1963
(scroll down or click on year above)
(codes
in parentheses refer to references)
Andy Warhol rents his first studio. Lou Reed injects heroin. Andy Warhol does his first ommissioned portrait. Andy Warhol designs an album cover. Andy Warhol meets Jane Holzer. Andy Warhol meets Gerard Malanga. Andy Warhol sees Sunday with "De." Andy Warhol buys a movie camera. Ted Berrigan meets Andy Warhol. Taylor Mead meets Andy Warhol. Andy Warhol films Jack Smith. Holly Woodlawn meets Candy Darling. Andy Warhol shoots Kiss. Andy Warhol goes to poetry readings. Andy Warhol meets John Ashbury. Andy Warhol has a second show at the Ferus. Andy Warhol goes to Los Angeles. Andy Warhol takes "Speed."
EARLY 1963: ANDY WARHOL RENTS HIS FIRST STUDIO.
Warhol subleased part of an old firehouse on E. 87th Street that the tenant was leasing from the City of New York for “about one hundred dollars a year.” (POP25)
Andy Warhol's first studio
Hook & Ladder Co. #13 (1963)1963: LOU REED INJECTS HEROIN.
Lou started injecting heroin while still a student at Syracuse University. His previous drug use was limited to psychiatric drugs, pot, pills, acid, mushrooms, coke and Placidyls which you could still get without a prescription. (LR68)
1963: ANDY WARHOL DOES HIS FIRST COMMISSIONED PORTRAIT.
Warhol's first commissioned portrait was of ETHEL SCULL - based on photos taken in a photo booth.(BC28)
1963: ANDY WARHOL DESIGNS AN ALBUM COVER.
In addition to his commercial illustrations in magazines Warhol had designed various album covers. This particular recording was made by Billy Klüver of interviews with pop artists.
The cover resembled a supermarket ad with "GIANT SIZE $1.57 EACH" in bold black lettering. The record accompanied The Popular Image exhibition at the Washington Gallery of Modern Art. The edition of seventy-five numbered record covers are considered fine-art prints today rather than mass-produced record covers. (AWM65)
Klüver was was a staff scientist at Bell Telephone Laboratories in Murray Hill, N.J., from 1958 to 1968. He was particularly interested in the relationship of art to technology. He was one of the founding members of Experiments in Art and Technology (E.A.T.) which earned him a Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres from France and the Royal Order of Vasa from Sweden.
When Warhol later created his Silver Clouds, he asked Klüver to come up with a way of making them float. Klüver died on January 11. 2004.
JANUARY 29/30, 1963: BILLY NAME DOES LIGHTS FOR DANCE CONCERTS AT JUDSON MEMORIAL CHURCH.
BILLY NAME (as Billy Linich) did the lights for Concerts of Dance #3 and #4 for the Judson Dance Theater group. Among the dancers were Warhol stars FREDDY HERKO and LUCINDA CHILDS. (JD83/85) (The first performance by the dance group had taken place on July 6, 1962 at the church.)
Herko performed a solo dance LIttle Gym Dance Before the Wall for Dorothy on the 29th and and Lucinda Childs performed a solo on the 30th - Pastime. (JD85)
Just as Pop artists used ordinary objects as subjects in their paintings making them, in effect, extraordinary, the Judson dancers often used ordinary movements as dance.
