A performance artist, an actress, a musician, a singer, an author—Lydia Lunch is like no other. An originator of the No Wave movement, Lunch is a predator, in sight and in mind, on the page, on the screen and on tape. Her aptly titled memoir, “Paradoxia: A Predator’s Diary,” originally published in 1998, is her account of her arrival in New York City at age 16, and her sexual misadventures, excursions in dope and booze and dealings with death and blood that would follow. In graphic detail she recounts her past—her prose is as stiff and rigid as, well, you know. Each sentence is not so much a punch in the chops, more a poke in the eye. It’s beautiful filth, a past only Lunch can recount. She writes of a memory of sex on acid, “Disappointed, we decided to fuck each other, until a bicycle left in an empty closet caught our attention. It struck us as the most ridiculous instrument we’d ever seen.” It’s about power, it’s about rage. It’s about taking it out on the other person. Choke on it. (Tom Lynch)
Lydia Lunch reads from “Paradoxia” November 7 at Quimby’s, 1854 West North, (773)342-0910, at 7pm. Free. Get there early.
