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                                             June 9, 2020
                                                
                                                
Luc Sante in the April 9, 2020 "New York        
Review of Books" reviewed a collection of       
Glenn O'Brien essays: "Intelligence for         
Dummies".                                       
                                                
    Luc Sante used the occasion to talk about the kind
    of person O'Brien was and the kind of phenomenon be
    represents.                                 
                                                
                                                
I found this kind of amusing,                  "He was an exemplary if atypical
because at wikipedia-- I wanted to             citizen of [lower Manhatten's]
quote an O'Brien essay on the                  culture, and something of a
Beats, and created a page for him              figurehead as it evolved from
to attribute it to-- I was once                local, fringe, and 'underground'
challenged on whether O'Brien was              to international high fashion.
"notable", and I didn't have much              He lived and worked on the
to say about that.                             leading edge of style at all
                                               times, and was invariably at the
  Was he notable?  He was                      right club at the right hour on
  notably on the edges of a        BASQUIAT    the right night, but his
  number of interesting things.                rèsumè suggests someone from
  A lesser light on some big                   an earlier era.  As if he had
  stages...                                    flourished during the Regency of
                                               the fin de siécle, he was a
    The review includes a photo                dandy and a wit, an aphorist 
    O'Brien took: a dark polaroid of           and a tastemaker"  -- Luc Sante
    Madonna cuddling with Basquiat.             
                                                    For me, the word that
      Apparently O'Brien was one of the             comes to mind is "fop".
      underwear models Warhol used in               But maybe that's just
      the photoshoot for the Rolling                what he evolved into.
      Stones "Sticky Fingers" album              
      cover: the front being a closeup                E.g. a columnist
      of the crotch of blue jeans,                    for GQ
      complete with working zipper               
      (which famously scratched records                  BACONBITS
      like crazy), and inside the zipper         
      was a crotch-in-underwear that             
      *might* have been Glenn O'Brien.            
                                                   
                                                
          "Despite circumstantial differences,      
          he instinctively grasped and absorbed     
          Warhol's view of the world.  He          
          understood the transience of fame, the  
          power of the image, the somatic effect   
          of repetition, the allure of emphatic 
          understatement, and the contrapuntal      
          sympathy between the ordinary and the     
          transgressive."  -- Luc Sante             
                                                    

                                                    
                                                    
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