1
" George was an atheist, and so am I. But how I long now for an afterlife - a world of light or of deep dazzling darkness, where he and the others we've lost reside, unscathed, forever accessible - to have tea with, to talk nonsense with, to reinvent the world with "
― Justin Spring , Secret Historian: The Life and Times of Samuel Steward, Professor, Tattoo Artist, and Sexual Renegade
2
" Steward was himself an able poet. His Italian sonnet “Virginia to Harlotta,” written at age nineteen, presciently describes a consciousness divided between virtuous chastity and thankless promiscuity: This is yours: to lie beside him all the night And feel the steady heat come out from him; The coolness of his hands, each slender limb Made restless by the absence of the light… To know the graceless touch, the never-quite- Sufficient kiss of lip on lip, or breast, And when the day comes, grey unwanted guest To see love’s death, each in each other’s sight. And this is mine: a solitary bed, And I so still…unwarmed, untouched, unkissed, With moonlight fingering flowers on my spread, And moaning trees and crying winds and mist… Weave me a spell, O bow-boy, so that he Embracing her sends his caress to me! "
― Justin Spring , Secret Historian: The Life and Times of Samuel Steward, Professor, Tattoo Artist, and Sexual Renegade
3
" Man’s chase after happiness is a feverish and unceasing thing. As we grow older, we search more frantically for it than formerly—and it can be found no longer. “If I were just as happy now as I was then,” we say, and sigh. But the truth is that few men have more to their account than a dozen hours of happiness—a fragment here and there out of the dull and sullen roll of life…How much happier man would be were he only to realize that a state of unhappiness or frustration or despair is the usual thing, the lot of nearly all men nearly all of the time! The frenetic reachings would cease, the compulsions disappear, the nervous chase smooth itself into a serene and contented acceptance. "
― Justin Spring , Secret Historian: The Life and Times of Samuel Steward, Professor, Tattoo Artist, and Sexual Renegade
4
" Jim Kane’s “slave” Ike Barnes was to have been that executor, but Barnes had developed AIDS and died just six months before Steward did. Without a sensitive executor, the contents of the bungalow might very easily have been thrown away, for the little house was a stinking, densely packed mess—and the new executor, Michael Williams, needed to sell the property relatively quickly in order to fulfill his immediate obligations to Steward’s beneficiaries. "
― Justin Spring , Secret Historian: The Life and Times of Samuel Steward, Professor, Tattoo Artist, and Sexual Renegade
6
" Its melancholy epigraph came from the Greek poet Constantin Cavafy, as translated by Phil Andros: Now and again he swears To commence a cleaner life, But when the night comes With its dark promptings, Its uncertainties and its enterprises When the night comes With its own dominion Over the body, he returns, lusting and searching, Lost, to that same morose delight.* "
― Justin Spring , Secret Historian: The Life and Times of Samuel Steward, Professor, Tattoo Artist, and Sexual Renegade
7
" The slightest brushing of my hand against my penis was not only a religious sin, but would lead to blindness and pimples, kidney disease, bed-wetting, stooped shoulders, insomnia, weight loss, fatigue, stomach trouble, impotence, genital cancer, and ulcers.” In fact, he so deeply internalized his aunts’ great fear of sexual “filth” that the unintentional discovery that his foreskin could retract (and the sudden sight of his filth-encrusted glans) shocked him so deeply that he passed out cold. "
― Justin Spring , Secret Historian: The Life and Times of Samuel Steward, Professor, Tattoo Artist, and Sexual Renegade
Secret Historian: The Life and Times of Samuel Steward, Professor, Tattoo Artist, and Sexual Renegade