From Democracy's Body: Judson Dance Theatre, 1962-1964
by Sally Banes:
"Nondance movement was called into service as material for a dance... Like Pop artists, the Judson choreographers were fascinated by the everyday and put mundane objects and activities in their dances in ways that "made them strange," as the Russian Formalist critics had described in literature. A newspaper used as clothing or as something to shred and play in; a radio blaring banally as the background for a romantic pas de deux; references to football and other athletics, to social dancing, to daily activities - all these elements were a way of making the viewer stop to examine more closely the things one ordinarily takes for granted... Rather than an image, a story, an atmosphere, or a phrase, the various choreographic strategies (repetition, improvisation, task instructions, 'one thing,' frozen moments) foregrounded the movements, the smallest possible segment of dance work." (JD106-7)
APRIL 28 & 29, 1963: YVONNE RAINER PERFORMS SLEEP AS PART OF HER DANCE PIECE TERRAIN AT THE JUDSON DANCE THEATER. (RO220/JD115)
Yvonne Rainer's Terrain, was referred to in Popism as the first "Judson Church 'happening'" that Warhol 'guessed' that he attended. Robert Rauschenberg did the lighting and flyer for the event. (JD112)
Andy Warhol (via Pat Hackett) in Popism: The Warhol Sixties
:
"I guess I went down to my first Judson Church 'happening' because of Rauschenberg - he was arranging the lighting there and I wanted to see it. I called up David Bourdon and told him to come with me to this beautiful concert there by Yvonne Rainer called Terrain, and later David said it was the most modern dance thing he'd ever been to." (POP51)
Rainer's dance was based around ordinary movements like walking, running or crawling. The last dance of the "Solo Section" of the performance was "Sleep" - performed by Yvonne Rainer, Albert Reid and Trisha Brown. (JD115) About a month after seeing Rainer's performance, Warhol asked his then boyfriend, the poet JOHN GIORNO, if Giorno would mind if Warhol filmed him sleeping. The result was Warhol's first film, also called SLEEP.
APRIL 18 - JUNE 2, 1963: THE POPULAR IMAGE AT THE WASHINGTON GALLERY OF MODERN ART.
"The Popular Image" exhibition included work by Andy Warhol, Jim Dine, George Brecht, Jasper Johns, Roy Lichtenstein, John Wesley, Robert Watts, Tom Wesselmann, Claes Oldenburg, Jim Rosenquist and Robert Rauschenberg.
A Pop Art Festival was organized by Alice Denney in conjunction with the exhibition which included a lecture-concert by John Cage on the night of the show's opening, two Happenings by Claes Oldenburg and Concert of Dance (#5) by the Judson Dance Theater.
Robert Rauschenberg in Pelican during a 1965 performance at the
First New York Theater Rally (first performed at the Pop Art Festival in 1963)
(photo: Peter Moore/RA124)See Robert Rauschenberg, Pelican and the Judson Dance Theater.
The Concert of Dance took place at America on Wheels, a rolling skating rink at Kalorama and Seventeenth Streets in Washington, D.C. on May 9, 1963. (JD120) Robert Rauschenberg choreographed and participated in a dance titled Pelican - performed on roller skates to a collage of music on tape which included marching music by Handel and Haydn and sounds from radio and television. Another dance, Lemon Hearts Dance, was titled after the 1962 experimental film, Lemon Hearts starring Warhol star TAYLOR MEAD. (JD124)
Billed as "an extension" of the concert series at Judson Memorial Church, the evening was organized by Billy Klüver with the help of Robert Dunn. Klüver would later help Warhol create his Silver Clouds (sometimes referred to as Warhol's Silver Pillows).
MAY 1963: "BILLY LINICH SHOW" AT THE YAM FESTIVAL.
The Yam Festival, sponsored by the Smolin Gallery, consisted of performances of dance, music and Happenings in which many Fluxus artists participated. Yam was May spelled backwards. "The Billy Linich Show" took place throughout the month and included appearances by members of JAMES WARING's dance company. On May 11th there was "an endless and continuous program of performance beginning about noon on Saturday through evening and Sunday" at the Hardware Poet's Playhouse on West 54th Street which included works by George Brecht, Robert Breer, Earle Brown, John Cage, Philip Corner, Malcolm Goldstein, Red Grooms and Rudy Burckhardt, Al Hansen, Dick Higgins, Spencer Holst, Ray Johnson, Jill Johnston, Brooklyn Joe Jones, Alison Knowles, George Maciunas, Jackson MacLow, Robert Morris, Yvonne Rainer, James Tenney, JAMES WARING, Christian Wolff and La Monte Young. On the 19th of May an afternooon of performances took place at George Segal's farm in North Brunswick, New Jersey which included a Happening by Allan Kaprow and music by La Monte Young. (JD131-2)
MAY 1963: TAYLOR MEAD PERFORMS IN BLOSSOMS AT THE SQUARE EAST THEATER ON WEST 4TH STREET.
