Newton Harrison is the man
who married us. He calls himself
a self-ordained art rabbi. He had to fly back from a conference in Denmark to officiate and when he explained to the conference organizers they said,
"We didn't know you did weddings!"
He said, "I didn't either."

He and his wife, Helen, are internationally renowned designers who are hired by whole countries to solve their ecological problems in an aesthetically pleasing way. He is constantly making presentations to stodgy prime ministers and pitching radical ideas to uptight ceos--this is his mileau. Therefore, it was intriguing to me how intensely nervous he was about marrying us. I began to realize that it was not your run-of-the-mill marriage ceremony. He was not simply a judge or a minister doing his job. We were not married by god or by government. We were married through the fragile exchange of words. We were married because a hundred people saw us do it. Oddly enough this made it seem both more sacred and more political. Afterwards he hugged me and said proudly, You done good, Killer, you done good. Killer is his pet name for me. So go ahead, take a look at that picture again and think to yourself, "There they all are: the art rabbi, the killer in a gold veil and her wife-to-be."