We really did talk like the Talking Heads

(Editor's note: After unearthing the DTH article that former Kaleidoscoope editor Peggie Porter wrote on life at the Pink House, right when her crew was about to move out in the summer of 1985, we were thrilled to hear from her with more details of that era. Spoiler alert: this post solves the mystery of the Mona Lisa!)

by PEGGIE PORTER ('83-'85)

Lindsay Anderson (Sablosky) lived in the Mona Lisa room. That's her in the Batman mask on Halloween, 198?. I was Robin. Bill Burd stayed in the little room off the kitchen. A girl named Marita lived upstairs. Her boyfriend Gregory Owcarz was an unofficial resident. He painted the Mona Lisa with a stencil. Now he's a philosophy professor and lives in France. Bryce Lankard also lived upstairs, and was the photo editor or maybe the editor of the Yackety Yack.

One time Lindsay found a piece of gum in the shower, and she used it to stick a note to the mirror:

"Found this in the shower. Thought someone might want to put it back in their fucking mouth. This ain't no party, this ain't no disco."

Yeah, we really did talk like the Talking Heads.

We did not, however, listen to the Smiths. Or major in history, or entertain "like-minded female English majors" (most of us were female English majors). Or sip wine. When buying alcohol, we focused on potency, not flavor. We were poor, you see - college poor, not real poor - and a sixpack of Natty Bo in bottles would get you just as shitty as the good stuff.

What we listened to was REM. Incessantly, obsessively, REM. Chronic Town, Murmur, Reckoning. Talk about the passion...we could not get enough of it.

Also the Grateful Dead. Also Dire Straits and Tom Waits. Also Don Dixon and the dBs. Guadalcanal Diary. Pet Shop Boys. David Bowie. Wall of Voodoo. Aztec Camera. Lou Reed. English Beat. Prince, but only ironically.

But not, as far as I recall, the Smiths. That would have made us posers.

Peggie in mid-'80s Chapel Hill. Photo by Bryce Lankard.