Edie Sedgwick is fascinating in that she is a picture of vivacity and vulnerability. She was both full of life and determined to waver between life and death. "Every boy at Harvard was trying to save Edie from herself." She appeals to the self-pity we all entertain at the death of our innocence; her life represents the results of the world battering naivety. To have lived the life she did and retain that vulnerability is what makes her relatable, in so much as she is something we all have lost, and are resentful in some ways of having lost her/it. She is a fascinating person to read about I recommend Edie: American Girl or Edie: Girl on Fire.
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (first and last stanza)--Anne Sexton
No matter what life you lead
the virgin is a lovely number:
cheeks as fragile as cigarette paper,
arms and legs made of Limoges,
lips like Vin Du Rhône,
rolling her china-blue doll eyes
open and shut.
Open to say,
Good Day Mama,
and shut for the thrust
of the unicorn.
She is unsoiled.
She is as white as a bonefish.
And thus Snow White became the prince's bride.
The wicked queen was invited to the wedding feast
and when she arrived there were
red-hot iron shoes,
in the manner of red-hot roller skates,
clamped upon her feet.
First your toes will smoke
and then your heels will turn black
and you will fry upward like a frog,
she was told.
And so she danced until she was dead,
a subterranean figure,
her tongue flicking in and out
like a gas jet.
Meanwhile Snow White held court,
rolling her china-blue doll eyes open and shut
and sometimes referring to her mirror
as women do.
"In some ways, I think Edie was ultimately at least to me, unknowable. One didn't see where her motivations sprang from. It was hard to know about what she might want to do, but she wanted to be amused, that was for sure. She liked having lots of things happening...she liked giggling a lot."
"Saints are always vulnerable, because they are sacrificial so I suppose there was that implicit in her, that she was sacrificial. She was so extremely magical that she was evanescent. She was there and not there at the same time."
Edie Sedgwick: And what would I have to do in one of your movies?
Andy Warhol: Just be yourself.
Edie Sedgwick: Well which one?
Edie Sedgwick: I went to a party once, and there was a palm reader
there and when she looked at my hand, she just froze. And I said to
her "I know. My lifeline is broken. I know I wont live past
thirty."
Andy Warhol: I wonder what theyll say about you... in your obituary.
I like that word.
Edie Sedgwick: Nothing nice, I dont think.
Andy Warhol: No no, come on. Theyd say, "Edith Minturn Sedgwick:
beautiful artist and actress...
Edie Sedgwick: ...and all around loon.
Andy Warhol: ...Remembered for setting the world on fire...
Edie Sedgwick: ...and escaping the clutches of her terrifying
family...
Andy Warhol: ...Made friends with eeeeverybody, and anybody...
Edie Sedgwick: ...creating chaos and uproar wherever she went.
Divorced as many times as she married, she leaves only good wishes
behind. [laughs] Thats nice, isnt it?
Caroline
