[Leica] jill greenberg and i appreciate other styles of photos

[kcassidy at asc.upenn.edu (Kyle Cassidy)]

It had been several weeks since I'd met her, and things had gone at a 
whirlwind pace, it's confusing even now, trying to look back and deconstruct 
all the things that had happened, the conversations, the drugs, the arson, 
the petty vandallism that had brought us so close together. But our 
relationship was strung tight, like a piano wire tuned up four octives. "To 
get the high notes," she told me once, "sometimes means having to kick 
someone in the cajones." She said it in English, but the FCC is listening.
 
I worked as her assistant for a while, it gave us time to travel together. I 
particularly remember when she was photographing Jerry Fallwell for the 
cover of Newsweek. "Get this set up," she said to me, waving her arms 
abstractly, "I'm going outside for a smoke." She hand-rolled her own 
cigarettes, made up of butt's she found on the sidewalk. She was hard-core 
that way, and a cigarette break might be an hour affair. She sauntered 
outside in a slinky green dress.
 
I set up a bunch of goth girls with blackened eyes (and hearts), had 
Fallwell levitating in the background, dressed as a chreub. I was pleased 
with my handwork, but when Jill returned, she was not amused. "This is 
crap," she said, dismissively. Then she went up to Fallwell, who was 
spinning lazily in the air. "You missed the rapture," she said, "it happened 
while you were in the bathroom. Outside the whore of Bablyon is spitting 
metal scorpions at people. The third angel's already blown his trumpet. 
You're screwd, just like the rest of us." 
 
The reaction was instantainious. Fallwell began bawling like a baby, his 
meaty red fists gouging into his eyes, tears like jumbo shrimp pouring down 
his face in cascades. Jill snapped a picture. We left.
 
That night in a bar in Shrieveport, she beat me black and blue with a bottle 
of Makers Mark. I shot her dog. Sobbing, she reached out, turned her camera 
around, hugged me close, and snapped a photo of us, both red-eyed and 
misearable. I realized that to truely appreciate someone elses photographs, 
sometimes you have to get close.