Andy.

I LOVE ANDY WARHOL!

Okay Okay, I know I'm an art major and should be discussing more obscure artists then the ever so popular and mainstream Andy Warhol. But before everyone starts freaking out about how cliche I'm being, let me tell you a few things that I bet you didn't know about everyone's favorite artist.

Okay, so first of all, he was born in Pittsburgh, which I'm sure a lot of people know, and his birth name was Andrew Warhola. He came from a very strict Byzantine Catholic family and lived in a Czechoslovakian enclave totally shut off from the rest of the city.

He remained fairly religious, attending church on Sunday's and he lived with his mother until her death.

As a child, he was diagnosed with a skin condition called St. Vitus disease which effects the nervous system and made it painful for people to touched him. This left him bedridden for much of his childhood and his brother would bring him Campbell's soup to his bed. Foreshadowing what was to come? I think so.

All of this isolation that resulted from his disease allowed Andy to become quite the observer; you know, gave him way greater insight.

Even as a child Warhol was completely obsessed with celebrities. He wrote Shirley Temple letters over and over again until she finally sent him an autographed picture just so that he would stop writing.

Andy was obsessed with his appearance and totally superficial. He had a nose job, which was botched, and in spite of his painful disease, had his skin sanded down. He loved plastic and was not afraid to admit it. He felt no remorse for being shallow.

"I love Los Angeles. I love Hollywood. They're beautiful. Everybody's plastic, but I love plastic. I want to be plastic."

Although he was gay, he was quite asexual. He really did not have much sex which may surprise people who know the title of any of his movies such as Blow Job. The movie showed nothing except for the man's face the entire time. Here is part of it:




"Fantasy love is much better than reality love. Never doing it is very exciting. The most exciting attractions are between two opposites that never meet."

Andy was shot on June 3, 1968 by a woman name Valerie Solanas. The story had always went that Solanas had wanted Andy to produce her film, Up Your Ass, which he had refused to do because he claimed that it was basically pornographic and he would get arrested. When Solanas went to pick up her film, she claimed that Warhol had said he lost it, but she believed that he had stolen it. Therefore, she shot him.

However, in an article in last month's Interview Magazine, Margo Feiden revealed what really happened that day. Fieden was a playwrite prodigy producing her first Broadway play at the age of sixteen. Therefore it was no surprise that someone so desperate to have a play produced would go to her for help, which is exactly what Solanas did. __ came home to find her standing at her door, and eccentric that __ was, she let her in.

In the article, Feiden said that, "Valerie explained this play, this manifesto, and what she said was absolutely shocking. She had decided that the right way for society to go forward was to keep only the males who were absolutely necessary and commit genocide on the largest scale that ever could be imagined. And she said something so interesting to me . . . This was before, uh, test-tube babies . . .She said that there would come a time in our lifetimes when men would not be needed for procreation—that you could take the sperm and store it and you would never need males to be alive to contribute this. She said this will happen in our lifetimes."

Anyways, that article went on to say that Varlerie told Feiden that she was going to leave now and go shoot Andy. Valerie told her, “I’m going to shoot AndyWarhol now, because when I’m famous and when my play becomes famous, you’ll produce it.”

In any case, Valerie did end up shooting Andy. Feiden finally let this forty year old secret out because she was upset that she accused Andy of being a thief:

"...she did that shooting as a publicity stunt to be famous, so that I would produce her play. Why should Andy Warhol’s name, in any way, be sullied? Why should people think that she had any justification for what she did? He gave her none."
-Margo Fieden

Regardless, Andy was rushed to the hospital and pronounced dead. Then someone in the emergency room told the doctor, "hey you gotta save this guy. He's Andy Warhol, the greatest artist of our time!" So, the doctor cracked open his chest and massaged his heart and revived him.

For the full article: http://www.interviewmagazine.com/culture/history-rewrite/ You should probably read it because it explains the story much more clearly than I did...even if you could completely care less, you should still read it if only for Margo's fantastical eccentric way of wording her thoughts.

People may think of Warhol, as they may think of most Pop artists, as someone who simply took an everyday object, and reproduced an image of it. But in the end, Pop Art is so much more than that. Warhol saw objects in an entirely different perspective. He realized that nothing was new, everything had already been produced. It was now his job to take something that existed, and portray it in a way never before imagined. A new view.

