Saturday, September 10, 2005

The group Hayes was part of when that coughing started is a tragic one (unfortunately): Sadly, many of the Diary's notables came to a bad end: Andy himself died unexpectedly - and prematurely - after gall bladder surgery in February 1987. Jed Johnson died in the TWA plane crash in 1996. Steve Rubell, Jon Gould, Robert Hayes, Keith Haring, Halston, and so many others died of complications from AIDS. Jean-Michel Basquiat died from a drug overdose. Truman Capote died, relatively young, after decades of alcohol and drug abuse. Berry Berenson (Marisa Berenson's sister and one-time wife of Anthony Perkins) died in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

The above is repeated again, again, again and again...

The story of Michael Jackson's portrait:

Andy Warhol's name is synonymous with the Pop Art movement in America. Like other Pop artists, he often chose to use objects appropriated from popular culture as imagery for fine art. These were often photographs, which were then reproduced onto a canvas through a silkscreen process by assistants. Warhol then retouched them. As he put it, "I sort of half paint them just to give it a style." The choice of Warhol as Jackson's portraitist for the cover of Time was appropriate, given the artist's fascination with heroes of popular culture.



Oil on silkscreen on canvas, 1984
Time cover, March 19, 1984
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution
Gift of Time magazine

Haha! Andy asks him out (gossip): Andy Warhol About Michael Jackson

"Susan (Blond) got me an interview with Michael Jackson, one of the Jackson Five and the star of The Wiz. I asked him for a date. He said, "Are you a fairy or something?" He was going with Tatum O'Neal then. I wanted to go on a date with both of them."- Andy Warhol.

M.J. be hanging with the big timers of American History: Andy Warhol's 1984 portrait of Michael Jackson is included with other paintings ranging in date from the 1720's to the 1990's and featuring people of America's past. Other historical figures who have portraits in this exhibition include Benjamin Franklin, T. S. Eliot, General George S. Patton, George Gershwin, and more.

Andy is a weirdo, just like M.J.: And so it goes, with Jackson acting no weirder than Andy Warhol or Bob Dylan. Bashir responds with so much horror that everything Jackson says, even that he likes video games, sounds felonious. By treating his subject as a cretin, Bashir refuses to let Jackson be who he is—a talented and very eccentric musician. This overhyped documentary receives its fairest critique from Jackson himself: "Everything can be strange to someone. This interview is strange to some people out there. So who cares, right?" (Jackson has since filed complaints about the documentary with the Broadcasting Standards Commission and the Independent Television Commission.)

Why Andy may have been sarcastic about Barbara Rose and Robert Hughes may be a matter of "taste."

Here is Rose's position on Art History--the hook up may have started in the sixties (didn't everything according?!):

The first of three regional visual arts panels convened on September 11, 1966, at Geldzahler’s apartment on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. There were three participants: Robert Motherwell, a painter and a pioneer of Abstract Expressionism; Barbara Rose, an art historian and authority on minimalist painting and sculpture; and George Segal, a young figurative sculptor who was quickly gaining respect as an early Pop artist.

The official lingo (Married to minimalism of a sort): Barbara Rose is an American art historian and critic, born in 1938 and educated at Smith College, Barnard College and Columbia University. She is known primarily for her writings on 20th-century American art. She also has taught (at Hunter College, the University of California at San Diego and Irvine, and Sarah Lawrence College), curated exhibitions and made films.

Through her marriage to Frank Stella and friendships with many other New York artists she was a well-positioned observer of the American art world, particularly in the active New York scene of the 1960s and 1970s. Her first book, American Art Since 1900, published 1967, was followed by more than twenty monographs on artists, many more exhibition catalogue essays and hundreds of pieces of art journalism.

The hook up of Rose today as a "classic": Vince, most of my reading has been of the by-now "classical"
commentators (e.g., Clement Greenberg, Cllive Bell, Herbert Read, Meyer Shapiro, Harold Rosenberg, Hilton Kramer, Donald Kuspit, Barbara Rose, and more recently, my favorite Robert Hughes, and, very recently the spoilers, Julian Spaulding and James Gardner). Most of the writings since John Cage and Marcel Duchamp have striven for a DISCOURAGING anti-aesthetic cleverness (perhaps an affectation of revolutionary depth). As such, I have read and been inspired by commentators who have ENCOURAGED the enterprise of painting.

