(reposting this from Feb. 21, 2014 because I love Andy Warhol's diaries)
Clotted cream, crème fraiche
Last night a friend brought a dessert that was everything
that I find delicious. First it
had lemon in it and also cream and it was all real (home made) no funny stuff. I think the cream was what the British
call clotted. If you want to sound
smart and sophisticated in any conversation just use two phrases. Even if they make no conversational
sense and you are eating a pork chop say, “clotted cream” or “crème fraiche.” Those around you will
start re-computing your IQ and EQ.
You can also throw in “chagrinned.”
As for my love of lemon, once I made rice with only lemon
juice and no water. Don’t try this
at home because you will get rice gum (it tastes fantastic to a lemon freak but
your guests might pause or even leave).
Lemon tends to gelatinize things I found out. Oh, and by the way, I finally learned something useful from Ina
Garten, The Barefoot Contessa. She
said that using mustard in salad dressing helps to emulsify the lemon and
oil. I tried it and it is true. Previously, I couldn’t get the lemon
and olive oil to end their stand-off however mustard does the trick.
And Andy Warhol
A person I would be happy to live with full time would be
Andy Warhol. I was reading his
diaries as I often do for inspiration and comfort. I realized that we share the same blurty, ADD, hard to
follow thinking process that makes perfect sense to the speaker but annoys and
confuses those around us. Here are
a couple of examples from my favorite book The Andy Warhol Diaries. Andy dictated the diaries every morning
to his assistant to keep a record of his activities and the expenses they
generated. His assistant compiled
all the entries into the Diaries.
The entry below is from May 22, 1984.
“Jean Michel came down
to the office early. He was
reading his big review in the Voice. They called him the most promising
artist on the scene. And at least
they didn’t mention me and say he shouldn’t be hanging around with me the way
the New York Times did.
I opened up one of the
boxes in the back that’s being moved and it had ……letters from Ray Johnson the
artist and I think my bloodstained clothes from when I was shot.
I realized the reason
Tony Shafrazi hasn’t gotten even one of the artists in his gallery into MOMA is
because Tony’s the person who defaced Picasso’s Guernica. But that’s
not fair. Keith Haring isn’t at
MOMA. And they have just one thing
of mine, the little Marilyn. I
just hate that. That bothers me.
Then in the afternoon
I went to Doc Cox’s (cab $7) and I protested over the thermometer that they
used because it just sits there in water and everybody uses it, it’s not
right. And Rosemary took my blood
pressure but I have a feeling they just throw these tests out. And they have a new heart machine so
now I don’t have to run up and down the stairs in the hallway to get my heart
going – it’s a big improvement.
And Freddy won’t take your blood if she doesn’t know you.
….After dinner ($120)
at Hisae and drinks at Jezebel’s we went over to Stuart Pivar’s because he was
having people over and I wanted to learn about art. I brought a small bronze and Stuart said it was a piece of
junk, so tomorrow I’m returning it.”
An Amazon reviewer gave the book one star and commented “Incoherent ramblings for 1,000,000 pages. “
They are perfectly coherent to me.
Another one-star review called it “Boring and Self Indulgent.”
“Warhol's prose is
horrible considering the creative mind he posseses (sic). I bought it used
(thank God) and was bored to tears reading about taxi rides and what so-and-so
was wearing. It was like reading a dreadfully boring gay man's blog. A bio on
this character would be much more enlightening and a much less waste of time.”
A wise patient person commented on the bad review and said, “This isn't a bad book, you just weren't sure
what to think of it: it confused you, so you don't like it.”
As a kid I was absolutely infatuated with Andy Warhol, mostly, I think, because he was from Pittsburgh. Since I grew up about a hundred miles northeast of that city it amazed me that a real, actual artist could come from Pittsburgh. I'll have to get his diaries. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteThe diaries are written with the same childlike wonder that was so typical of Andy. More important, they are an excellent snapshot of what was going on in the art world and high society in general. I never get tired of reading them.
DeleteThanks again. I'll look for them.
Delete