She shot Andy WarholPage 2 of 2 -- Ronell is right, and she knows it makes Solanas compelling. Like Nietzsche, to whom Ronell compares her, Solanas is a reverser of all values. She is neither left-wing nor reactionary in any known sense. The "Manifesto," for instance, contains the best excoriation of hippies ever written: "He's way out, Man! . . . all the way out to the cow pasture where he can. . . breed undisturbed and mess around with his beads and flute." Her ideas on community, freedom, philosophy, immortality, "Daddy's girls," and "unwork" (her version of sabotage through serial employment) are startling and clear.
Solanas's prose is her grace; the "Manifesto" floats over its own shock value. In retrospect her style seems inevitable; there was no other way for her to present this material. "Niceness [and] politeness," writes Solanas, "are hardly conducive to intensity and wit, qualities a conversation must have to be worthy of the name." If the "SCUM Manifesto" seemed a relic in the sensitive `70s, pass in the androgynous `80s, or nutty-interesting in the `90s, recent world events suggest the book's time has come. A deadpan quotation from Chairman Solanas adorning the back of the new edition's dust jacket reads: "If SCUM ever marches, it will be over the President's stupid, sickening face." When the book was first published it didn't say "the President" in that passage, it said "LBJ." Now another Texan holds the same office and the same place in many hearts. At a reading earlier this month in New York, the performance artists Carmelita Tropicana and Karen Finley and the writer Gary Indiana read from Solanas's "Manifesto" to a large audience at a downtown bistro. Verso handed out box cutters imprinted with the words "SCUM Manifesto" as souvenirs. Tropicana singled out men in the audience as she read, and soon your correspondent found an open copy of the "Manifesto" thrust before him with Tropicana's finger under the word "men" indicating he should read the dirty word aloud. Dutifully, he did. Later, Finley reminded the audience of something important. "There are a lot of crazy people out there," she said, gesturing outside the restaurant in the direction of lost souls looking for things in the garbage. "But they are not writing this book."
A.S. Hamrah is a writer living in Brooklyn. © Copyright 2004 Globe Newspaper Company.
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