Bruce Grether: This review was originally published in White Crane Journal (#50). It is reprinted with permission from www.whitecranejournal.com online.
To be quite honest, when I first saw AA's Web site & that title, I thought, “Oh dear, how cynical & bitter that sounds!” Silly me—for as I've now read the text twice and enjoyed the many full-color photographs repeatedly, I must say I'm highly impressed. In fact, the book is rich with a full spectrum of emotions and experiences, moving, intelligent, ultimately life-affirming and inspiring.
Bronson is an extraordinary artist and writer who has lived a rich & varied life in Canada, the U.S. and Italy. “Negative Thoughts” consists of four sections of photos interspersed with three sections of text printed in different colors. I found the index of photo captions at the back helpful in exploring the interaction between visual and verbal imagery.
The book chronicles Bronson's life and work in inspired bursts of remeniscence & rumination on the present and past. Over several decades his triadic relationship with two other men and fellow artists unfolds in vivid glimpses and vignettes. I'm glad that, as Bronson relates in the acknowledgements, Barr Gilmore urged him to focus on himself. At first I didn't realize how many, indeed the majority of the photos, depict Bronson himself in numerous metamorphoses and transformations from winsome hippie lad to sleek punkie dude to post-modern Yippie to Faerie Artiste to Whitmanesque webcam curmudgeon. Somehow this primary focus on himself renders the somewhat oblique presence of those two other men especially moving.
Along the way, Bronson encountered Joseph Kramer in a number of Body Electric workshops and events at the Wildwood Retreat in California, while Kramer still presided at B.E. An amazing ritual there is vividly recounted. I know I'm raving, but I'm impressed and awed by Bronson's honesty and eloquence. As he told me privately in an e-mail, he and his artistic partners are unique in their persistent celebration and open sharing of their sexuality in all its frank permutations. I really appreciate this. The story of the male triad and the transformational aftermath leading to Bronson's partnership with Mark today makes plain some of the many levels of the title.
I am reminded of the full spectrum of experiences and moods that can be balanced out and harmonized by erotic ecstasy. Bronson's text and photos continue haunting me with how fully a life can be lived as an evolutionary process. Like him, I feel I've lived many lifetimes of experience during this one lifetime.
By the way, I've gone back and deleted a lot of superlatives from this little review, so you can imagine how gushy &purple the prose was before I did so!
“I treasure my copy of this wonderful little book.” Nuff said.
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