My gut reaction to this piece was utter shock. Here is a man who has just been handed the raw equivalent of a death certificate, and his inamorato goes and chicken-scratches on it? Really!? “Get a grip, Dave! This is serious!!!” I can hear Peter Hujar saying to his artist lover. This paper was no joke; it was a dire situation that shouldn’t have been taken lightly. It was almost callous. But then, as I walked through the Museum, it dawned on me that I was looking at this work all wrong. The fact that this paper was the canvas was what gave it power and beauty. This “doodle” was defiance, a fist held up to Death. “Do not go gentle into that good night/Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” Instead of reacting to awful, devastating news with hatred or anger, David Wojnarowicz took this repulsive piece of paper and made it the soil with which he tilled a sprout of beauty. He screams out to this doctor, this diagnosis, this disease, “You can’t take everything from us! You can’t have everything…”