Lisa Jane Persky, actress, photographer, and writer, will give a punk rock reading today at FilmScene.
By Tessa Solomon
In the dim lights of a New York CBCG music club, Debbie Harry of Blondie belts into the mike. Her blonde hair whips in time with the beat, a famous vision in the new-age sensation.
The sight of Harry shopping in a Los Angeles grocery store, clutching huge cans of food, is less familiar. Band members lounging atop their caravan, beginning a cross-country trek, has been hidden from a hungry public.
They were in full view for actress, writer, and photographer Lisa Jane Persky. In her new gallery, X-Offenders: A Year in the Life of a Proto-Punk, these fleeting images, intimate in their banality, are immortal.
As part of Mission Creek, Persky will partake in a film screening, discussion, reading, and workshop of her yet-unreleased memoir. Her first reading will be at 5 p.m. today at FilmScene; she’ll introduce her movie KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park there at 10 p.m.
In the late-70s, Persky was in the midst of the East Village’s new age and punk scene. Its doorways saw the backside of pivotal artists like Patti Smith; its stage was stomped by groups such as the Ramones and the Talking Heads.
“I still think, ‘I saw that,’” Persky said. “We were aware that something amazing was taking place, but we didn’t know what or who would catch on, become popular. To those of us going to the shows night after night, it seemed like outsiders were slow on the uptake.
I always hoped that the photos would mean something to more than just me.”
While these images captivate people, the woman behind the camera sparks her own fascination. Perksy eludes easy categorization, but reduced to her essence, she is an innovator.
In 1976, she began work at New York Rocker with Alan Betrock. It chronicled the unfolding history of the early CBGB scene, searching for words and photos to capture its dynamic and shifting spirit. Her two years at that artistic collaboration defined her pursuits.
“I really don’t know how to interact socially without a purpose, and I’ve had to push past a lot of fear to interact with people at all,” she said. “I almost always love collaborating or working on projects together.”
Her ensuing résumé would dip into almost every creative field, smudging her presence on its surface. Acting became her earliest, and possibly most dear, passion. Having acted in more than two dozen films, including When Harry Met Sally and The Big Easy, Persky found fulfilling connections in the pretend.
“Drama is interaction. Acting is the most social of all the careers I enjoy,” Persky said. “You get to make a life not your own, very much your own, and together serve something greater than each individual part, which is the story. What and who it takes to make a show, a movie, a play come together is like a magic trick, part mechanics and part mystery.”
Persky’s slew of Mission Creek events offer a chance to not only engage with her vibrant past, but a literary and musical history that continues to define.