Blossoms (by Roberts Blossom) was a mixed media performance piece featuring TAYLOR MEAD which ran at the Square East Theater on Monday nights. During the other nights of the week Second City appeared at the theater.
Sally Banes:
"In the mixed-media form he called 'filmstage,' [Roberts] Blossom wanted to separate the eye and the ear, rather than synthesizing their sensations as most theater does. His strategy was to combine film, slide projections, live action, dramatic acting, singing and music. Blossoms was a series of vignettes performed by Taylor Mead, [Beverly] Schmidt (who by then had married Blossom), and Blossom himself. Blossom directed Schmidt's improvisation, which was accompanied by films of Schmidt dancing in the studio. (JD157)
Schmidt later performed her solo (titled The Seasons) from Blossoms as part of the Judson Dance Theater's series of performances at the Gramercy Arts Theater (see below).
MAY 1963: THE LIVING THEATRE PRESENTS THE BRIG.
(http://www.curtainup.com/brig.html)It was after Andy Warhol saw Jonas Mekas' film of the The Living Theatre's production of The Brig that Warhol began using an Auricon movie camera which enabled him to shoot longer scenes with a single-system soundtrack.
See Andy Warhol, The Connection and The Brig.
SPRING 1963: ANDY WARHOL MEETS JANE HOLZER.
Holzer had recently married real estate magnate Leonard Holzer. She was twenty-two when she first met Warhol. NICKY HASLAM took Warhol to Holzer's Park Avenue apartment for dinner. DAVID BAILEY was also at the dinner. Bailey brought along “the lead singer of a rock and roll band that was playing the northern cities of England - MICK JAGGER - who was staying at Nicky’s apartment on East 19th Street. Nicky had met him when he was Jean Shrimpton’s younger sister’s maid.” (POP58)
Mick had responded to an ad that Jean’s sister had put in the paper for a cleaner. At that time he was a student at the London School of Economics cleaning flats to pay his way. (POP58-9)
JUNE 9, 1963: ANDY WARHOL MEETS GERARD MALANGA .
Warhol had asked CHARLES HENRI FORD if he knew anybody who could help him with silkscreening. Ford suggested Gerard Malanga, a 5' 6 1/2" student (GMW49) at Wagner College on Staten Island. Gerard had also been a dancer on Alan Freed's Big Beat television show. The show was closed down when Freed was busted in a payola scandal. (UT6)
Ford brought Andy and Gerard together at a poetry reading at the New School. Gerard immediately started working for Andy for the State minimum wage of $1.25 an hour. Andy overheard Gerard talking to Charles Henri on the phone telling him he thought Andy Warhol was “frightening” and in a hushed voice said, “Frankly, I think he’s going to put the make on me.” (POP26/27)
According to Bob Colacello, Andy Warhol hired Gerard Malanga (who he described as an "art student and budding poet") in 1962. Gerard had spent the summer of 1962 silkscreening neckties in the garment district. (BC28)
According to author Patrick Smith, Gerard Malanga first met Warhol in 1963 at a party given by Marie Menken and Willard Mass. Willard Mass had been Malanga's faculty adviser when Gerard was a student at the Wagner Memorial Lutheran College in Staten Island, New York. (PS139)
In his book Archiving Warhol, Malanga said that the Menken/Maas party occurred in the fall of 1962, not 1963. He mentioned that he was introduced to Warhol at the party, although in a different section of the same book he gave the June 9th meeting as the time he was introduced to Warhol. (GMW139)
According to Gerard Malanga, his poetry had appeared in Paris Review, Partisan Review, Poetry and The New Yorker prior to meeting Warhol. After working for Warhol for almost a year, he decided not to go back to college for his final year. The first painting he silk-screened for Andy was a 40 x 40 inch silver Elizabeth Taylor. (GMW31)
Andy Warhol and Gerard Malanga on
Gerard's first day of work at Warhol's studio
at the Firehouse, NYC (June 11, 1963)
(photo: Edward Wallowitch)1963: ANDY WARHOL SEES SUNDAY WITH "DE".
