The Brooklyn Rail

Vaccinated with a Phonograph Needle

There’s this guy. He’s pretty normal looking, just your average mid-century white Texan male in a probably un-ironed white dress shirt and slacks, possibly a lab or sports coat, maybe a tie. If you were around a few decades ago, perhaps you saw him, maybe at the library in Dallas visiting his husband Stephen Housewright at work, maybe playing piano in a strip club to help make ends meet, or in an art museum in Holland, giving a performance of his music—though ritual might be a more apt description of what you would have seen.