Prompted by an invocation of Tama Janowitz on the most recent episode of “Desperately Seeking the `80s,” I was back-n’-forthing with a friend about the once-celebrated scribe's endeavors beyond the written page, and cited cinematic opuses like the adaptation of her breakout novel, “Slaves of New York” (starring Bernadette Peters … which I briefly discussed without much charity here) and “Mondo New York,” only to check my facts and realize that Ms. Janowitz had fuck-all to do with the latter. Ah, the tendrils of senility are flowering, even now.
Certainly born of the same era and aesthetic as Ms. Janowitz, “Mondo New York” was actually the brain child of director Harvey Keith and writer David Silver. Released in 1988, it featured a series of vignettes starring era-appropriate downtown luminaries like Joey Arias, Joe Coleman, Karen Finley, Phoebe LeGere, Ann Magnuson, John Sex, Annie Sprinkle and Flaming Pablum-favorite, Lydia Lunch, all embroiled in a wide array of diverse scenarios. Sounds promising, right?
To be perfectly honest, I rented it a few years back (having not seen it upon its original release in the late `80s), and I have to say … perhaps it was eye-opening, at the time, but I frankly had a hard time sitting through it. In fact, I think I got irretrievably bored halfway through and abandoned ship. I have loads of time for anything Lydia Lunch is involved in, but she only really supplies a suitably smarmy prologue and then vanishes from proceedings .. unless, of course, she comes back towards the end, but I didn’t make it that far.
In discussing same, I went to try and find just Lydia’s aforementioned prologue, … but actually found the whole film on YouTube, so ….dear reader … take a look and decide for yourself.
Enjoy (if possible)… “Mondo New York” (or while it lasts on YouTube, at least). Because it is “age-restricted,” it is un-embeddable (boo), but find the whole film for your viewing pleasure here.
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