NYPL Long-Term Fellow Alvin Eng presents a work-in-progress look at his forthcoming work of history and memoir, Urban Oracle Bones, which explores the cultural dynamic between opium and the “heroin chic” punk scene of 1970s NYC. Drawing on resources from the Library’s Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature, as well as firsthand accounts of life in Lower Manhattan and Chinatown, Eng examines this period and its legacy through the dual lenses of William S. Burroughs’ character “Johnny Yen”—immortalized in Iggy Pop and David Bowie’s song “Lust for Life”—and his own grandfather’s opium overdose in Chinatown, spotlighting the forces that shaped both his life and broader cultural movements.