Andy Warhol went to the Film-Makers' Cooperative with “De” (EMILE DE ANTONIO) to see a film De made called Sunday - a film of a protest that took place in Washington Square Park after police outlawed folk singing there because it attracted undesirables. (POP29)
Andy regularly attended underground film screenings at the Co-operative, telling poet John Giorno (who later appeared in SLEEP), "They're so terrible", and saying "There are so many beautiful things... Why doesn't somebody make a beautiful movie?" (L&D176)
JUNE 10, 1963: FREDDY HERKO PARTICIPATES IN THE POCKET FOLLIES.
Organized by JAMES WARING, The Pocket Follies was a benefit for the Foundation for the Contemporary Performance Arts. John Cage and Jasper Johns were both on the board of the Foundation which raised money through the sale of art to finance performances by Merce Cunningham and the Judson Dance Theater.
The evening featured collaborations by FRED HERKO and Michael Malcé and by JILL JOHNSTON and Robert Morris; and dance/performances by Ray Johnson, George Brecht, Trisha Brown, David Gordon with Valda Setterfield, Allen Marlowe, John Herbert McDowell, Aileen Passloff and Yvonne Rainer. Plays included Ruth Krauss' A Beautiful Day directed by Remy Charlip and N.F. Simpson's Oh; A Compendium of Everyone's Remarks, Act II directed by JAMES WARING. (JD132)
JUNE 23 - JUNE 25, 1963: BILLY NAME DOES LIGHTS FOR JUDSON DANCE THEATER INCLUDING PERFORMANCES BY FREDDY HERKO AND LUCINDA CHILDS AND A DANCE TITLED BINGHAMTON BIRDIE.
BILLY NAME (Linich) did lights for Concerts #6, 7 and 8 at the Judson Memorial Church. The performances took place in the sanctuary rather than the gymnasium of the church. Herko's dance, Binghamton Birdie was presented as part of Concert #6. BINGHAMTON BIRDIE was, like Herko, a speed freak who sometimes hung out at the Factory. Warhol filmed two SCREEN TESTS of him and Birdie also appeared in COUCH.
See Judson Dance Theater Concerts #6, 7 and 8.
JULY 1963: ANDY WARHOL BUYS A MOVIE CAMERA. (POP29)
Gerard Malanga and Charles Henri Ford went with Warhol to Peerless Camera where he bought "a 16mm Bolex with thru-the-lens focusing complete with motordrive that allowed for a one-shot three-minute take." (GMW37/106).
Warhol's first film was SLEEP, starring JOHN GIORNO, an ex-stockbroker who had “dropped out” to become a poet (later starting the telephone service Dial-A-Poem in the late sixties). (POP33)
John Giorno in Andy Warhol's Sleep
on the front cover of the Winter 1963/64
issue of Film Culture magazine No. 31LATE JULY 1963: TED BERRIGAN MEETS ANDY WARHOL.
