In the readings, "Excessivism", by K. Salem Mohammad, and "The Philosophy of Andy Warhol" : From A to B and Back Again, both writings are non-fiction, an autobiography from the authors point of view. Warhol's writing is very interesting. Warhol, talks about very simple and everyday situations in a very unique way. Warhol's readings are a collection of paragraphs and quotes. He speaks about space, time, art, beauty, and age.

    Most of Warhol's observations are on life, some general, some personal, and range from distinctive philosophies to brief meaningless rants and reflections. Warhol, explains space and he indicates:
   
      I've always had a conflict because I'm shy and yet I like to take up a lot of personal space. Mom always said, "Don't be pushy, but let everybody know you're around." I wanted to command more space than I was commanding, but then I knew I was too shy to know what to do do with the attention if I did manage to get it. That's why I love television. That's why I feel television is the media I'd most like to shine in. I'm really jealous of everybody who's got their own show on television. As I said, I want a show of my own called "Nothing Special." (147)

    What I got from this paragraph is that in order for him to be heard and seen he must stand out from the crowd, be in the spotlight, and demand attention, and once he got the attention he wanted he didn't know how to receive it, because he was so shy. Make your voice heard. I can relate to him in this sense because just like him I'm shy, but I know being shy won't get me to where I need to go in this world. So I must speak up and demand attention, and have my voice heard.


    I enjoyed Warhol's reading he had some really funny insights. He said things that people wanted to say, but didn't have the balls to. He does this when he says :        

   And New York restaurants now have a new thing, they don't sell their food, they sell their atmosphere. They say, " How dare you say we don't have good food, when we never said we had good food. We have good atmosphere." They caught on that what people really care about is changing their atmosphere for a coupe of hours. That's why they can get away with just selling their atmosphere with a minimum of actual food. Pretty soon when food prices go really up, they'll be selling only atmosphere. If people are really all that hungry, they can bring food with them when they go out to dinner, but otherwise, instead of "going out to dinner" they'll just be "going out to atmosphere."  (159)


     I'm sure we can all relate to this situation living in New York City.

    In the reading "Excessivism" it got a bit confusing to me because he just rambles and changes the subject frequently.  His poems all have the same concept of being gloomy and creepy. He uses the word disembodied several times in the poem "Cosmic Deer Head Freakout". They both spoke about everyday life situations in the readings.

   Overall, I wasn't a fan of his reading.