What the heck is the mother of Jesus doing at the Limelight? Well, this pic was snapped circa-1999, so she sure as heck isn’t looking for the latest LeSportsac or nibbling on “mini wedding gateaux made of, yes, candy” at the former Episcopal church’s recent incarnation as a mall. Oh, sorry, they’re calling it a marketplace.
Can we just go back to 1999, when the building on the corner of 20th & 6th was still an old-school (through admittedly drug-peddling) nightclub? That’s not really Mary, but yours truly, posing with a red-tailed boa constrictor named Girlsnake (if you look closely, you can see her laced through my fingers). FYI, she put herself there, it’s not like I tied her or anything…Could you tie a snake in a knot anyway? Talk about an exercise in futility, like trying to stop the world from becoming one big store.
Anyway, I was posing as Mary as part of my friend Michael Cerchiai’s (sometimes Tweaka Turner) art installation. I stood all reverent like that for an hour, which actually flew by. I heard people debating about whether or not I was real or not. “Look at the feet, though,” they said. “They’re too white.”
And, “Ewwww, a snake.”
Alas, I no longer have Girlsnake, or that dress, and Mike has up and moved to San Francisco anyway, so we won’t be doing a repeat performance. Sometimes you just can’t go back.
Music to say your Hail Marys by
Sunday Morning, The Velvet Underground
Sunday morning=church. Limelight=church. Limelight=opening party hosted by Andy Warhol in 1983. Velvets=hosted by Andy Warhol in 1969.
I Believe, The Buzzcocks
Apparently I missed the whole point of this song the first 500 times I listened to it. I like it better now.