But let's not forget Hughes (Robert that is): He's knowledgable, sensible, passionate, lucid, unpretentious. But the simplest reason Time Magazine's Robert Hughes is possibly the best art critic writing today is that he's always interesting. Even when you disagree with him, it's impossible not to enjoy doing so.

Be anti-puritan baby, thassit: It's hard to imagine a critic further from Puritanism -- which he sees running through American culture to the present day -- than Robert Hughes. At 58, America's most famous art critic has the ruddy, weather-beaten look of a man who has lived thoroughly. Bluff and hearty in speech, irreverent and penetrating in manner, he exudes wit, erudition and a certain devil-may-care attitude that doesn't conceal his abiding passion for his work and the many things he loves.

Superstition and celebrities...

Ahh! There's a database:
oldsuperstitions.com

Selections (good/bad luck)

Good:

Category Good Luck Superstitions

Good Luck: Fingers Crossed - By making the sign of the Christian faith with our fingers, evil spirits would be prevented from destroying our chances of good fortune.


Good Luck: Knock on Wood - It was believed that good spirits lived in trees, and that by knocking on anything made from wood, we could call upon these spirits for protection against misfortune.


Good Luck: Saying God Bless You When Somebody Sneezes. When the great plague swept Europe., sufferers began sneezing violently which was a sign of death. The Pope therefore passed a law requiring people to bless the sneezer. At the same time, it was expected that anybody sneezing would cover their mouth with a cloth or their hand. This was obviously to stop the spreading of the disease, but many believed that it was to keep the soul intact. Sneezing 'into the air' would allow the soul to escape and death would be imminent. Up until this time, the opposite was true. Those who sneezed were congratulated, as it was believed that a violent sneeze would expel evil from their bodies.


Good Luck: A robin flying into the house


Good Luck: Sneezing 3 times before breakfast


Good Luck: Meeting 3 sheep


Good Luck: Looking at the new moon over your right shoulder


Good Luck: A 4-leaf clover


Good Luck: Spilling wine while proposing a toast


Good Luck: Putting a dress on inside out


Good Luck: 9 peas in a pea pod


Good Luck: Hearing crickets singing


Good Luck: Picking up a pin Dropping a glove


Good Luck: A horseshoe Peacock feathers


Good Luck: Cutting your hair during a storm


Good Luck: Sleeping facing south


Good Luck: White heather


Good Luck: Picking up a pencil in the street


Good Luck: Breaking clear and uncolored glass


Good Luck: Walking in the rain


Good Luck: Sleeping on un-ironed sheets


Good Luck: Avoiding cracks in the sidewalk


Good Luck: An itch on the top of your head


Good Luck: Scissors hanging an a hook


Good Luck: A ladybug on you


Good Luck: Carrying an acorn on your person will ensure good luck & longevity!


Good Luck: To find a four-leaf clover means immense good luck, so keep it safe, if you lose it


Good Luck: To pick up a piece of coal that has fallen in your path.


Good Luck : To have one's garments caught up by a bush or briar when out walking is a promise of good luck, involving monetary gain.


Good Luck: New enterprises will be fortunate if begun at the time of the new moon.


Good Luck: If by chance you meet the same person twice when you are out on business. It is even luckier if you encounter him once when you are setting out and again when you are returning.


Good Luck: Dolphins swimming nearby a ship


Good Luck: A naked woman on board a boat is said to calm the seas.


Good Luck: Golfers can have a successful day on the course if they start their round with odd numbered clubs and don't use balls with numbers higher than 4


Good Luck: To set out for golfing on a rainy day


See a penny, pick it up; all day long you will have good luck.



