Popism = Taoism

I don't know what took me so long. I finally got around to reading Andy Warhol's "Popism" (published in 1980) which gives us a glimpse of the 60's through the Andy Warhol prism. It's based on Warhol's diaries. It seems definitive!

Warhol looms as the Godfather of Pop. And it seems everyone who was anyone in the 60's came through Warhol's Factory where Andy churned out paintings, prints, movies and The Exploding Plastic Inevitable!

You get a glimpse of lots of people, famous (mainly) or not: Candy Darling, Viva, Ingrid Superstar, Edie Sedgwich, Bob Dylan, Jim Morrison, Brian Jones, Tennessee Williams, Jasper Johns, Jackson Pollock, Jimi Hendrix, The Rolling Stones, Paul Morrissey, Billy Name, Lou Reed, the Velvet Underground and a cast of thousands.

Andy's journey runs parallel to what was in the air. Andy is our mirror. And Pop, which started as a sort underground sensibility in his little circle became the Global Religion it is today.

There's lots of "dishing" and gossip, but lots of great insight too. Warhol was our Lao Tzu. Really. And the book is laugh out loud funny! According to Andy some of those years were fueled by "Mother's Little Helper" and everyone was speeding like a amped up MOFO.

Andy's definition of POP - what was outside was now inside, and what was inside was now outside. and everyone could do everything.

Warhol was the absolute genius of our time. Then, as an instigator, the Source of the Nile, (or maybe not the source, he was a sponge soaking it all in, and a mirror who reflected back an extraordinary world without judgement. Andy was SO REAL. In that way he reminds me of Dylan at his best too - Highway 61 and Blonde on Blonde - a sensitive soul reflecting back a world off it's hinges.) and maybe even more so now, as our all pervading, all penetrating Patron Saint.

POP!