For example, his Marilyn Diptych is hardly just a reproduced image of the icon done in bright colors. The dyptich iself is reminiscent of his Byzantine background. If you have ever gone into a grand and ornate Byzantine cathedral, you could only imagine the great tryptich alters Warhol must have have encountered and been awestruck by as a child.

My Hero Carrie Bradshaw in Action

MMMMusic.

Are you depressed? Heartbroken? Feel like you'll simply never get over it? Well then have I got a playlist for you. Try one of these songs out to help you get the most out of your self-pity:

1. Al Green, "How Can You Mend a Broken Heart?"
2. Bird and Bee, "I'm a Broken Heart"
3. Stacy Kent, "I Guess I'll Have to Change My Plan"
4. Lily Allen, "Littlest Things"
5. Joni Mitchell, "A Case of You"
6. Rilo Kiley, "Rest of My Life"
7. Stars, "Your Ex-Lover Is Dead"
8. Bob Dylan, "Don't Think Twice it's Alright"
9. Most anything by Elliot Smith

And when you're ready to rebound, but ONLY when you have successfully reached the deepest and darkest abyss of that exquisite pain that was your heart being split in two, will it be time for Sinatra's, "That's Life," or Rilo Kiley's "Breakin' Up."

Random Thoughts for April 9, 2009

-I feel so futuristic when I date things.

-I wonder why Geppeddo from Pinocchio was so on my mind in my unconscious/hallucinatory sleep state of mind last night.

-I raged a war on ants and won.

-Fuck astrology. Mainly the horoscopes. You don't know me, outer space bastards. Stop messing with my mind.

-I hate pen marks on sneakers. So tenth grade punk/goth suburban rebellion scene. I just wrote on my shoe with pen. Stupid.

-Never settle on puppet hair. There has to be something you can do to avoid it.
The following are examples of puppet hair:

Exhibit A) Creepy muppets have puppet hair. Obviously.

Exhibit B) Christina Ricci in Mermaids. Not the best picture but how could anyone forget that unfortunate, non-color, puppetesque hair on that poor child.

Exhibit C) Anyone from the 60's or 70's. Sorry Janis, I love you but damn your hair resembled a puppet's.
-I love the fall because it eternally perpetuates the 60's. It's weird to think about. That means that because fall is forever, the 60's are forever. Even before they even happened. Therefore, if you were in a wooded area in 1845, it would have felt like the 1960's. That shits weird.

-A post thought to the previous thought: Autumn leaves remind me of Mary Tyler Moore. I like that.

-Sucks that everything that makes us happy now will inevitably make us sad someday.

Why am I so intimidated by people? I don't even like most of them.

I love Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. I could watch it over and over and over again. And I have. One of my favorite lines is towards the beginning when Joel first sees Clem, well I guess technically he had already known her, but anyways, besides the point, he thinks to himself:

"Why do I always fall in love with every woman I see that shows me the lease bit of attention?"

I feel exactly the same. And you know, it really fucking sucks. It is so completely frustrating. It really sets you up for a lot of heartbreak. See, after 21 years of living with myself, I've come to know a lot about my personality. I am extremely idealistic. I'm rarely content. My environment dictates my mood in a far too extreme nature. For example, if I'm in a library with 70's Church Rectory decor/smell for more than an hour, I will remain depressed for a week.

I walk out my door everyday hoping to meet someone. Just any kind of person. Someone who sees me and is intrigued enough to be like hmm, that person looks interesting. She looks like she's thinking about something important. I wonder what that person is all about. Needless to say, that has never happened, and it isn't like I'm all that surprssed or anything.

The shit thing about it all, is that I know if and when that day ever actually does happen, I'll fuck it up. I'm shit with people...and I thought I had come to terms with it, accepted it, moved on. But, I can't pretend I don't care. I do. My lack of communication skills has ruined far too many potential relationships. And when I use the term "relationship," I mean of all kinds. Boyfriends, girl friends, family members, teachers; the list is endless.

