The Philosophy of Andy Warhol; (From A to B and Back Again)

New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1975. First Edition [stated]. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. Philippe Halsman (Jacket photograph). [14], 241, [1] pages. Signed on half-title page with some bleed through to the title page. Signature has been authenticated by comparison with a nearly identical signature on another copy of Philosophy, found on the Internet, signed in approximately the same page location. A loosely formed autobiography by Andy Warhol, told with his trademark blend of irony and detachment. In The Philosophy of Andy Warhol, which, with the subtitle "(From A to B and Back Again)," is less a memoir than a collection of riffs and reflections. He talks about love, sex, food, beauty, fame, work, money, and success; about New York, America, and his childhood in McKeesport, Pennsylvania; about his good times and bad in New York, the explosion of his career in the sixties, and his life among celebrities. Andy Warhol (born Andrew Warhola; August 6, 1928 - February 22, 1987) was an American artist, film director, and producer who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art. His works explore the relationship between artistic expression, advertising, and celebrity culture that flourished by the 1960s, and span a variety of media, including painting, silkscreening, photography, film, and sculpture. Some of his best known works include the silkscreen paintings Campbell's Soup Cans (1962) and Marilyn Diptych (1962), the experimental films Empire (1964) and Chelsea Girls (1966), and the multimedia events known as the Exploding Plastic Inevitable (1966-67). He authored numerous books, including The Philosophy of Andy Warhol and Popism: The Warhol Sixties. The book is an assemblage of self-consciously ironic "quotable quotes" about love, beauty, fame, work, sex, time, death, economics, success, and art, among other topics, by the "Prince of Pop". Warhol signed two book contracts in 1974 with Harcourt, one for The Philosophy and the second for a biography of Paulette Goddard, which was never completed. The Philosophy was ghostwritten by Warhol's frequent collaborator, Pat Hackett, and Interview magazine editor Bob Colacello. Much of the material is drawn from taped interviews Hackett did with Warhol specifically for the book, and also from conversations Warhol had taped between himself and Colacello and Brigid Berlin. Warhol promoted the book in September 1975 on a nine-city U.S. book tour, followed by stops in Italy, France, and England. Derived from a Kirkus review: Warhol's immense immersion into the trivia of his life (by way of a tape-recorder he calls his "wife") is undeniably, hypnotically enjoyable. It makes no difference that Warhol seems, or really is, emotionally frozen at fourteen years old. His mind-book is a repository of ideas that may well survive the century -- an indispensable bag of what it's like to spend a crammed Saturday afternoon in Macy's, Woolworth's and Gimbel's shopping for fifteen pairs of jockey shorts and eight pairs of Supphose (all navy). Warhol is his own greatest straight man, with a Buster Keaton deadpan in his far-outness and no sense of put-on. He really believes in himself, his "nothingness," his insecurity, his shopping bags full of candy. He deliberately surrounds himself with love's cast-offs so that he won't be exposed to any real feelings that might make him nervous; he has incredibly long phone talks full of insane minutiae; he plays four TVs at once in his bedroom. This book is the real Warhol -- it wasn't ghosted, but it has benefited from a "redactor's" editing, thank heaven. And it's quotable: "I have a Fantasy about Money: I'm walking down the street and I hear somebody say -- in a whisper -- 'There goes the richest person in the world' . . . Money is my MOOD . . . I don't feel like I get germs when I hold money. . . When I pass my hand over money, it becomes perfectly clean to me." Or, "sex is nostalgia for sex," and "being born is like being kidnapped. And then sold into slavery." Bravura passages of Campbell's soup cans.