English language word of the week: Amanuensis

Main Entry: aman·u·en·sis
Pronunciation: \ə-ˌman-yə-ˈwen(t)-səs\
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural aman·u·en·ses \-(ˌ)sēz\
Etymology: Latin, from (servus) a manu slave with secretarial duties
Date: 1619
: one employed to write from dictation or to copy what another has written.

Pat Hackett acted as amanuensis to Andy Warhol. This is how the AW Diaries and Popism were written.

Thank you for the comment Anonymous on January 5th 2010! encouraged me.

I didn't know much about Andy Warhol before 1982 when I bought the Edie Sedgewick book by George Plimpton and Jean Stein. Of course I had grown up seeing the images of the Soup can, the Liz Taylor, Marilyn, Jackie O, in the pages of the Newsweek magazine our family received. And images of Andy himself. He was a celebrity artist. The Banana cover for the Velvet Underground album is another memory; during my high school years some of the SMH girls had a copy. And I frequently studied art books during that era as well and Andy's silkscreens again appeared.
After I read the Edie bio in 1982, I had a bad taste in my mouth for Andy. That Andy was a bit of a user and an asshole. Now I see the whole scene in context and how funny and insecure AH really was. Andy was a bit of a user and an asshole but again one has to look at the context of him, his actions, his art and his background and just him. Edie may have been used by Andy and the Factory but she was an equally bigger user of people, a desperate drug addict and had a tragically screwed up childhood.
In the years since I first encountered the Edie Sedgewick book, I have read several Andy Warhol documentaries and books. Like Bob Colacello's book, Steve Watson' book. The Diaries. And the excellent Ric Burns documentary American Masters. Studying his art with art books also. And I have come up with a deeper understanding and knowledge about Andy Warhol. He is much more influential on art history and culture and pop culture. What I found is that Andy Warhol the artist and the man is much deeper and more influential than the popular image of him and the popular images he created. Even though he said his art was all about surface. Oh god I could go on and on......

Trajectory is a great word.

I need a different trajectory. ha, I love that word. Scintillating last week and Trajectory this week. Love it. Aitch's new word of the week. It is a "vocab." word and it is a beautiful and interesting and nuanced word in the English language. I need a trajectory in my life besides writing about R and K,;ra·jec·to·ry (trə-jěk'tə-rē)
n. pl. tra·jec·to·ries
The path of a projectile or other moving body through space.

A chosen or taken course: "What died with [the assassinated leaders] was a moral trajectory, a style of aspiration" (Lance Morrow).

Mathematics A curve that cuts all of a given family of curves or surfaces at the same angle.

How about your blog, also learn the camera. Get a project like the boys picture. A filmed version of the blog. Interview people.
Also, will post a new picture of the week for the hell of it and it looks good. I should be more pithy I guess in some of my posts. I don't want to be manic. Maybe I do?!
It was very much a macho or male oriented scene in the Beat Scene with Kerouac, Ginsberg, Burroughs and Neal Cassaday. When I discovered Kerouac on a PBS documentary I was taken with the group of literaries and cultural players and another fascinating American art scene. taken with Kerouac, he had such good looks when he was young before alcoholism ravaged him.
And what is weird or interesting is Allen Ginsburg's connection to Andy and Edie. And then his to Bob Dylan also. Allan Ginsburg is a great American character!!! On the cultural zeitgeist. The Beats, On Callie Angels Screen Test. Callie Angels Screen tests is a Must for AW scholars and films history scholars. Ginsberg is in it and all the people who are in it is fascinating. DAnny Fields? His doc.
My original thought was the macho-ness of the Beats, and the lack of female participation,( REading about it in John Leland history of HIp) The women were the help mates and the women who would of been literary talent but they could not get away with as much as the boys. Because they were and women don't get away with that behavior much. That is one lesson from that Boulder murder victim of the 1950s. Who was that I just erased it? Damn it.
. It's what I've always been saying about Ken Kesey. Where was Mrs. Kesey when Ken went riding around the bus with Neil Cassady???? who was tripping his ass off during the 1960s. Neal adjusted well to the hippie era. so as I have been saying for a long time. you could have been 14 in the 1960s or you could have been Neal Cassady in the 1960s, quite a wide age span encompassed the Hippie Movement. And he would have been a fucking celebrity to all the younger hippies. I think he die by a RR track. How and where
I would ask Steve Watson about Danny Fields and that doc., The Beats, allan Ginsburg, If he waas aware of the content of the screen tests and if he studied Callie Angel's book. Andy being misjudged for his indifference to the drggies around him going really downhilll, like he didn't give as-hit the way he came across to Danny Fields Mother. And there Andrea Feldman, Edie Sedgwick, and he wished he could have filmed Freddie Herko as he leapt out the window to his suicide. That controversial attitude.

(nov18) 87/365 - andy warhol style

(nov18) 87/365 - andy warhol style
Originally uploaded by handshakes&heartaches

I appreciate Leslie K's image, but what I really like is Andy Warhol's saying on it. I think it needs to be a cultural classic cliche like " In the future everyone will be world famous for 15 minutes."
You have to know the deeper story of Andy Warhol's life and art, to really appreciate him. If you know only the snippet's of pop culture renown, I wouldn't think he was that cool either, and I didn't for a long time. It was only when I read Andy's many bios (list) and watched some truly fab documentaries (Ric Burns, the one on Amazon) on the subject that I was inspired and fascinated with the man and his legacy with 20th century art, and the broader implications of culture, consumerism, america and social history.

There were also many fascinating characters that Andy "used to hang around with," who are almost as interesting as him. Many more than Edie Sdegewick. She is only the most famous of Andy's many friends and associates. There could be a movie about any number of people AW encountered. Brigid Berlin for one, Jackie Curtis, Candy Darling, Billy Name, Freddie Herkel,