If I am currently friends with you, then you probably fit into one of the two categories listed below:

1. You spent large amounts of time with me against your will.

examples: You were forced to be my roommate/you are my sibling or parent

2. I met you while I was around someone who I am already currently comfortable with; aka I met you while hanging out with Archana.

I don't mind if you don't like me. Sometimes, people are just not compatible so whatev. I get that. But when people don't like me for the person that I'm not, I can't help but completely hate myself for not being able to just get the fuck out of my head and be who I am. If there's one thing I never want to be, it's "that quite girl who sure is nice but fuck is she boring." I'm not that and if you knew the half of what goes on in my head I'd blow ya mind.

Current Things I Want:

I have created this section, which will be reoccurring, to share with you the things that I want to buy, yet as an unemployed college student, I cannot. But that doesn’t mean that you guys can go out and buy them because if by some miracle I do obtain a few bucks to spend I’M the one who saw these things first. If I don’t know you then whatever, buy freely. But as a friend (this means you Archana), come on, don’t be uncool. Instead, think of this section as a guide to everything fabulous. Work off of it and buy similar pieces. If you must have an item on the list, listen, I don’t blame you, I only like best. But run it by me and maybe we could make a compromise. Like, you can get it in my size and let me borrow whenever I feel.

Quite simply, this shoe doesn't look real. Precisely why i must have it.

Everyone should own a trench coat. Classic and practical. Rain happens man. And it happens year round.Ever since Carrie sported those Dior Extreme pumps and dawned the fabulous belt "Roger" in the Sex and the City movie, I have been completely into studded things. Yet sadly, I own nothing to validate my new found obsession.
Fabulous dress. It looks like oragami. And who doesn't want to look like Asian art?

Umm, if I have to explain what makes this item a must have then you shouldn't be allowed to be a person.

What's on Your Mind Philadelphia? (Septa bus driver edition)

So I’m on the dreaded C bus last week. I hate that bus. It always has the craziest of the crazy people, the smelliest of the homeless, and the wheelchairs. Oh the wheel chairs! It’s like a constant flow of them on and off on and off. Do you know how long it takes for a wheel chair to load a bus?? Well if not, jump on the C and find out. Anyways, now that I have sufficiently ensured the fact that you all think I’m a horrible person, I will continue on with my story about a bus driver who was equally as horrible...but funny. She was definitely funny. So our bus said on its banner thing that it was going to “City Hall” yet at every stop, someone would inevitably ask if it was going all the way down Broad St. or if it was going to stop at City Hall. Now I know it said “City Hall” on the bus but I don’t think that it was that outrageous of a question. My bus driver, on the other hand, thought that these people were the total epitome of stupidity for asking this. By Girard, she had begun to respond to these people by screaming at them out the door, “Are you stupid!? It says City Hall! IF YOU CAN’T READ, YOU BETTA BE ABLE TA HEAR!” Hilarious. What does that even mean? So basically, all the way from Girard to City Hall, she drove past the bus stops, sometimes not even bothering to stop, yelling out the open door, “You people are so stupid!”

I am not sure what bus this is, but it's probably the C bus. It would run into a house.

Street

I walk a lot. Sometimes when I'm walking down the street, one with a healthy amount of people on it, I wonder if the people that pass me think I'm crazy. I don't know why they would. I don't outwardly appear to be particularly strange or abnormal. But nevertheless, this thought never fails to enter my head at least twice a day. So, I usually decide to appease their accusations (or what I believe to be their accusations to be) and start rattling off my thoughts in my head:
"I'm crazy-I'm talking to myself-I want to scream.
Scream. Scream. SCREAM...at YOU!
You can't hear me but I'm talking about you to myself in my head.
LOUDLY.
Man this is so crazy.
Fuckfuckfuckfuck
ihatewalkinghome
These stupid people-cold-words.
Say random words
bus.wall.enter.enter.stop.
NO STOP.
Stop talking to yourself.
It was a game but now I can't stop. Maybe I am crazy.These stupid people made me make myself crazy.
Don't trip.
roadroad forever road
don't talk to me dont look at me i hate you i'll look back stopitstopitstopit.
Home."
I may be one of the most self-absorbed people in the world. Secretly.