Category: Post

     A few months before Christmas I read ‘I Bought Andy Warhol‘ in a variety of hospital waiting rooms. The book revolves around author Richard Polsky’s quest to own an Andy Warhol original, and by extension his experiences as an art dealer in the 1980’s. It’s a fast read that covers lots of interesting tangents, but as the Amazon reviews will attest, it has its problems. For those with an interest, however, Polsky offers enough insight into the inner workings of the modern art trade to make it worth wading through the character assassination and autobiographical attempts at redemption that sometimes slow things down. [Incidentally, does anyone know if Amazon puts negative reviews at the bottom on purpose? Or if not, do they only spotlight the 5 star reviews?].

     Most interesting (To me, at least) were the sections detailing the many eccentricities of dealing with the Warhol Estate. The estate was apparently very tight-lipped regarding what remained unsold after the artist’s death – making it difficult to gauge the supply and value of original Warhol work. Polsky details the painstaking process of scheduling a viewing with the estate, and the politics of favor that determined what you were offered.

     Also of interest were the sections dealing with forgery – to which Warhol’s work lends itself well. One chapter deals with an artist who set out to duplicate Warhol’s technique exactly, producing a (supposedly) perfect forgery before deciding not to proceed any further with the experiment; while another describes the author’s encounter with several unsigned ‘originals’ which may or may not have been forgeries – as Warhol’s signiture policy was a bit of an eccentricity in and of itself.

     I would have forgotten all about having read this book had I not stumbled upon a plush version of the Andy Warhol’s Velvet Underground cover available at Kid Robot, complete with unzippable skin:

     It’s a pretty great (and pretty pricey) recycling of the pop-art image as a new pop-art item (Available in 12″, 24″ and 36″ models).

Three things dealing with the name Kempa:

One:

     Krmpa.com is one easy typo away from kempa.com – the ‘E’ and ‘R’ keys are right next to each other. The reason this is notable is that krmpa.com is the website of Koleos, Rosenberg & Metzger, P.A., a law firm that deals with very bitter divorce settlements. People who send email regarding such subjects are often very enraged and not paying attention to their typing. Here’s an example of the spiteful missives I’ve recieved, found atop a GIGANTIC volley of quoted emails detailing the division of property and children:

“It is difficult for me to believe that I was at one time so proud of you, however, after receiving e-mails such as this, I am forever grateful that I filed for divorce. I truly cannot wait until you find someone else and take your focus off of me.”

     Insane. Once one of these fights takes off, I’m in for the long haul because these people are carbon copying the lawyers (Which is actually me, because of the typo) on each message, and attempts to notify them of their mistake result in no reply.

Two:

     It’s come to my attention that there is a German sporting goods company named Kempa, which is amazing because I suddenly have access to an entire line of personalized sportswear and handball equipment at www.kempa-handball.de.

Three:

     Michal Tomasz Kempa of Polish website kempa.pl linked my site based on my name alone, so I’m doing the same. Here’s what he had to say:

“greetings forU don’t look at page of mine is horrible flat but I’ll change up in soon (I spoke it2yearsAgo2: AD REM: on the bottom this site : www.kempa.pl is link forU P.S. Your site is crazy but nice & maybe little update?? (the readers (me &other) still wait & cry (beacause nothing new) & wait again ……;-)”

Go visit his site here.

     I took my dog, speck, through a ‘Manners’ class. He got ‘Most Improved.’ This is his graduation photo. Note the books in the background – ‘Fetch,’ ‘Spot: A True Story,’ etc.

     I just had this vivid dream. It’s important to note that I recently got a job as tech support at a library.

     For some reason, I was working as a reference librarian at Alfred Noble Library in Livonia in the summer time. An elderly woman came in and asked me to look up a book for her. She gave me the last name of the author: ‘Brado.’ I looked it up and the description read:

“Memoirs of a disturbed teenage girl, which she never intended to be read – UNIQUE, UNCIRCULATING. 191.27”

     She asked me to take her to the book, so we started towards the door. As soon as we stepped outside, a ridiculous blizzard began.

     In my dream, the library had expanded to take over a nearby field – but the shelves were all outdoors. They were each roughly 2 stories high, and arches had been built between each shelf, out of books. There were people who were hired to scamper around over the arches and pull out the books if necessary. It was very Beyond Thunderdomey in feel – primitive without seeming like it was out of the past.
Anyway, we made it to the shelves and we were on the wrong end of the dewey decimal system, so we started walking through the shelves, which turned out to be a maze constructed so that the passages were shaped like numbers.

     As we rounded the bend of a ‘2,’ the old woman started running, and I told her to slow down. She didn’t listen so I started chasing after her. When I finally caught up to her, I was out of breath and she was standing in front of where the book should have been with her back to me. She turned around all suddenly and I saw that she had become the teenage girl. She lunged at me and I yelled ‘BRADO! AHHHHH’ and woke up.

     According to my girlfriend, who was sleeping next to me, I really did YELL ‘Brado, ahhh,’ which came out sounding like “Intense Chewbacca yelling through water:” “BWAAA OOOOH! AHHHHHHH!” I woke up pasty white, and it took me several seconds to determine that she was not, in fact, Brado. I am clearly insane.

     In the Dewey decimal system, 191 is modern philosophy of the United States and Canada, in case you’re curious. I looked it up.

     If you weren’t already aware, you’ll probably be happy to learn that Topps is offering a brand new series of Garbage Pail Kids, including artwork by original GPK artist John Pound. Official site here. Garbagepailkidsworld.com also appears to be an official site.

     I bought this at a rummage sale: Upside-down Coke glass = 7-Up glass (ie ‘The Uncola’).

     I was first exposed to Paul Collins in the fifth issue of McSweeney’s, which published his essay on Solresol – a functional music based (as opposed to word based) language. This essay was eventually included in his book, ‘Banvard’s Folly,’ which I wrote about in my last update.

     Over the past year or so I’ve stumbled across articles by Mr. Collins in a few different places, so I emailed him to see if he had any sort of listing of where his more ephemeral work appears. This is what he had to say:

     “The other two places I do a lot of writing for [Besides The Believer and the Village Voice – which I mentioned in my email] are the arts quarterly Cabinet and the science weekly New Scientist. I’ve probably done 7 or 8 “Histories”
columns for NS in the last year — stuff very much in the Banvard’s Folly line. Cabinet has a couple of my articles on their website, and I think NS allows a free 1-week tour of their online archives. On the book front, I’ve got a memoir/travelogue coming out in April (“Not Even Wrong”) from Bloomsbury, and I’ve edited a new title coming out from the Collins Library in March — David Garnett’s 1922 novella ‘Lady Into Fox.'”

     As you well know, I am insane. As such, I have collected all the Collins-Penned Articles that are available online and stuffed them into a word file for convenient download.

Other Paul Collins Links:

• The Collins Almanac is a “Selection of excerpts from old books, magazines, and newspapers,” which is updated every weekday.
• The Collins Library is
  a “reprint series by McSweeney’s Books of unusual out-of-print literary works. Each volume is newly edited and typeset, and is selected and introduced by series editor Paul Collins. They are produced in very small runs, and can be bought at McSweeney’s online store , independent booksellers, and at Amazon.com.”
• Collins on NPR, promoting the release of one of the Collins Library titles: ‘English as She Is Spoke”
• The McSweeney’s Interview: Part One and Part Two.

     If anyone can be bothered to turn up an audio file of solresol being ‘spoken’ i’d love to hear it. I’ve had no luck with Google so far.