John Wieners at the Beacon Hill Burger King, 1997. Photo by Jim Dunn.
For almost thirty years, John Wieners lived meagerly and humbly in the same apartment in Beacon Hill; 44 Joy Street, Suite 10 as he called it. Joy Street, originally called Belknap Lane, named after the Colonial Apothecary, Dr. John Joy, with its history of livery stables, was his home. Wieners became somewhat more reclusive in his later years, but he was still a fixture on the streets of Beacon Hill, seen often trudging tragic-comically through the streets with his bag draped around his shoulder, and a cigarette in his hand, carrying himself with a certain muted elegance.
I am here today[1] to make a claim for the “Noone” who “bears witness for the / witness.”[2] Negation is never as it seams in Paul Celan. Yes and no are unsplit neighbors housed in abrasive proximity in the noem. That alien traumatic kernel of Das Ding in the Nebenmensch adjoins and hystericizes me, yet also wakes me to the both/and that exceeds and opens thought. As the pure products of America go crazy, Noone arrives to witness and adjust, Noone can drive the car.[3]