Bad:

Category Bad Luck superstitions

Bad Luck: Friday the Thirteenth - The Scandinavian's believed that the number 13 was unlucky due to the mythological 12 demigods being joined by a 13th, an evil one, who brought misfortune upon humans. It was also said that Christ was crucified on Friday and the number of guests at the party of the Last Supper was 13, with the 13th guest being Judas, the traitor.


Bad Luck: Walking under a ladder - A leaning ladder forms a triangle with the wall and ground. Triangles represent the Holy Trinity, and violating the Trinity by breaking it (walking through it) would put you in league with the devil himself.


Bad Luck: Black Cats - In ancient Egypt, the Goddess Bast was a black, female cat. Christians, wanting to rid society of all traces of other religions, convinced the ignorant that black cats were demons in disguise and should thus be destroyed. In the process, they also destroyed the kindly ladies who cared for the cats, believing them to be witches. Being demons, a black cat crossing your path would create a barrier of evil, cutting you off from God and blocking the entrance to heaven.


Bad Luck: Spilling Salt - Salt used to be an expensive commodity used mainly for medicinal purposes. For this reason, spillage was to be avoided at all costs. The idea that it is unlucky to do so probably stems from the belief that Judas spilt salt during the last supper. Throwing spilt salt over the left shoulder is linked to its medicinal use. If it could not be administered, the next best thing was to throw it into the eye of the evil spirits that brought sickness upon us. These spirits were thought to lurk behind your shoulder, waiting for an opportunity to strike.


Bad Luck: A bat flying into the house


Bad Luck: An owl hooting 3 times


Bad Luck: 3 butterflies together


Bad Luck: Looking at the new moon over your left shoulder


Bad Luck: A 5-leaf clover


Bad Luck: Breaking a glass while proposing a toast


Bad Luck: Putting a shirt on inside out


Bad Luck: Red and white flowers together


Bad Luck: Hearing a rooster crow at night


Bad Luck: Cutting your nails on a Friday


Bad Luck: Putting a hat on a bed


Bad Luck: Getting out of bed left foot first


Bad Luck: Violets blooming out of season


Bad Luck: A picture falling


Bad Luck: Breaking a mirror


Bad Luck: Singing before breakfast


Bad Luck: Opening an umbrella indoors


Bad Luck: Giving away a wedding present


Bad Luck: Stepping on cracks in the sidewalk


Bad Luck: An itch inside your nose


Bad Luck: Crossed knives


Bad Luck: seeing an owl during daylight


Bad Luck: If a dog suddenly barks for no apparent reason in a house that has a sick person then


Bad Luck: You must wear new clothes at Easter or you will have bad luck


Bad Luck: There will be an argument if knifes are crossed at a table. Also, if a lover gives you a


Bad Luck: Breaking a mirror means 7 years of bad luck, unless you take the pieces outside & bury them in moonlight. Also, an undisturbed mirror in a house suddenly fall & smashes then it means that there will soon be a death.


Bad Luck: Unless you were born in October, the wearing of an Opal will be ill-fated


Bad Luck: If pepper is spilt, then you will have a serious argument with a friend.


Bad Luck: Sparrows are said to carry the souls of the deceased to the after-life. To kill one means that you will be cursed.


Bad Luck: It is extremely unlucky to open an umbrella inside a house.


Bad Luck: If a groom drops the ring during the ceremony then the marriage is doomed to failure.


Bad Luck: Breaking a plate, especially if it had not already been cracked.


Bad Luck: To see the new moon for the first time through glass. Upon seeing the new moon you should turn whatever silver you have in your pockets or handbag, and thus ensure prosperity for a month.


Bad Luck: To upset pepper


Bad Luck: The blossom must never be cut from the tree and brought into the house before May 1, or ill fortune will attend you.


Bad Luck: Never mend a garment while you are wearing it, or misfortune will follow.


Bad Luck: Breaking a mirror portends seven years of bad luck. It is also extremely unlucky to receive a mirror as a present


Bad Luck: To make a present of a knife or any other sharp instrument unless you receive something in exchange.


Bad Luck: Walking under a ladder, unless you cross their fingers while doing so.


Bad Luck: It brings ill fortune if a lease or any contract is signed in the months of April, July, or November.


