POPism by Andy Warhol & Pat Hackett

Author:Andy Warhol & Pat Hackett
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 1980-11-23T16:00:00+00:00

Come Blow Your Mind

the Silver Dream Factory presents the first

ERUPTING PLASTIC INEVITABLE

WITH

Andy Warhol

The Velvet Underground

AND

Nico

We had My Hustler playing uptown at the Film-Makers’ Coop in the Wurlitzer Building on West 41st Street. And even farther uptown on that Saturday there was my opening of the silver helium-filled pillows at the Castelli Gallery with my yellow and pink cow wallpaper all over. (In the full ad for the Dom opening, it had spelled out that there would be no show on Saturday night “due to uptown art gallery opening.”)

So now, with one thing and another, we were reaching people in all parts of town, all different types of people: the ones who saw the movies would get curious about the gallery show, and the kids dancing at the Dom would want to see the movies; the groups were getting all mixed up with each other—dance, music, art, fashion, movies. It was fun to see the Museum of Modern Art people next to the teeny-boppers next to the amphetamine queens next to the fashion editors.

We all knew something revolutionary was happening, we just felt it. Things couldn’t look this strange and new without some barrier being broken. “It’s like the Red Seeeea,” Nico said, standing next to me one night on the Dom balcony that looked out over all the action, “paaaaarting.”

All that month the limousines pulled up outside the Dom. Inside, the Velvets played so loud and crazy I couldn’t even begin to guess the decibels, and there were images projected everywhere, one on top of the other. I’d usually watch from the balcony or take my turn at the projectors, slipping different-colored gelatin slides over the lenses and turning movies like Harlot, The Shoplifter, Couch, Banana, Blow Job, Sleep, Empire, Kiss, Whips, Face, Camp, Eat Into all different colors. Stephen Shore and Little Joey and a Harvard kid named Danny Williams would take turns operating the spotights while Gerard and Ronnie and Ingrid and Mary Might (Woronov) danced sadomasochistic style with the whips and flashlights and the Velvets played and the differentcolored hypnotic dot patterns swirled and bounced off the walls and the strobes flashed and you could close your eyes and hear cymbals and boots stomping and whips cracking and tambourines sounding like chains rattling.

Ondine and the Duchess would shoot people up in the crowd if they halfway knew them. Once, from the balcony, I saw blood spurt in a strobe flash across Pauline de Rothschild and Cecil Beaton. Later Ondine came running out of the bathroom screaming that he’d dropped his “spike” down the toilet by mistake. Paul yelled, “Good!” and he really meant it—we were afraid they’d jab somebody they didn’t know.

People in the crowd would come over and introduce themselves and it was all unreal. You wouldn’t think about it at the time, but the strobe would freeze the moments in your brain and you’d pull them out months or years later. Like “This is Karen Black,” and that second would somehow flash back the next year when you saw the same face in You’re a Big Boy Now.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.