appointments in New York City on the Tuesday before Thanks-giving that may have set in motion his current medical leave. When he did not appear, he was found asleep in his Cambridge home." I'm particularly interested in finding out at what point Rudenstine said, "I can't." If he returns to the presidency, how will this affect his performance?

People who have recovered from serious illnesses often find themselves visiting (in Nadine Gordimer's elegant phrasing) "that other world which was the world."

The world of illness will not be kept at bay. All of us are increasingly touched, particularly by the scourge of AIDS afflicting both homosexual populations and, increasingly, heterosexuals.

David Brudnoy, a popular Boston talk show-host whose homosexuality was a poorly kept secret in Boston media circles, adroitly managed to keep his HIV status confidential until a recent prolonged hospitalization and swirling, persistent rumors forced him to make a public acknowledgement of both his homosexuality and his medical condition.

While public figures are certainly not obliged to share the details of their various afflictions, such candor can do much to heighten awareness of preventive measures.

One such example of successful politicization is Cameron S. Wolf's powerfully resonant "The Mirror of the Plague," selected pieces of which are now on exhibit at Dudley House.

Wolf's art focuses attention on how our ways of comprehending the world and the ways in which our relations, both public and private, have changed since AIDS and its terminology have become part of our lives.

Wolf's interpretation of the "Pieta" (which I was only able to see in shadowy Crimson photographs since it was pulled from the ongoing exhibit at Dudley House) I read as a depiction of the homosexual man as sacrificial lamb.

The artist's goal seems to be the presentation of the body as a site of discord, the subject of conflicting, often judgmental gazes, all of which is ultimately irrelevant in the face of mortality.

Wolf, I think also makes the important point that because the priapus is seen as the focal point of the homosexual relationship, we forget to ask other important questions, such as what happens when the generative impulse is thwarted?

For those of us who read intimations of mortality into little things, (such as the fact that we could not possibly tell the difference between, say Beavis and Butthead and, perhaps even more tragically, that we have absolutely no desire to do so, or the fact that we are now incapable of pulling consecutive all-nighters) exposure to important, politicized work like Wolf's makes it easier to accept the fact that resurrections are both brief and fleeting.

Lorraine A. Lezama's column appears on alternate Tuesdays.