Bad Luck: To spill ink threatens worry, annoyance, and the failure of a project that is on foot.


Bad Luck: Crossing two table-knives by accident portends bad luck.


Bad Luck: To give a pair of gloves to a friend unless you receive something in exchange.


Bad Luck: To encounter a gravedigger coming towards you. Usually this means there will be a severe illness.


Bad Luck: For those who completely rake out a fire before retiring. A few embers should always be left.


Bad Luck: To break a glass bottle portends misfortune


Bad Luck: If you fasten a button into the wrong buttonhole


Bad Luck: if a candle falls over


Bad Luck: For a golfer to borrow your partners umbrella


Bad Luck: Throwing stones into the sea cause bad luck


Bad Luck: Starting a cruise on a Friday


Bad Luck: Stepping on board a ship with your left foot


Bad Luck: To open an umbrella in the house


Bad Luck: It is unlucky to sit on a table unless one foot is touching the ground


Bad Luck: If a person stumbles when leaving his house at the beginning of a journey, or trips or stumbles more than once during the course of the journey, it is advisable to postpone it.


Bad Luck: To pass anyone on the staircase.


Bad Luck: New shoes should never be left on a table


Bad Luck: To put on the left shoe before the right, and it is worse still to put the right shoe on the left foot, or vice versa.


Bad Luck: Spilling salt. If both salt and pepper are spilt at the same time, the force of this ill omen is doubled.

Jane Fonda was interviewed about her position on the Vietnam war in 60 minutes. In her interview she explains how she came to support the North Vietnamese:

Her marriage with Vadim ended, and she threw herself into political activism.

In her book, she says that she winces when she sees video of herself back then. She wrote: "Watching myself, I want to shout, 'Will someone please tell her to shut up!'"

"Yes. I just couldn't stop," says Fonda, laughing. "I just kept going. I was probably shrill."

That's when she met Tom Hayden, a star of the anti-Vietnam war movement, and married him. And when she did, she lurched into his very different lifestyle. She moved into a small house, which her father called "the shack," and she didn't have a washing machine.

"Yeah, it was a period of time when you showed your political purity by living, you know, in a way that made my teeth grate, to tell you the truth. It was hard. It was hard," says Fonda. "I mean, if I put a picture up on the wall of my bedroom, the nail would come through the other side."

"You were making good money and you're living like that," says Stahl.

"Well, we were giving the money away. We had to support an anti-war movement," says Fonda. "Why spend it on yourself when people are dying, and there’s a war going on? It was a crisis."

Some of the money went to their travels across the country, protesting the war and meeting with Vietnam veterans, and to pay for Fonda’s 1972 trip to Hanoi, the enemy capital. She earned the epithet “Hanoi Jane” and the eternal hatred of many veterans when she visited an anti-aircraft gun site used to shoot down American pilots.

It's something that Fonda now says she regrets. "I will go to my grave regretting that. The image of Jane Fonda, Barbarella, Henry Fonda's daughter, just a woman sitting on a enemy aircraft gun, was a betrayal," says Fonda.

"It was like I was thumbing my nose at the military. And at the country that gave me privilege. It was the largest lapse of judgment that I can even imagine. I don't thumb my nose at this country. I care deeply about American soldiers."

But many of those soldiers say if there’s one thing they will never forgive her for, it’s that she met with a group of seven POWs when she was in North Vietnam, giving the appearance of a staged event at their expense.

"Was that a lapse of judgment?" asks Stahl.

"No. There are hundreds of American delegations that had met with POWs. It was not uncommon at all," says Fonda.

"Does that make it right?" asks Stahl.

"It doesn't make it wrong," says Fonda.

"But the Vietnamese used it as propaganda, to say, 'Look how humane we are,'” says Stahl.

"Well, both sides were using propaganda, were using the POWs for propaganda," says Fonda. "I don't think there was anything wrong with it. It's not something that I will apologize for."

Nor does she apologize for making broadcasts on Radio Hanoi. "Our government was lying to us, and men were dying because of it," she says. "And I felt that I had to do anything that I could to expose the lies, and help end the war. That was my goal."

