From Walk on the Wild Side to Midnight Cowboy: The Silver Factory

Walk on the Wild Side (1962) is, despite garish-colored promotional posters, a black and white movie. Seeing it recently made me think of Andy Warhol's Silver Factory at Manhattan's 231 East 47th Street, and the Hotel Chelsea, 222 West 23rd Street, both Warhol hangouts. El Quijote Restaraunt and Cocktail Lounge, right next to the Chelsea, has the same aura as the red Spanish-language poster for Walk on the Wild Side, El Gata Negra.

The Silver Factory developed as a synergistic Avant-garde meeting place and production nerve center for films, superstars, Pop art, music and photography. Nearly everything produced (or "transgressed") in the Factory between 1962 and 1968 challenged accepted societal "norms," either through wry artistic observation or by outright breaking "the rules." 

1968 saw pivotal changes in the Factory scene: Warhol was shot and badly injured, the Silver Factory was closed, Bonnie & Clyde had already created a stir to be followed in 1969 by Midnight Cowboy, and meanwhile the stifling Motion Picture Production Code morphed into the MPAA/Motion Picture Association of America's film-rating system, beginning with G, M (later GP, and now PG-13), R and X (later NC-17, "No Children Under 17").

Lou Reed and Velvet Underground "chanteuse" Nico, a European-born icon not unlike Capucine. Nico would go on to film a sort of music video for "Evening of Light" with Iggy Pop in 1968; the Velvet Underground's John Cale would produce The Stooges (1969), David Bowie released "Andy Warhol" in 1971, and Lou Reed went solo, his biggest single hit to date being "Walk on the Wild Side" (1972). What goes around, comes around.

Today's mystery question: Is there one great role for art, or is that up to the artist and society to battle or work out through time and context?

Today's Rune: The Mystery Rune.