June 30, 1997

"Excuuuuse Me. I'm Lydia Lunch," she snarled from the stage dressed in all black with a tattoo slithering out the bottom of her leggings into her black, studded pumps. And I wondered if she might come harass or beat any audience member who did not give her full attention - I wasn't taking any chances. Tuesday night at Harold and Maude's (always a treat), spoken word performer Lydia Lunch gave a sneak peek of a piece from her new book, Paradoxia: A Predator's Diary.

But before she went on, Vanessa Skantze, another spoken word act, warmed up the audience with an intensely serious piece. Looking as if she might devour the microphone - ravenous, naughty, and prepared to destroy any phallic object in her sight - she created a series of Lazarus-like images through which she destroyed and resurrected her inner self: "listening to the voices within," facing her longings and desires, shattering the system of binary opposites. At a couple of points I thought she might open a vein right there on stage, but she didn't. In fact, her performance ended with a sense of resolution, as she reached a kind of spoken orgasm about the possibility of who she could become "someday." The audience was primed and ready for Lydia ...

But there were no big surprises with Lunch's performance. She was only mildly repulsive, not too shocking, and cynical as hell. I was expecting her to explode into a fit of rage - like Vanessa Skantze did - about past abuses, injustices, and misogyny, but instead she told a story about her adventures with Marty, a greasy, buck knife-wielding, Manson admirer who drives around the outskirts of L.A. in a 1958 "baby shit brown Ford pick-up" looking to prey on and generally scare the shit out of unsuspecting victims. They lived by the creed "Fear is the greatest aphrodisiac." It was a tale with no resolution, no hope, and it generally gave me a sour, sickening feeling about the fate of humanity. Pure Lydia Lunch.

Jodie Marion I teach Composition at UCF while also studying for my Master's degree, which should be completed--hopefully--before the turn of the century. In the meantime I write for the Central Florida Hispanic (Education section) and especially dig reading Lawrence Durrell. Other Articles I've Written