Valerie Solanas

Misandrist to the Stars

DT: It’s well known, or rather infamously known, that you were recommended to approach Andy Warhol to publish your abominably lewd play Up Your Ass in 1965. Warhol summarily turned down your request and, even more regrettably, misplaced the manuscript. I do wonder though if Warhol had really misplaced it or “misplaced” it, as there were plenty of trash piles in the Factory that had to eventually be removed and would never see the light of day again. And it must also be said, again in Warhol’s shadow, that trash frequently found its way into art in the simple gesture of someone, anyone, simply naming it as such. Incidentally, as I’m sure you are unaware, Marcel Duchamp’s auratic Fountain from 1917 is the go to example in art history for such a minimalist and indeed fraudulent moment: a defunct Parisian urinal inscribed by one R. Mutt ordaining it as art. Furthermore

[Solanas interjects]

VS: Can you just stop with this bloated “art” speak. I have no interest in it. Totally debilitating to listen to and

DT: [Interrupts] Ummmmm you can lose the scare marks. You clearly have no idea of what they mean.

VS: Scare what?

DT: Inverted commas, or fittingly after James Joyce, in a usage you may perhaps appreciate, “perverted commas”.

VS: [Blunt silence]

*

[Solanas was the solitary member of her “Society for Cutting up Men” and its successor “Society For Cutting Up Men Yuckily”. This is such a delicious fact that it offers me a sniping opportunity I simply can’t resist]

DT: I note, with quite a bit of schadenfreude, that you were the lone card carrying member of your “society”, such that it was. How on earth, or wherever it is you are, can you call it a society when there is only one membership?

VS: I am my own society and stand by every word in both manifestoes.

DT: Oh yes manifestoes of hate and violence.

VS: Men are an abomination and you are certainly one of them.

DT: Oh I certainly am [grotesquely mimes an abject response by slowly falling to the ground, crawling into the foetal position before speaking in short utterances in an apparent, though bathetic, near-death rictus] What a [pause] withering and demoralising insult, a chilling [long pause] abject put down. How on earth [long pause for five minutes] or under earth in your case, can we move on from this preposterous insult?

VS: %#@9fp_= e fffffffffuck-gggt!

[This is only an approximation of what I heard]

DT: Oh dear, such a bogus pomp. If only the shade of Frank Zappa were here. He would have appreciated that outrage, gleefully intoning “heeeeey!” before laughing uncontrollably. Regrettably, the insulting barb is untranslatable into English. And for what it’s worth, haters of men, such as yourself and your kind, are called misandrists. Now there is a fine and fitting word for you and your odious platform of hatred.

[At this moment Solanas’ shade vanishes in a very loud and acrid cloud of smoke. It is reminiscent of the scent of the Lesser Anteater’s fundament, that is highly nauseating and reeks of rotting carrion. Now that really is a bummer. Zappa would have enjoyed that quip I’m sure. And for what it’s worth, I would have preferred garlic. What are you gonna do.]

*

[This encounter takes place, fittingly, in an authentic simulacrum of Andy Warhol’s New York studio “The Factory”. Solanas is “present” as a real time, synchronous exchange of responses on a silk screen that simultaneously prints sentences on to canvas]

DT: You are in very special company in this series and a lot of talking goes on amongst the shades about the latest inclusion into their netherworld, some complimentary, others not.

VS: How so?

DT: Well Xenia Cage came in at number twenty in a 2013 blog about thirty-one influential women of the 20th century. Despite your “notoriety”, such as it is, you were not included.

VS: I am vaguely familiar with her name but have no idea who or what she is or was, nor any desire to do so. And what is this blob you mention?

DT: [Guffaws loudly] Um… never mind, far too much information to convey. Just think of it as a form of porn that is communicated by electricity, not bodies. You will probably not understand that infra-mince difference, which of course is from Marcel Duchamp.

VS: [Sighs] Well what of it. Does it really matter how you work and what you do?

DT: It most certainly does. John Cage was a sculptor with affinities to the surrealist movement who never harmed anyone. He also had a huge influence on the international art collective Fluxus. You on the other hand are a psychopathic hater of men, a misanthrist who is not afraid to use a gun, as we all know. Two different vocations, wouldn’t you agree?

VS: I really wish you would just fuck off from my presence.

DT: For the time being, sure. I have much ammunition to gather and shall repair elsewhere to plan the final outrage. And to burst your egotistic bubble you do not have a presence, just a vacuum-like absence and more to the point, a vile animus. So for the time being, auf wiedersehen pet.

VS: [Palpably cold silence]

*

[Some time has passed since the previous audience. I’m eager to start the baiting to get into one of the more controversial and illegal examples of Solanas’ quite deliberate outrages. With the word outrages at front and centre of her self-desired “celebrity”, it is time to bring up her failed attempt to kill Andy Warhol. Let the fun begin]

DT: As we are nearing the end of this altercation, I want to raise the spectre of Andy Warhol and your role in almost shuffling him off this mortal coil.

VS: If you must address me can you at least speak in an understandable manner?

DT: But I am. Your comprehension, or rather lack thereof, is the problem.

VS: Can we finish this ridiculous farrago?

DT: Um, you actually know the meaning of that word? I’m stunned.

VS: If you must know I shot Warhol as he was rude in his reception of one of my plays and refused to give it back.

DT: Actually he was quite indifferent to it. Not sure because of its content or the title, Up Your Ass is quite, well, in your face so to speak. And I can hear his trademark response of utter ennui and complete boredom, “gee”.

[At this point the avatar of The Factory implodes in a cataclysm of paint tins, canvases and the odour of turpentine. The shade of Solanas exits in a vaporous and malodorous smell that is reminiscent of the scent of the Lesser Anteater’s fundament, a stench that is highly nauseating and reeks of rotting carrion. Now that really is a bummer. Zappa would have appreciated that quip I’m sure. And for what it’s worth, I would have preferred garlic. What are you going to do]

Andy Warhol died in his sleep in a New York hospital of ventricular fibrillation on the 27th February, 1987.