1. The Slaves of New York movie featured the woefully miscast Bernadette Peters as well as the brilliant but still under the radar Steve Buscemi. (The paperback version of Slaves was also one of the books that got me thru the summer of 1988 in NYC.)

2. She was part of the literary rat pack of the 1980's - which included Bret Ellis Easton of American Psycho fame and Jay McInerney of Bright Lights, Big City and now Twitter fame. Ring a ding ding.

2. She's not on Twitter or Facebook or even Instagram. Anonymity is going to be the next big thing! I swear. As Banksy says (and the only reason I know who he is is because I still read the NY Post religiously) in the future, everyone will be anonymous for 15 minutes.

3. She was good friends with the iconic arbiter of NYC cool himself (and author of the 'In the future, everyone will be FAMOUS for 15 mins' quote) Andy Warhol himself. More importantly, Tama was also one of the few who came off relatively unscathed after the posthumous publication of his (Andy) Warhol Diaries. Among those who were scathed? A who's who that included everyone from Bianca and Mick, La Liz and Halston.

4. She puts absolutely everything into perspective - 'Long after the bomb falls and you and your good deeds are gone, cockroaches will still be here, prowling the streets like armored cars.'

5. That hair!!! Tama put an ultra cool downtown spin on the big hair of the 80's. We must appreciate this even more so today when many of our favorites are wearing hair extensions or other forms of fakery. And after all, big thick glorious good hair makes everything else in life all that much better. Hair matters.

Photo Courtesy: Tama Janowitz photo, Pinterest