Saturday, December 29, 2007

I wonder if Andy would have surfed the web when he stayed home, instead of just watching Agnes of God three times. He probably would have done both. Statistics show that people actually watch TV while surfing, or surfing while watching TV; how you put it depends on which industry you work for. Here's a turn of the century article, from Cable World, on how the industry is trying to cope with the emergence of online culture:

Is Web surfing taking time away from TV watching?

That's the $64,000 question. According to a July 1999 Jupiter Communications Inc. survey, 42% of online users said they watched less television since they began using the Internet. That's a slight reduction from 1998, when Jupiter found 45% of online users said the Web cannibalized some of their TV time.

Multi-tasking

The either/or scenario of Web and TV usage simplifies what's truly happening in American homes, according to other studies. An increasing number of consumers are surfing the Internet and watching TV at the same time. That suggests that even though the TV and computer haven't converged, consumer behavior is converging. In Jupiter's 1999 survey, 18% said they multi-tasked "often," while another 35% said they multi-tasked "sometimes."

Having read Andy's diaries, I would say that he would have frequented D-listed and Perez Hilton, although he would have liked Perez in the beginning but changed his mind as soon as Perez turned popular. It's not just as much fun anymore, and for a while Perez just posted about Castro's possible death. Lots of pictures with handwritten statements on top. Tacky. A tabloid blogger must have class as well.

Being dependent on Andy throwing me a bone, my day was also short. Although I think Andy was already dealing with his Gallbladder:

Warhol died suddenly in 1987, following a routine gallbladder operation. Warhol's diary, from 1976 to 1987, was published posthumously in 1989.

Funny that Andy called Judd Nelson odd. When I saw him in St. Elmo's Fire all I could think about was his nostrils. They're huge, really wide. I also remember him in The Breakfast Club.

I liked those movies, but not anymore. I never got to see the films at the theatre. I lived in Hollywood then--that's were I grew up. I remember I checked out both of the movies at a small neighborhood market run by Indus. They had movies in the back, not too many--just whatever they could get. This is before Blockbuster and The Wherehouse. I could not drive then because I was too young, so I would just get a bunch of movies there. I rented The Terminator there. I remember hesitating to rent it because it flopped at the theatre. I thought, "That movie must suck. It hardly stayed in theatres. Should I waste my dollar?" Yeah, that's how much rental was then. But the movie was great. I loved it. It had everything that was interesting to me then: Time travel, a robot that looked like a human (I read Asimov's Sci Fi Novels on Robots then), and I got a love (soft-sex) scene, something for teenage curiosity. Now I think of the movie as a carefully constructed work around displaced cold war anxiety, supported by an existentialist love story thrown in to apeace our discomfort with an uncertain future.

I did find it odd that, when I rented videos there, I would look at the video cover but once I took it to the counter, the actual tape would be in a plastic case. I wanted to take the image cover with me. It's the fetish of the image ingrained early on in me, I guess. I wish I liked The Breakfast Club and St. Elmo's still; but now when I see them all I can do is consider their relevance to the eighties and the popular trends of the time. Tainted by Academia, I've been. I liked the music, though. That I haven't outgrown. Simple Minds is still in my playlist: Don't you forget about me, check the lyrics:

Hey, hey, hey ,hey
Ohhh...

Won't you come see about me?
I'll be alone, dancing you know it baby

Tell me your troubles and doubts
Giving me everything inside and out and
Love's strange so real in the dark
Think of the tender things that we were working on

Slow change may pull us apart
When the light gets into your heart, baby

Don't You Forget About Me
Don't Don't Don't Don't
Don't You Forget About Me

Will you stand above me?
Look my way, never love me
Rain keeps falling, rain keeps falling
Down, down, down

Will you recognise me?
Call my name or walk on by
Rain keeps falling, rain keeps falling
Down, down, down, down

Hey, hey, hey, hey
Ohhhh.....

Don't you try to pretend
It's my feeling we'll win in the end
I won't harm you or touch your defenses
Vanity and security

Don't you forget about me
I'll be alone, dancing you know it baby
Going to take you apart
I'll put us back together at heart, baby

Don't You Forget About Me
Don't Don't Don't Don't
Don't You Forget About Me

As you walk on by
Will you call my name?
As you walk on by
Will you call my name?
When you walk away

Or will you walk away?
Will you walk on by?
Come on - call my name
Will you all my name?

I say :
La la la...

This is what was mentioned in the New York Times a few months after Andy's death, on May 28, 1987:

Discussions are also under way with Ray Charles for the development of a festival program devoted to American vocal music. Mr. Martins said he and Andy Warhol had discussed the creation of a front curtain for the festival just before the artist's death, and that he was in negotiation with Mr. Warhol's estate to adapt the artist's preliminary work for the project.

And there's a mention of Andy in the ballet's premiere, also in the New York Times, on May 8, 1988:

Toward the close, there is a slide projection of dollar signs by Andy Warhol on a bas-relief of skyscrapers by the set designer Alain Vaes. The ballet's four couples have collapsed at this point in what seems an ode to Mammon. This cynical punch line is out of key with the engaging straightforward nature of the rest of the ballet.