Poet Ted Berrigan met Warhol at a poetry reading given by Frank O'Hara. Shortly thereafter, Warhol designed the front and back cover of the September issue of Berrigan's poetry magazine, C: A Journal of Poetry. The title of the magazine is reminiscent of the title of Warhol's later book - A: A Novel. The September issue of C was devoted to the poetry of Edwin Denby. The photograph that Warhol produced for the front cover of the magazine showed Gerard Malanga standing behind a seated Denby who was holding Malanga's hands on his shoulders. The back cover photograph showed Malanga kissing Denby. (RW20/21)
According to Gerard Malanga, Warhol filmed O'Hara at the Cafe Le Metro in Spring 1964 but the film was never screened and "disappeared into Andy's apartment..." (RW21, 160 fn 26)
Warhol filmed a Screen Test of Berrigan on March 3, 1965. (AD37) Warhol filmed Denby's Screen Test "probably" in early 1964. In 1965 Denby wrote dialogue for a movie that Warhol planned to make - Messy Lives. Denby's contribution was later published and performed as a play - Four Plays by Edwin Denby - at the Eye and Ear Theatre. Warhol's film was never made. (AD62)
JULY 30 AND AUGUST 1,6, AND 8, 1963: FREDDY HERKO PERFORMS WITH JUDSON DANCE THEATER - BILLY NAME DOES LIGHTS/PROGRAMMING (CONCERT NOS. 9, 10, 11 and 12).
In addition to Herko dancing and Billy Linich (aka BILLY NAME) doing the lights (along with JOHNNY DODD) and being involved in the programming, BIBBE HANSEN'S father, the Fluxus artist Al Hansen did the sets and served as stage manager. Hansen and mail artist RAY JOHNSON (who later assisted Warhol in filming Jill Johnston Dancing) danced in a piece called Animals.
The dance performances (twenty five pieces) took place at the Gramercy Arts Theater instead of the Judson Church. The theater was also showing films on the nights not taken up by the dance troupe. On August 5th, the night before Concert #11, JACK SMITH'S Flaming Creatures was shown.
See Judson Dance Theater Concerts 9 - 12.
SUMMER 1963: TAYLOR MEAD MEETS ANDY WARHOL
According to Andy Warhol Screen Tests: The Films of Andy Warhol Catalogue Raisonné, Vol. 1, "Taylor Mead met Warhol in the summer of 1963, when Henry Geldzahler took him along on a visit to Warhol's home on Lexington Avenue." (AD126)
AUGUST 1963: ANDY WARHOL FILMS JACK SMITH.
Andy spent a lot of his summer weekends going to Old Lyme, Connecticut where WYNN CHAMBERLAIN was renting the guest house on ELEANOR WARD’s property.
TAYLOR MEAD was one of the regular guests in Old Lyme. JACK SMITH did a lot of filming there and Andy adopted some of his methods: “the way he used anyone who happened to be around that day, and also how he just kept shooting until the actors got bored.”
Among the underground films that Jack Smith made was the 45 minute Flaming Creatures (1963) which was controversial for its open display of homosexuals and transvestites. It was shown at underground screenings until Jonas Mekas arranged for a public screening in New York in early 1965. Mekas was arrested and the film confiscated. In 1969 there were three public showings - two in Los Angeles and one in Chicago. The Chicago showing was raided three days before the end of it's five week run and the owners and employees of the cinema were arrested. (FF21)
Andy’s second 16 mm film was “a little newsreel of the people out there filming for Jack.” (POP31-2) Warhol's film was a two minute, forty five second film that Andy made of everyone while Smith was filming Normal Love - “the one where the cast made a room-size cake and got on top of it”.
Warhol's footage was later seized by the police who were actually after Jack Smith’s Flaming Creatures. The following year, Jack Smith would play the title role in Andy’s BATMAN DRACULA film. (POP31-2) Warhol would also use some of the same actors that Jack Smith used, such as MARIO MONTEZ.
1963: HOLLY WOODLAWN MEETS CANDY DARLING.
