ever, is that so many simply didn’t survive.nEdie was not the only one whondidn’t make it. And the influentialntrend-setters, the celebrities, and thenculture heroes so beloved of the medianwho have managed to survive, look backnnow on the casualties not with any compassionntoward their comrades but withnan attitude tinged with contempt, as if tonimply: “Hey, man, it was only a game.nYou took it too seriously. The thing wasnto belong, to enjoy, to participate butnnot to overindulge the way you poornaeeps did.” WWD has devised the appellationn”Fashion Victim” (FV) andnscornfully attaches it to any woman whonfollows the dictates of fashionable dress,neven the ones endorsed by the editorsnthemselves, too conscientiously. All thenEdies of the 60’s generation are FY’s accordingnto today’s trend-setters.nV/ne outstanding presence on thenscene who was assuredly not an FV wasnAndy Warhol. On the contrary, Warholnis a surviving profiteer and is too muchnwith us today. Over and over again, thenvoices appearing in Edie refer to him asn”voyeur,” “parasite,” one who was surroundednby drugs and never indulged.ngraphs that have been blown up and colorednover. He was known, according tonEdie, for having members of his artisticnand social milieu, so aptly designated asnThe Factory, paint everything for him;nwhen this fact leaked out it threw dimwittedncollectors into a panic that theynhad invested in worthless, ersatz Warhols.nHe had to make a public retractionnto keep the market stable. His moviesnhave included Empire (eight continuousnhours of the Empire State Building) andnVinyl, noted for its torture scene. Vinylnwas also the first appearance of EdienSedgwick in a Warhol production. AnWarhol scriptwriter is quoted in Edie:n”As best as I can articulate about thenaverage Warhol film, the way to worknwas to work for no meaning.” Warholnhimself has stated: “I make nothingnhappen. . . .I’m still obsessed with thenidea of looking into the mirror and seeingnno one, nothing.” And Warhol isnright. The ultimate decadence that characterizesnhis contributions to our culturenis nothingness, the destruction of thenrudimentary values of art and life whichnculminates in soup cans and the frenzy ofnmechanical sex and drugs leading tonspiritual and physical annihilation.n”And what a buffet! Here is proof again that minor—even wasted—lives can provokeneminent and estimable accounts. The range of sensibility and idiom captured andndisplayed in these pages … is of a kind and quality assembled elsewhere only bynStuds Turkel.”n—New York Times Book Reviewn”Jean Stein’s remarkable book reads in some respects like a classic novel.”n—Harper’snwho orchestrated excesses reminiscent ofnHieronymus Bosch but declined to participate.nFormerly an active homosexual,nWarhol himself has confessed to a life ofncelibacy for many years. Without andoubt the most famous quasi-artist innAmerica, his is a name recognized evennby those who are ignorant of art. Almostneveryone is familiar with his paintings ofnCampbell Soup cans, his portraits ofnMarilyn Monroe and Mao Tse-tung. Thenlatter, like most of Warhol’s output, arennot original paintings at all but photo-n8 ^^MMH^i^iiinChronicles of CttlturenTruman Capote, not the most prepossessingnpersonality himself, neverthelessnhas some pointed remarks about his oldnacquaintance:nI think, looking back, that at a verynearly age he had decided what it wasnhe wanted: fame—that is, to be anfamous person. His drive was simplynthat fame was the name of the gamen. . . not really talent. Not art. . . .nMind you, I’m not saying that AndynWarhol doesn’t have any talent,nbecause obviously he has some; hennnhas to. But I can’t put my finger onnwhat it is that he’s talented at, exceptnthat he’s a genius as a selfpublicist.nWarhol, then, as a symbol of thenculture of our time, is a product creatednboth by and for the media. He wasnshrewd enough to recognize quite earlynin his career that ours is an epoch of socallednmedia hype, where something isnfabricated from nothingness by constantnexposure and the adulation of radio, TV,nand the press, all of which manufacturenthe cultural phenomena so devastatingnin their effects. At the same time,nthe media can create nothingness outnof something of value simply by ignoringnits presence or disintegratingnits stature.n1 he second villain in the saga—morenpowerful than Warhol—is the collectivenfashion media, with Diana Vreeland as ansymbolic if not actual leader. This formerneditor of Harper’s Bazaar and Voguendubbed Edie Sedgwick a “Youthquaker.”n”Everything you read—everynpaper, magazine—told you how fabulousnit was to be young; youth was it,”nrelates one interviewee. To be over 30nwas decidedly not chic. And so grandmothersnadopted miniskirts while grandfathersncovered their bald spots withnflowing locks. These FV’s believed whatnthe media incessantly repeated; theynbought the package. Thus Vreelandn(born around the turn of the century)nand her organ. Vogue, celebrated theirnfavorite Youthquaker in 1965: “Edie isn22, going whither, God knows, but at angreat rate!” The accuracy of the descriptionnis ironic in the extreme. AnothernVogue editor who supervised a photographynsession with Edie is quoted:nEdie Sedgwick captured the qualityn[of The Blue Angel in this blacknlingerie with the white stockings andnher white skin. It had a little ofnBerlin in it. . . . [Her life] was a littlenmessy, a little out of control … itnwasn’t sound, obviously, it wasngoing to lead to trouble. She was veryn