I couldn't find anything about the curtain's completion. It would've been, perhaps, Andy's final piece? Or not? Is the Diary his final piece? Or Hackett's vision of him? Would Andy's diary be like Kubrick's work on AI which was finished by Spielberg?

This settles it: The Andy Warhol Diaries is a posthumous work by the American artist Andy Warhol (1928-1987) and was edited by his secretary Pat Hackett. Warner Books first published it in 1989 with an introduction by Hackett.

Christmas day, today. I looked up Dolly Fox, and I had no idea who she was. I still don't. But she did date Charlie Sheen. I learned this at Who's Dated Who? It's addictive. I clicked on Sheen's link under Fox and then I got his list of flings and relationships. The man's busy. I saw a Heidi Fleiss link, so I clicked on that one. And she doesn't have that many celebrities in her list. Although, they're all listed as "Relationships," except for Hugh Grant. And he does not have that many women on his list. Just eight of them. Elizabeth Hurley is on his list, so I clicked on her link. President Clinton is listed to have had an encounter with her--when did that happen? It says 2000. I clicked on him, and he's got quite a few women listed, including Sharon Stone--so I clicked on her, and she's been busy on both sides. She's had encounters with Helen Degeneres and Halle Berry. Helen sticks to the ladies, only four. Halle's dated quite a few men, including Spike Lee, so I clicked on him. And Spike stops at four. I decided to look for other people and I looked for one of my favorite ladies, Madonna. She's also been busy at both ends of the spectrum. And then I decided to look for, my not so favorite stud, Tom Cruise. But the man is a saint, apparently... Not really, I found him through Katie Holmes. And he's got all ladies listed. Quite a disappointment. I guess the Who's Dated Who site would probably get sued otherwise. And I had to check on Clooney.

I thought Andy didn't sit with Mapplethorpe the other day, when he was sick, because he didn't like him; now, I think it just had to do with not getting sick.

Wikipedia mentions that Mapplethorpe was diagnosed with AIDS:

When it became known that Mapplethorpe was infected with HIV, the prices for his photos increased dramatically. In December 1988 his photos collected $500,000 each. Mapplethorpe died on the morning of March 9, 1989, in a Boston, Massachusetts hospital from complications arising from AIDS; he was 42 years old. His ashes were buried in Queens, New York, in his mother's grave, marked 'Maxey'.

I guess Mapplethorpe was able to create a successful foundation because of the rise in price of his work. Must've been hard to see it happen. I mean, it's almost like the irony of the work of art rising in price as soon as the artist dies; only in this case, because Mapplethope and collectors knew he was going to die, collectors were able to invest by buying work at high prices that was sure to increase in value soon after Mapplethorpe's death. The odd thing is that at such point, based on how the Mapplethorpe Foundation contextualizes Mapplethorpe's last years, the money meant legacy not commodity for Mapplethorpe. It became more about making sure he would be part of the art discourse after he was gone. It's like a win win situation for everyone, the investor looks good, while the foundation gains solid capital to function in the future.

His death is mentioned in Patty Smith's entry as well, but not the cause of his death, and their relationship is played down. The Mapplethorpe foundation, also mentions his death:

After discovering, in 1986 that he had been diagnosed with AIDS, Robert Mapplethorpe was determined to build a lasting artistic legacy. He accelerated his creative efforts, broadened the sweep of his photographic inquiry, accepted increasingly challenging commissions, and, despite the ravages of his illness, continued to create powerful images up until his death in 1989.

Reading Andy's diaries one would think that Mapplethorpe would've kicked the bucket first, but it was Andy--just a few days after his entry of February 10th who did.

As much as I like Patty Smith, I must admit she's not looking too good these days. Looks like she's got lots of energy, from the pictures I see online, but she's well wrinkled. She's transcended the preoccupations of the rock star, I guess. She does look cool, though. Her website looks like it's straight out of the seventies. Like a hippy's site, kind of.

Looking for Dionne Warwick's perfume led me to this site: Sephora. I guess people like the smell of lemon chiffon pie.

In my opinion Outrageous Fortune was really bad. It was not so much Bette Midler, but Shelley Long that got on my nerves. After this movie I could not watch Cheers reruns anymore. All I could think about is that Sam should just dump Dianne, fire her. But then there would've been no show. And when she left, I still couldn't watch it because then Kristie Alley came on, and she turned out to be really annoying as well. Now, she's the queen of overweight infomercials for Jenny Craig. She even had a reality TV show, in which she aims to lose as much weight as possible. Perhaps that's where producers got the idea for The Biggest Loser. I don't know what to think of that TV show. On the one hand I do think that it's good that the participants are losing weight, and looking good; but then, they have access to all these trainers and special diet, which most people will never have. I guess in the end, what the shows exposes is that in order to make a change in life one needs two things: Knowledge and discipline. The conundrum lies in that often attaining one or both of these two elements is hard for most people once they enter the daily grind. That's the real thing to concentrate on, I believe. But that's not as exciting for TV viewers, I guess. It sounds too academic.