She asked the Vietnamese if she could make the broadcasts, tapes which 60 Minutes found at the National Archives in Washington.

Fonda went on Radio Hanoi at least 10 times, speaking directly to U.S. pilots, after she had toured the bombed-out countryside and visited hospitals full of injured civilians.

Was she trying to get soldiers to stop the bombing, and disobey their orders? "No. I know that you cannot ask a soldier to disobey orders," says Fonda. "You're not the one that pays the consequences."

She once said: "I beg you to consider what you are doing. The hospitals are filled with babies, and women and old people. Can you justify what you are doing?"

"Doesn't that sound like you're asking them to stop what they're doing?" asks Stahl.

"I'm asking them to consider it. I'm asking them to think about it," says Fonda.

"But the soldiers who call you 'Hanoi Jane' and are still furious at you, say it’s one thing to protest here in the country, and another thing to go over there, where our soldiers were, you know, in harm’s way, and go into the enemy camp," says Stahl. "I mean, it wasn’t like you were saying, 'Richard Nixon, stop this.' You were saying [it] to the pilots."

"Listen, we'd been saying to Richard Nixon, 'Stop this' for eight years. Millions of people had protested. You know, students had been shot at Kent State and still it went on," says Fonda. "It needed what looks now to be unbelievably controversial things. That’s what I felt was needed."

"When you hear of this intense fury at you … 30 year later, does it hurt you?" asks Stahl.

"It makes me sad. It makes me sad, because I think that it's ill-placed anger," says Fonda. "I understand that I'm a lightning rod, and I know why the anger is there."

"What if a young, famous actress went to Iraq, hooked up with the insurgents today, and went on their radio and spoke to our soldiers over there?" asks Stahl.

"I wouldn’t like it. I don’t think it’s the same situation at all," says Fonda. "When I went there, we had been involved in the war. We had been fighting in Vietnam for eight years. The majority of Americans opposed the war, the majority of Congress opposed the war. It was a desperate time."

He's a genius: Sure, he may sound like a retard in public, look like a monkey, and even be racist, but read on...

Yea, i'm pretty much rep but hate bush. Still, he's a genius, or whoever controls bush is...


He's a genius, oh boy: He's a boy and he's a genius. In fact, he's Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius.

Woody is a Genius: Allen has reached a particular, perhaps peculiar, state where he can make the perfect Woody Allen movie, complete with a rehash/mishmash of his favorite, familiar jokes. On masturbation: "What I love about masturbation is the cuddling time afterward." Digs at Los Angeles: "In New York the guy is middle-normal. In L.A., he's a genius.

He's a genius (in France):

Genius In France
by Al Yankovic


NOTE: Lyrics in ITALICS are in French.
NOTE: Translations of the French phrases are available by clicking here.
NOTE: Lyrics that are UNDERLINED were not sung by Al.

Lyrics:

I'm not the brightest crayon in the box
Everyone says I'm dumber than a bag of rocks
I barely even know how to put on my own pants
But I'm a genius in France (yeah), genius in France, genius in France

Hoom chaka laka
Hoom chaka laka
Hoom chaka

I may not be the sharpest hunk of cheese
I got a negative number on my SATs
I'm not good looking and I don't know how to dance
But nevertheless and in spite of the evidence I am still widely considered to be
A genius in France, a genius in France, a genius in France

People say I'm a geek, a moronic little freak
An annoying pipsqueak with an unfortunate physique
If I was any dumber, they'd have to water me twice a week

But when the Mademoiselles see me, they all swoon and shriek
They dig my mystique, they say I'm c'est magnifique
When I'm in Par-ee, I'm the chic-est of the chic

They love my body odor and my bad toupee
They love my stripey shirt and my stupid beret
And when I'm sipping on a Perrier
In some cafe town in St. Tropez

It's hard to keep the fans at bay
They say, "Sign my poodle, s'il vous plait"
"Sign my poodle, s'il vous plait"

Hemenene humenene
himenene homenene
Poodle... poodle...

