(The pages will change automatically or you can select any of the pages by clicking on one of the blue buttons at the bottom of the pages)
A PERSONAL NOTE: This is one of a score of weekly diaries produced about the Soho art scene in the ‘70s and in addition to my timeless Village Voice columns of the Fifties might make an interesting e-Book(s). Maybe somebody might be willing in publish and/or distribute them, in which case my unpublished book on marihuana (containing 12 years of comprehensive research) might also be of interest.
Email
this link to a friend
Sign-up to receive this column weekly by email
send a comment to John Wilcock ===========================
|
recent columns...
- Same sex marriage - a new justification for polygyny?; Comic book Superheroes - just another Greek revival?; For profit insurance "IS" the failure of affordable healthcare; Mexican drug cartels - on a [USA] street corner near you; Sacramento, CA - water-guzzling capital of the nation; Doomsday condos - posh bunkers for pessimists; and of course, the Wilcock Web....
– Week of May 19, 2012
- Congressional salaries - struggling along on a mere $174,000 a year (with benefits), while voting down a hike in minimum wage for constituents from $15,080 a year; US Leaving Afghanistan - peace or a proxy war between India and Pakistan?; the Vatican - choosing devout priests who diddle little boys over charitable nuns who devote their lives to helping the poor; Made in China; No More! There's plenty of pennies; short-changed in Zimbabwe?; Damien Hirst collectors - the land of gilded bath taps and pink Rolls-Royces; I vote for Joan Hall; and of course, the Wilcock Web....
– Week of May 12, 2012
- Lost and not found: does anyone else [out there] suffer from adosma and/or augesia (acute loss of taste and smell)? This week's column is devoted to raising awareness and a quest to restore one writer's love of chocolate.
– Week of May 5, 2012
- Mitt Romney friends and backers - from the merely greedy to the shamefully unscrupulous; Rio Tinto Mining Co. - 'the worst corporate assault on America's natural heritage'; HuffPost - the most-visited of all internet media sites; Sunday morning pundits - extra ordinarily friendly terrain for the right; Congress still $$$pandering to the tobacco lobbies; Britain lightens up on homes maintained by the National Trust; and now of course, there's hydrogreed!!!; wind power support sputtering on both sides of the pond; and of course, the Wilcock Web...
– Week of April 28, 2012
- Wealth–China's most successful religion; Gambling is NOT a tool of economic development; un'palette'able street art peddled at Monmartre; 'De-shopping, retailers' costly lending? practices; Shakespeare–the rewrite man Hollywood can only dream of; Dreams, nightmares, and other nocturnal workouts; and of course, the Wilcock Web...
– Week of April 21, 2012
- Part 1 of Issue 2
– Week of March 17 and 24, 2012
- From the archives: An interview with Lenny Bruce between shows at the Village Vanguard, 1961; the Greenwich Village Scholarship, 1963; explorations of the heart with Woody Allen, 1963
– Week of December 31, 2011
- john wilcock: new york years, 1954-1971
artwork by Ethan Persoff and Scott Marshall
– Week of October 22, 2011
- column archives:
2006 - present
>>>>>>>>>>>>
in the press...
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
A Budget Travel Pioneer on a Time When $5 a Day Was Real (Frugal) Money
nytimes.com: Frugal Traveler
by Seth Kugel
 It was the first handwritten letter I’d received in 5 years. Or maybe 10. Signed by John Wilcock, a man I’d never heard of, and postmarked Ojai, Calif., it was waiting for me when I returned from my São Paulo-to-New York summer trip. Mr. Wilcock wrote that he had been an assistant editor at The Times Travel section back in the 1950s, and had written the first editions of “Mexico on $5 a Day,” “Greece on $5 a Day” and “Japan on $5 a Day” for Arthur Frommer in the 1960s.
By George, I thought. This man was the original Frugal Traveler.
(read more)
 Manhattan Memories
An Autobiography
by John Wilcock
"A GOOD WAY to describe John Wilcock is to say that he is a talented bohemian counter-culture journalist who once played a major role in the emergence of America’s underground press. Born 1927 in Sheffield, England, he left school aged 16 to work on various newspapers in England, and on Toronto periodicals before moving to New York City. There in 1955 he became one of the five founders of the Village Voice in which he and co-founder Norman Mailer wrote weekly columns. Wilcock called his column “The Village Square”, an intended pun. He and young Mailer were not quite friends, although Wilcock was at times annoyed, but always amused, by Mailer’s monstrous ego."
-From the preface of Manhattan Memories, by Martin Gardner
The Autobiography and Sex Life of Andy Warhol
by John Wilcock
Edited by Christopher Trela
Photographs by Shunk-Kender
Village Voice and Interview cofounder John Wilcock was first drawn into the
milieu of Andy Warhol through film-maker Jonas Mekas, assisting on some
of Warhol’s early films, hanging out at his parties and quickly becoming a
regular at the Factory. “About six months after I started hanging out at the
old, silvery Factory onWest 47th Street,” he recalls, “[Gerard] Malanga came
up to me and asked, ‘When are you going to write something about us?’”
Already fascinated by Warhol’s persona, Wilcock went to work, interviewing
the artist’s closest associates, supporters and superstars. Among these were
Malanga, Naomi Levine, Taylor Mead and Ultra Violet, all of whom had been
in the earliest films; scriptwriter Ronnie Tavel, and photographer Gretchen
Berg; art dealers Sam Green, Ivan Karp, Eleanor Ward and Leo Castelli, and
the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Henry Geldzahler; the poets Charles Henri
Ford and Taylor Mead, and the artist Marisol; and the musicians Lou Reed and Nico. Paul Morrisey supplied the title: The Autobiography and Sex Life of
AndyWarhol was the first oral biography of the artist. First published in 1971,
and pitched against the colorful backdrop of the 1960s, it assembles a prismatic
portrait of one of modern art’s least knowable artists during the early
years of his fame. The Autobiography and Sex Life is likely the most revealing
portrait of Warhol, being composite instead of singular; each of its interviewees
offers a piece of the puzzle that was Andy Warhol. This new edition
corrects the many errors of the first, and is beautifully designed in a bright,
Warholian palette with numerous illustrations.
The British-born writer John Wilcock co-founded The Village Voice in 1955,
and went on to edit seminal publications such as The East Village Other, Los
Angeles Free Press, Other Scenes and (in 1970) Interview, with Andy Warhol.
|