One evening, Holly Woodlawn was hanging out with her friend Libra outside an ice cream parlour on the corner of Eighth Street and Sixth Avenue. Candy Darling was eating an ice cream cone when a hustler asked her for a cigarette. When she refused and then told the hustler to move because he was blocking her light, the hustler shoved the cone into Candy’s face. She stammered “in that affected Kim Novak whisper, ‘Well, I never ... how could you?’” Holly started talking to her, they became friends and Holly started going over to her house on Long Island where Candy lived with her mother. (HW69)
Candy’s mother was “an obsessed movie fan” who idolized Joan Crawford and often wrote her fan mail. One room of their house had been turned into a library filled with stacks of fashion magazines. (HW67) Candy wasn't yet living as a woman - just “a very pretty boy in makeup hiding behind dark sunglasses, his face peeking out of an upturned trenchcoat collar.” (HW69)
Candy had experimented with several names - Hope Dahl, Candy Dahl and finally Candy Cane until she met a transvestite name Taff Tits Terrifik who called her darling so much that Candy adopted it as her last name. (HW68)
c. AUGUST 1963: ANDY WARHOL SHOOTS KISS.
Some Warhol scholars date the Kiss films from November/December 1963. However, Warhol probably started shooting them much earlier - around August 1963 and continued to shoot them through the end of 1964, if not beyond. (SG144/CA) According to Warhol in Popism, they were still doing KISS movies in the summer of 1964 when Gerard Malanga and Mark Lancaster did one - in August 1964. (POP71/M)
According to Bob Colacello, the idea for KISS - close-ups of couples kissing each other for three minutes each - came from the old Hayes Office regulation forbidding actors in movies from touching lips for more than three seconds. (BC29)
Warhol also produced a silkscreen called The Kiss, based on a film still from the Hollywood horror classic Dracula (1931) of Bela Lugosi biting the neck of his co-star, Helen Chandler.The silkscreen was done on November 22, 1963. (GMW81)
Amy Taubin, who would later become the film critic for the Village Voice, first saw some of the KISS films in 1963 at the Grammercy Arts Theater on West 27th Street. At this time the KISS series of films was called The Andy Warhol Serial "because it was shown in weekly four minute installments." (WI24)
(To filmography)
AUGUST 25/26, 1963: BILLY NAME DOES LIGHTING FOR JAMES WARING'S DANCE COMPANY AT THE JUDSON CHURCH.
Although the concert was billed as a presentation of the Judson Dance Theater, Waring was not a member of the Dance Theater in so far as he did not attend their weekly workshops. Many of the dancers in his group, however, did attend the workshops, including LUCINDA CHILDS, Deborah Hay, FRED HERKO, Yvonne Rainer, and Arlene Rothlein.
Dance pieces performed on August 25th and 26th by Waring's company included Poet's Vaudeville (featuring music by John Herbert McDowell and words by Diane di Prima) and Phrases (for which McDowell played the piano - originally choreographed in 1956 to music by Eric Satie).
Billy Linich (aka BILLY NAME) designed the lighting for the concert. (JD165)
AUTUMN 1963: ANDY WARHOL GOES TO POETRY READINGS.
In addition to attending underground film screenings, Warhol went to poetry readings with GERARD MALANGA - including Monday nights organized by PAUL BLACKBURN at the Cafe Le Metro on Second Avenue between 9th and 10th Street where each poet would read for five or ten minutes. (POP51)
SEPTEMBER 1963: ANDY WARHOL MEETS JOHN ASHBERY.
The poet and sometimes art critic, John Ashbery, met Warhol and Gerard Malanga while Ashbery was on a trip to New York where he gave a poetry reading at the Living Theatre. Malanga attended the poetry reading. Frank O'Hara gave a party for Ashbery during his stay in New York and it was "probably" at this party that Ashbery actually met Malanga who took him to Warhol's studio. (RW86) Warhol shot a SCREEN TEST of Ashbery in 1966 when he was working as executive editor of Art News magazine. Ashbery found his Factory experience "intimidating," because "there were all these people doing their strange tasks." (AD33)
SEPTEMBER 19, 1963: FIRST PERFORMANCE OF ASPHODEL, IN HELL'S DESPITE AT THE JUDSON MEMORIAL CHURCH.
The play was a production of the Judson Poets Theater with a stage design by Andy Warhol and directed by JERRY BENJAMIN who also co-directed Warhol's film, SOAP OPERA.
See Asphodel at the Judson Poets Theater.
