THE PHILOSOPHY OF ANDY WARHOL (from A to B and Back Again)

Warhol's immense immersion into the trivia of his life (by way of a tape-recorder he calls his ""wife"") is undeniably, hypnotically, abysmally enjoyable. It makes no difference that Warhol seems, or really is, emotionally frozen at fourteen years old. His mind-book is a repository of ideas that may well survive the century -- an indispensable ragbag of what it's like to spend a crammed Saturday afternoon in Macy's, Woolworth's and Gimbel's shopping for fifteen pairs of jockey shorts and eight pairs of Supphose (all navy). Vacuous? You bet. But Warhol is his own greatest straight man, with a Buster Keaton deadpan in his far-outness and no sense of put-on. He really believes in himself, his ""nothingness,"" his insecurity, his shopping bags full of candy. He deliberately surrounds himself with love's cast-offs so that he won't be exposed to any real feelings that might make him nervous; he has incredibly long phone talks full of insane minutiae; he plays four TVs at once in his bedroom. This book is the real Warhol -- it wasn't ghosted, but it has benefited from a ""redactor's"" editing, thank heaven. And it's quotable: ""I have a Fantasy about Money: I'm walking down the street and I hear somebody say -- in a whisper -- 'There goes the richest person in the world' . . . Money is my MOOD . . . I don't feel like I get germs when I hold money. . . When I pass my hand over money, it becomes perfectly clean to me."" Or, ""sex is nostalgia for sex,"" and ""I love plastic idols,"" and ""being born is like being kidnapped. And then sold into slavery."" Long bravura passages of Campbell's soup cans.