Andy Warhol’s life may be better documented than that of any other artist in the history of the world. That is because, every few days or so, he would sweep all the stuff on his desk into a storage box, date it, label it “TC”—short for “time capsule”—and then store it, with all the preceding TCs, in a special place in his studio. As a result, we have his movie-ticket stubs, his newspaper clippings, his cowboy boots, his wigs, his collection of dental molds, his collection of pornography, the countless Polaroids he took of the people at the countless parties he went to—you name it. We have copies of bills he sent and also of bills he received from increasingly exasperated creditors, including one (“PAY UP YOU BLOWHARD”) from Giuseppe Rossi, the doctor who, in 1968, saved his life after a woman who felt she had been insufficiently featured in his movies came to his studio one day and shot him. In one box, I’ve heard, there is also a slice of cake, on a plate. It wasn’t just material objects he kept. When possible, he taped his phone conversations, and sometimes had an assistant type them up. He believed in the power of the banal. This faith was the wellspring of the Pop-art paintings—the Campbell’s soup cans, the Brillo cartons—that made him famous in the nineteen-sixties and changed America’s taste in art.
Delaying a book’s publication is a calculation that authors and publishers throughout the industry have made and wrestled with in recent months, as the pandemic has devastated the retail landscape and led to canceled tours, book fairs, literary festivals and media appearances. As publishers scramble to limit the economic fallout and sales declines driven by the epidemic, hundreds of books that were scheduled to come out this spring and early summer have been postponed, in some cases until next year.
In Germany, your brown bottles must be recycled separately from your clear ones. You must be quiet after 22:00. You must always obey the red man at a crossing, even if no cars are coming. And if you want to get anything done in this country, you need to print and fill out the proper forms, make an appointment, take your number and wait to be called to find out if you followed the rules or missed something in the fine print – which you probably did.
On the surface, “Ordnung muss sein” seems to be the foundation of German personal and social conduct. But, stereotypes aside, is Germany really “orderly”?
My husband and I have a shorthand we use for something we miss even if we never had a chance to enjoy it when it was available. “Blue martini,” we say, a reference to Adam Gopnick’s essay about the particular sadness he felt when a bar in New York City, famous for its blue martinis, closed. As I recall, Gopnick had never been to the bar; he’d never had one of their famous blue drinks. The essay was about the power of knowing he could. As long as the possibility existed, that was enough.
I suspect this is what a lot of us are feeling right now about visiting our friends, especially the far-flung ones. The tools of social media were fine for staying in touch as long as the possibility of a visit was always there. When the pandemic made that possibility disappear, the need for personal connection suddenly felt urgent. In the early weeks of the quarantine, people quickly found ways to gather online, to chat, drink, dance, make music, and more. I, an introvert, have two standing drinks nights and a morning coffee each week with friends. My family, who rarely managed a weekly phone call pre-pandemic, is Zooming every couple of days. All the fear and uncertainty seems to be compelling everyone to connect.
Something to Talk About takes place over months and months. The result is a slow-burn of a romance that eventually reaches a fiery simmer. Jo and Emma don't rush into love. They take one step at a time with careful, delightful, and frequently angsty precision. It may take a while, but in the end, Meryl Wilsner's novel delivers a showstopping, sexy romance in true Hollywood style.
When the forsaken city starts to burn,
after the men and children have fled,
stand still, silent as prey, and slowly turn