Happy Birthday Andy

Today is Andy Warhol's birthday. Maybe you knew that; maybe you didn't. I don't know your life. And I don't know how you feel about Mssr. Andy, and I don't have anything particularly Warholian planned for today, but I did want to dash off a few words and tuck in an image or three.

I found this one connected to the DeVorzon Gallery, which is selling the Sunday B. Morning series of the Marilyn and Flowers prints, but I can't figure out whom to attribute the photo to (maybe Warhol himself?) Anyway, I really love the frame play here: says a lot about an artist who knew how important framing is, who understood the sufficiency of simply employing the notion of a frame, of simply using the conceptual frame of saying "this thing is art." And in this image (the notion of the image being another that Warhol explored beyond thoroughly), we've get mileage on a number of levels: the wooden frame within the photo frame; the artist holding the frame around himself, this singular artist who created his own public image on virtually a daily basis; the cockeyed angle of the frame, projecting a continual impulse to skew art or turn it inside out; the corner of the wooden frame extending just out of sight beyond the margin of the photo's frame. Kind of perfect.

I was not an instant fan of Andy when I was a kid; I loved a lot of the people and things he influenced (especially musicians) before I came around to loving him. But the appreciation did come on eventually, and took root pretty strongly.

So it's only right to give him a little attention on his birthday day. There was a good segment on WYNC this morning. Covered the celebrations that his friends still hold almost every year on this day (including seances, according to the report) at Serendipity 3, where Warhol drank coffee and ate ice cream (and that frozen hot chocolate!) and gathered with friends and sometimes worked in the early years. If you have 8 minutes, it's worth a listen.

When I got to Chome this afternoon (right around the corner from the Chelsea Hotel, another important location in the Warhol Universe) I had some food on Cory's Warhol/Marilyn plates. Andy would be pleased, I think, at the utilitarian application of his work, and also with its ubiquity.

And ubiquity is the right word, I think. Even this computer, with the touch of a few buttons, lets you - nay, encourages you; practically defies you not to - make a little birthday card of your own to Andy.

So now Cory and I are off to catch some Brazilian music and great companionship. Maybe afterward we'll listen to Songs for Drella. Or at least have some frozen hot chocolate...