POPism: The Warhol Sixties

Andy Warhol & Pat Hackett – 1980

In this and his few other books, Warhol’s “writing” process really amounted to talking into either a telephone or a tape recorder and his longtime collaborator Pat Hackett transcribing his words.  In publishing, as in painting and film, Warhol delighted in confounding peoples’ assumptions of what the creation of media entailed.  Despite its seemingly chaotic organization, POPism is actually an endearing and very interesting memoir of the 1960s; coming at a time when America was fully caught up in the phenomenon of 50s nostalgia; (Happy Days, Grease, etc.).  In this sense, Warhol was merely doing in literary form what he had in painting and film; i.e. making a big deal out of things that no one was particularly interested in.  After so much time now, though, the book is a unique and remarkably meticulous trip into the past.  Typical observations of the 60s are nearly identical; moving from the JFK assassination to the Beatles to Vietnam to Woodstock and the moon landing.  Warhol’s notes are snapshots of what was going on in his universe at any given moment.  He mentions not only movies and gallery shows but what songs were on the radio and what programs were on TV, as well as long-forgotten little stories that might have made local papers but not network news.  It’s a strange but intimate mix of autobiography – such as his feelings about the doomed Edie Sedgwick and being shot and nearly killed in 1968 – and maddeningly trivial gossip; i.e. an awkward meeting with Bob Dylan and innumerable chats on the phone with Factory regular Brigid Berlin.  Taken all together, it’s like a kaleidoscope of flashing images from an accelerated moment in time.  What really comes off strongest is the sense of urgency in life and activity in the 60s, as if everyone was profoundly aware of how fleeting the days were.  While Warhol covers each year in the decade, it’s significant that about half of the entire book is really dedicated to 1964, 1965 and 1966.  Everything before is build-up to what he and many remember as “the 60s,” and everything after is a coming down from it.  The passages convincingly recreate the star-struck manner in which he greeted all the things that fascinated him and wanted to immortalize on canvas and film.