Move the Camera

The first thing you notice about Andy Warhol is that he is an albino.

Needless to say, as a young kid with the attention span of a braindead, I was delighted by this fact.

My father, the Anglo-Welsh-Scots-Irish Thomas R. Edwards Jr. and the French-Canuck Dick Poirier were both eminent literary critics and co-editors of the distinguished litmag “RARITAN.” Though sometimes they could be inscrutably elitist and intellectual, especially after a successful party, I was waiting for them to explain where “Slovakia” was? The party had came complete with some kids my age to play with and that I used to know a little, including cocktail conversationalist Paul Fussel’s kids, as well as the regal youngster Leopold Charney (who always beat me in chess and once amused everybody by blurting out, “Mommy, my penis hurts: can you rub some lotion on it?”) I was beginning to get the gist about who this mysterious stranger exactly was.

My father said the nice man with white hair and red eyes sharing the cab with us was a famous film director, who had made a movie about my favorite monster “Frankenstein.”

“That sounds neat,” I said, more sleepy than paying much attention.

“Andy, I have one question for you?” Dick Poirier announced. “In your films the camera never moves and all the subjects just pass by. Why is that?”

Slovakia-born pale-faced Andy was seemingly daydreaming to himself and muttering in tongues. He didn’t appear to know how to respond. Indeed, he even evidenced signs of a classic airhead.

I don’t know, this so-called celebrity did seem a little drunk to me.

“Move the camera!” Mr. Warhol said absentmindedly. “I’ve never thought of that…”