What to write about Lydia Lunch, that has not been written? She has been called an American icon. She´s certainly a confrontationalist. A provocateur/multi-talented woman on the highest order who uses her talents to fight against a corrupt system and society. If you ever go to see Lydia and her band Big Sexy Noise or to one of her spoken word performances, expect to be challenged. It is certainly not something for the faint-hearted. You should google Lydia Lunch to go to her amazing website that will give much more details.She has expressed her creativity through her music, books, spoken word performances, film, video, photography, poetry and ... I am sure I am forgetting something else. I would have to write a detailed Lydia Lunch history book to cover it all. I really appreciated her collaboration with Rowland S. Howard on the two albums "Honeymoon in Red" and "Shotgun Wedding". It was a big influence on me and it was because of that, I met Lydia once again. I will write a bit about Lydia and then end with a story of how I met Lydia after all these years because of Rowland S. Howard. It involved a nasty volcano and a happy ending in Vienna. Google any names here to get further information.

Lydia Lunch has been called "One of the 10 most influential performers of the 1990´s. I have always admired her energy and anger and how she throws it all into all of her art. She started singing and playing guitar for her band Teenage Jesus and the Jerks in New York when she was 16, all the way back in 1976! She was one of the major innovators behind what was known in 1978 as No-wave music. Brian Eno attended a series of their shows along with other bands of that time such as The Contortions, Mars and DNA. He produced an anthology album of these bands called No New York on Island Records. A revolutionary album at the time in 1978 and is still somewhat shocking after all this time. Her next band 8 Eyed Spy took off in another intense direction. She went on to make her solo debut influential album "Queen of Siam" in 1980. As Lydia became more involved in a wider range of artistic pursuits, her musical endeavors of the 80's focused on an extended, infamous series of collaborations with the likes of members of Sonic Youth, Birthday Party, Foetus, Einsturzende Neubauten and many others. In the present decade to date, Lydia has undertaken repeated tours of Europe and the U.S., and has giving spoken-word performances and been featured at internationally prestigious events. Her still photography has been exhibited at galleries in Prague, Paris, Eindhoven, Detroit, Los Angeles, San Diego, Melbourne, Australia and England. She went on to make underground films with Richard Kern and Beth and Scott B. In 1998, Lydia had an international retrospective of her photography which culminated in Paris at the Museum of Erotic Art, where 4 of her pieces are now on permanent display. She was the poster-girl for the Whitney Museum of Art's Underground Film Festival (Oct. 96-Jan. 97), Lydia appeared in 8 films in the festival including the gut-wrenching films of director Richard Kern. She shook up people with her performance as the phone-sex worker in Kern´s infamous film "Fingered" which captured Lydia´s and Kern´s vision of sexual violence and desire

She started her own production company Widowspeak which released her spoken word collaborations and her books. Such as the compilation, "Our Fathers Who Aren't in Heaven" (1990) features Lunch and author Hubert Selby Jr (Last Exit to Brooklyn), Henry Rollins and Don Bajema. She has traveled through the world with her bands and doing her intense spoken word performances. She has published quite a few books. Some of the books that come to mind: Her collaborative book of poetry with Exene Cervenka entitled "Adulter´s Anonymous", "Video Hysterie" a retrospective of Lydia´s music collaborations from 1978 to 2006 which comes with a DVD, "The Gun is Loaded" and "Paragoxia: a Predator´s Diary". This book has been described as a gorgeously battering experience, I will have to include a quote here: The unspeakable sexual confessions of underground legend Lydia Lunch. "Paradoxia reveals that Lunch is at her best when she's at her worst . . and gives voice to her sometimes scary, frequently funny, always canny, never sentimental siren song." --Barbara Kruger, ArtForum. Her recent book is out now and is called "Will Work For Drugs".

Lydia devoted still more of her time to writing, spoken-word performances and lecturing at academic institutions at home in the U.S. including teaching a class on Performance Art at the San Francisco Art Institute and even more so abroad with foreign engagements taking up the bulk of her time in recent years.The 2004 release of "Smoke in the Shadows", a full length LP which features Tommy Grenas, Len Del Rio, Nels Cline, Terry Edwards, Carla Bozulich an

My previous posts have all dealt with the spirit of
Christmas. For this post I'd like to delve on a
different spirit that seems to show its face during
the holidays.

I'm talking about the spirit of horror.

What is it about Christmas that sparks an explosion of
horror themed entertainment. Who could forget the
Bahay sa Balete, the Horror Train, the Horror Castle
and the assorted horror booths that would come out
during Christmas fairs like Big Bang sa Alabang?

To compound this horror, you also get a scattering of
horror films of which we have two this year: Sigaw and
Spirit of the Glass.

In true Miranda Family tradition, we decided to help
put a boost to the Philippine film industry by
catching a Filipino horror movie. The one we chose was
Spirit of the Glass. Why did I choose this movie?
Because, spirit of the glass stories have always been
creepy and hair raising tales for me. How many
countless nights in my youth were spent telling horror
stories about demonic possessions and spirits being
released via broken drinking glasses. Thank God, I was
never foolhardy enough to dare actually do a Spirit of
the Glass seance. The closest I ever got was doing the
Spirit of the Ballpen, which you must admit, does not
have the scary creep out edge that a seance would
have.

So eagerly, Jenny, Popo and I dragged our sorry
carcases into Festival Mall, after we ran out of
tickets in ATC. Entering Festival Mall's theater made
me realize why I seldom watched a movie there. The
floor was covered in an assortment of sticky fluids
which was really disgusting.

But then again I digress. So how did I find the movie?
Well it was enjoyable, once you get over the annoying
acting of Rica Peralejo. In the area of giving you
shocks, it delivered. In giving you the hair raising,
goose bump tingling feeling, sorry to say it was a bit
short. Spirit of the Glass made me jump off my seat
quite a number of times but it didn't have the take
home terror that say, Exorcist had. It had its moments
which tap into our collective fears: Seeing a ghost
after washing your face, seeing someone at the back
seat of your car, etc. but that's what it. The other
characters were largely forgettable except for
Alessandra de Rossi and Paolo Contis who really gave
me a couple of laughs.

Was it money well spent? I believe so. But was it a
fullfilling movie? That's a judgement you'll have to
make on your own.

Well, my goal is set for the end of the week. And
that's to catch another shriekfest in the form of
Sigaw.

I hope I really wind up shouting my lungs out!

Merry Christmas!