Last night, Zoe Lund graced lower Manhattan for the first time this millennia. Dead for 25 years, her presence wafted through the theater like a musky perfume with heavy silage. Hot Ticket, her newly restored two-minute feature film and sole directorial effort premiered on a Tuesday night. She pruned her hair confidently in the mirror, folded the brim of her wide black-felt hat upward, and trotted her twig-thin legs into the street like a vision.
It was the hottest day of the year. 98 degrees and counting. A brisk 10-minute walk left a person panting, red-faced, swollen, sweaty. So hot, the typically drawn in black-clad intelligentsia of the lower east side stank of body odor, Salt and Stone deodorant, and eucalyptus essential oil employed to mask the smell. My back stuck to the cloth theatre seat through my cotton shirt.
I suppose that there had been warnings, but I never imagined it would happen. Each time a heatwave spreads through New York City, ConEd sends vaguely threatening emails warning of a looming power outage caused by electrical overload. The amount of air conditioners in the city cannot be supported by the electrical power-grid. Yesterday there was a complete blackout on the train tracks, resulting in all the transportation in the city to halt.
My two friends were running extremely late. I walked over from Tribeca, and I arrived 15 minutes early and selected a seat in the back-left. I desperately saved two seats from them, and had to ward off various anxiously searching ticket holders. I did it more as an act of faith that they would arrive, rather than any kind of logical belief the train problems would be resolved promptly (of course I knew they wouldn’t). The film to be premiered was two-minutes long, naturally time and position in the theater was of the essence.
The program started shortly after 7:30 — a relaxed 7:35. Manon L.and Stephanie L., publishers of Zoe’s recently released book of poetry, and restorers of the film we would see, introduced it. I have seen Stephanie L.read and introduce projects her publishing house has put out many times. I do not feel any way about her. The most robust association I have in my mind is when she recommended Adidas Sambas, the shoe of 2023, in her Perfectly Imperfect. Stephanie L. resembles Zoe Lund, it is kind of uncanny. Both pencil thin, red-heads, with big lips accentuated with lip tint. One of them was addicted to heroin. I became familiar with Manon L.when I attended Editions Lutanie’s release of Rene Ricard God With Revolver. Manon’s terse French accent pronounced Zoe Tamerlis Lund’s name beautifully. It led me to wonder for the first time if Zoe was European, not American, as I knew her well to be.
After the brief introduction, Hot Ticket started. My arms, which were spread over my two neighboring theater seats, grasped the fabric of the seats as my knuckles turned white. Zoe exited the bathroom stall, adjusted her wide brimmed felt hat and introduced herself, “I’m Zoe Lund, writer and actress.” Balmy, painted orange glow of the bathroom looked a set from The Shining. I thought I heard a broad, central European accent in her hoarse voice. This was my first time having heard Zoe speak in four or five years, since Ms. 45 her character is entirely mute.
Zoe paced on leather legging-clad toothpicks down the hall of the theater to the box office. She dropped a fully-loaded syringe at the cashier, a kind of shooting up to nod off at the movies in reverse, and stepped out into the night. The skinny, gorgeous cinema goer stepping anonymously into the European street reminded me oddly of Melanie Laurent in Quentin Tarantino’s Inglorious Basterds. Quentin Tarantino is loaded with self-aware references to film history, and ripped a lot of tricks and themes Abel Ferrara and Zoe’s work invented in ‘70s exploitation film.
Zoe lived for cinema. Zoe lived for drugs. Zoe died for drugs. Zoe died for cinema.
Zoe is much more depthful than the cliches I've presented her along side. I only do this to emphasize how her cinematic lanuage since the '80s has been made vernacultar by fanboys.