Folks in my hometown think I'm a fool
Got too much chlorine in my gene pool

A few peas short of a casserole
A few buttons missing on my remote control
A few fries short of a happy meal
I couldn't pour water out of a boot with instructions on the heel

Instructions on the heel
Instructions on the heel

But when I'm in Provence, I get free croissants
Yeah, I'm the guy every French lady wants
And if you ask 'em why, you're bound to get this response
(He's a genius in France! Genius in France!)

That's right
(He's a genius in France, genius in France)
You know it
(He's a genius in France, genius in France, genius in France)

I'm not the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree
But the folks in France, they don't seem to agree
They say, "Bonjour, Monsieur would you take ze picture with me?"

I say, "Oui, oui"
That's right, I say, "Oui, oui"
"Oui, oui"
He says, "Oui, oui"

I'm dumber than a box of hair
But those Frenchies don't seem to care
Don't know why, mon frere
But they love me there

I'm a genius in France
Yeah, I'm a genius in France

Gonna make a big splash when I show up in Cannes
Gonna make those Frenchies scream
"You ze man! You ze man! You ze man!"

Like a fine Renoir (waa), I've got that je ne c'est quoi (quoi!)
Like a fine Renoir (ooh la la), I've got that je ne c'est ...
Quoi quoi quoi quoi quoi, oo-we-oo
Quoi quoi quoi quoi quoi, oo-we-oo

Bow diddy bow di bow di bow bow diddy
Bow diddy bow di bow di bow bow diddy
Bow

[snort]

I'm a taco short of a combo plate
But by some twist of fate, all the Frogs think I'm great
Oh, the men all faint and the women scream
They like me more than heavy cream

When I'm in Versailles, I'm a popular guy
My oh my, I'm as French as apple pie (apple pie)
They think I'm awfully witty, a riot and a half
When I tell a stupid joke, they laugh (haw haw haw haw haw)
And laugh (haw haw haw haw haw haw)

People in France have lots of attitude
They're snotty and rude, they like disgusting food
But when they see me, they just come unglued
They think that I am one happening dude

Bowm ba ba bowm ba bowm ba bowm
I'm about as sharp as a bowling ball
But they like me better than Charles de Gaulle

Entre nous, it's very true
The room temperature's higher than my IQ
But they love me more than Gerard Depardieu
How did this happen; I don't have a clue

Well, I'm not the quickest tractor on the farm
I don't have any skills or grace or charm
And most people look at me like I'm all covered with ants
But I'm a genius in France (yeah), genius in France, genius in France

And I'm never goin' back, I'm never goin' back
I'm never never never never goin' back home again
I'm tearin' up my return flight ticket
Gonna tell the folks back here where they can stick it

'Cause I'm never goin' back
I'm never goin' back
I'm never goin' back

The girls back home never gave me a chance
But I sho' 'nuff got them Frogs in some kinda trance
And I'm aware that it's a most improbable circumstance
But "Great Googily Moogily!", I'm a genius in France

Every Frenchie that I meet
Just can't wait to kiss my feet
Get in line, pucker up! Tout Suite!

Bowm diddy bowm diddy bowm diddy

I'm gettin' even more famous by the hour
I'm stuffed with pastries and drunk with power
Now they're puttin' up my statue by the Eiffel Tower

A little more to the left, boys, a little more to the left
A little more to the left, boys, a little more to the left

I'm the biggest dork there is alive
My mom picked out my clothes for me 'till I was 35
And I forgot to mention
I'm not even welcome at the Star Trek convention

But the Frenchies think
That my poop don't stink
I'm a genius in France

Say, would you pass the Grey Poupon?
Merci beaucoup

Jon Gould had a major collection of Andy's work: Jon Gould, who lived briefly at Warhol's Manhattan townhouse, amassed a collection of 60 paintings and prints and hundreds of photographs made by Warhol in the 1980s. Gould bequeathed the works to his family.

Here's what the editor of Andy's diary wrote about Gould: Pat Hackett: "Jon Gould died on September 18, 1986 at age thirty-three after "an extended illness." He was down to seventy pounds and he was blind. He denied even to close friends that he had AIDS."