SEPTEMBER 30 - OCTOBER 1963: ANDY WARHOL HAS A SECOND SHOW AT THE FERUS.
Warhol's second show at the Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles included his ELVIS paintings. (L&D502/PS221) Warhol's film footage, Elvis at Ferus, was shot during this show.
Irving Blum:
"Andy sent a roll of printed Presley images, an enormous roll, and sent a box of assorted size stretched bars... I said, 'You mean, you want me to cut them? Virtually as I think they should be cut and placed around the wall?' And he said, 'Yes, cut them any way that you think should... The only thing I really want is that they should be hung edge to edge, densely - around the gallery...' And that's exactly what I did... Sometimes the images were superimposed one over the next. Sometimes they sat side-by-side. They were of varying sizes... All the same height - roughly six-and-a-half feet, as I recall. Really, life size... And I got up as many stretched up as required to fill - densely - the gallery, as per Andy's instructions. And I sent what was left on the roll back to Andy and opened the exhibit." (PS222)
EARLY OCTOBER 1963: ANDY WARHOL GOES TO LOS ANGELES.
Warhol and his entourage (including Wynn Chamberlain, Taylor Mead and Gerard Malanga) drove to L.A. to see his second exhibition at the Ferus Gallery.
As Andy and Gerard did not know how to drive, Taylor and Wynn shared the driving. Although Andy had been around the world once in the fifties, he’d never been west of Pennsylvania in the U.S. (POP35)
While in Los Angeles, they were joined by Warhol's first superstar Naomi Levine and shot scenes for TARZAN AND JANE REGAINED, SORT OF... including around the bathtub of their suite at the Beverly Hills Hotel. (POP43)
to filmography
Dennis Hopper and Taylor Mead during the
filming of Tarzan and Jane Regained...NOVEMBER 1963: THE FLOATING BEAR ANNOUNCES STABLE MAGAZINE DESIGNED BY ANDY WARHOL.
The November Issue (no. 27) of The Floating Bear, an underground newsletter published by Diane di Prima and LeRoi Jones, contained the following announcement:
STABLE - a literary-arts magazine. 1st issue Feb. 1. New work by Berrigan, Di Prima, Ceravolo, Shapiro, Malanga, Ashbery, Agenoux, Brodey, et al. designed by Andy Warhol; edited by Gerard Malanga. $1.00. Mss. & orders to Gerard Malanga, c/o Andy Warhol, 1342 Lexington Ave., NYC (published by Eleanor Ward of STable Art Gallery) (FB328)
DECEMBER 22/23 1963: ROBERT RAUSCHENBERG DOES LIGHTS FOR MOTORCYCLE AT THE JUDSON CHURCH.
Motorcycle was both the name of the evening - which consisted of new and old dances presented by Judith Dunn - and the name of the first dance on the program. Robert Rauschenberg designed the lighting. (JD182)
WINTER 1963: ANDY WARHOL TAKES "SPEED".
Warhol got a prescription for pharmaceutical "speed" (Obetrol) from his doctor after seeing a picture of himself in a magazine and deciding he looked fat. (POP33) Warhol also took Seconal in order to counteract the "speed" and allow himself to sleep. (L&D224) According to author, Victor Bockris, Andy took Obetrol until late 1968 when he was forced to stop while recuperating from his bullet wounds. (L&D312)
Warhol then started taking Dexamyl - a combination of amphetamine and barbiturate. (BC117) Brigid Berlin later told Bob Colacello that Andy took one or two Obetrols every day until he died. (BC50). Warhol told Bob Colacello in June 1972, during a trip to Mexico, that he took Dexamyl on a regular basis:
Andy to Bob Colacello: "It's just so hard to get up in the morning. It would be so much easier to stay in bed all day, wouldn't it? I have to take, uh, a pill to get going. I just don't have any energy since I was shot."
Bob Colacello: "What kind of pill?"
Andy Warhol: "Oh, uh, just a little Dexamyl. It's nothing." (BC117)
