camp aesthetics, continued.
Stretched vinyl sleeve photo for ABC’s “The Lexicon of Love” by Gered Mankowitz. 1982.
ABC’s “Poison Arrow” has long been one of my favorite quintessentially ‘80s music videos; i can’t resist the fast zooms towards the femme fatale dressed like Aphrodite on stage, or lead-singer Michael Fry crawling around an over-sized set of table settings, and Lisa Vanderpump applying lip-stick with a manic ambivalence. I’ve always been endeared by ‘80s new wave music. As a kid, I would habitually leave the radio on to fall asleep to Depeche Mode, Duran Duran. As I got older, it was still that timeframe, but different players: Gary Numan, Lene Lovich, Nina Hagen; then, the weirdos from the documentary-performance art film, Mondo New York: Phoebe Legere, Joey Arias, Lydia Lunch, Dean Johnson and the Weenies. Oh, and, how could I ever grow bored of Lizzy Mercier Descloux wandering the streets of South Africa and wrying poking fun of her own euro-centrism, asking: “but, where are the gazelles!?”