New Year

The New Year passages trace a holiday that shifts between formal sociability, all-night spectacle, and the unceremonious routines of the next day. On the closing night of 1979, Warhol went first to Halston’s small black-tie gathering, then to a celebrity-packed party at Woody Allen’s, and finally to Studio 54; after leaving at six in the morning, he visited Marina Schiano for pizza. January 1 brought work, an art gallery, and a return to Marina’s promised New Year food. The sequence makes the holiday less a single celebration than a passage between rooms, relationships, and obligations.

From Halston’s gathering to midnight

Warhol chose Halston’s home as the easy option for the night and arrived at 10 p.m. The gathering was small and black tie. Jane Holzer and Bob Denison were both there, and Warhol took their presence as a sign that they had made up. Jade delighted in the presents he had brought, while Victor called from California to say he was having a good time. At midnight, the guests exchanged kisses and ate. The entry remembers the scene as simply nice: intimate enough for gifts and familiar company, but still part of a night that would expand across the city.

At three, Bianca wanted to go to Woody Allen’s party at Harkness House on East 75th Street. John Samuels IV had a car and double-parked. Warhol judged the party the best of the night, with famous people filling the room, and wished they had arrived earlier. Mia Farrow struck him as charming and beautiful; Robert De Niro’s weight, which Warhol understood had been gained for a boxing film, became the focus of an unkind comic speculation that he might never lose it. His rapid shift from admiration to mockery gives the party its characteristic diary texture: celebrity is both spectacle and material for casual judgment.

A thaw in a crowded city

The encounter between Bianca, Mick Jagger, and Jerry Hall gave the night a more personal turn. Bianca ran over to them and, as Warhol described it, broke the ice; the three talked for about half an hour. He understood her aim as making Jerry nervous and thought she succeeded. Mick had shaved off his beard and, in Warhol’s assessment, looked good. The account records a brief social thaw without suggesting that the larger relationship tensions had disappeared.

At Studio 54, the visual setting was emphatically wintry: ice covered the room and appeared to drip down the walls. Steve Rubell led the group to the basement, where the filthy surroundings and talk of cocaine recalled the club’s earlier atmosphere. Upstairs, Ron Duguay and another hockey player declined Warhol’s attempt to introduce them to Marina Schiano because their girlfriends were present. At six in the morning, Warhol and Marina left; a crowd was still pressing outside to get in. Jack Hofsiss gave them a ride in his limousine, which held about twenty young men. Warhol got out at Marina’s rather than continue with the group, anticipating that staying might lead to an invitation to go with them and wanting to be up for work.

Food, luck, and the first day of the year

Marina invited Warhol upstairs for pizza while they waited for daylight. He had heard that she obtained food from across the city, including salami from Brooklyn and pizza from Queens, and wanted to try it. The pizza disappointed him: it was cheap, mostly dough, with little cheese and a little ketchup. More striking was the pile of food on her stove. Marina said it was there for good luck, as food was supposed to be piled on the stove at the New Year. Their conversation turned to the cost of running Warhol’s house; Marina took his frankness as a sign of friendship. The night’s grand social settings thus narrowed to a kitchen, a modest pizza, and an exchange about household expenses.

Warhol thought the sun would rise at six, but at 6:30 it was still dark. He later realized that the previous year’s dawn had come at seven, not six. The small correction captures the morning’s unsteady sense of time after a night that had run from one party into another. On January 1 he got up at eleven and noted that he had not been drinking, so he felt less badly. He called Rupert Smith, who said he would come to work at noon; Warhol brought copies of Interview to the office but found few people there, then worked for three or four hours.

He later visited Heiner Friedrich Gallery, where Walter de Maria’s Dirt show had been repeated with fresh black dirt filling the gallery. Back at home he worked again. Marina called to invite him to eat the food that had been piled on her stove, and he walked over for parsnips, leeks, and the other dishes he wanted. The holiday’s superstitious abundance became an ordinary meal shared the next day, while work continued around it.

The holiday as diary time

The account belongs to a diary made through a weekday morning routine: Pat Hackett spoke with Warhol by phone, recorded his activities and cash expenses, and typed the entries afterward. The calls usually lasted far longer than the nominal five-minute job, and the entries could include details as minor as receipts and cab fares. Because the diary was not recorded on weekends, the Monday session could gather several days together; here, however, the dated sequence preserves the closing night of 1979 and January 1 as adjoining stages of one celebration.

Hackett’s account of the editorial method also explains the diary’s intimacy and its limits. She removed much of the interpersonal exchange between herself and Warhol, recasting the occasional retained reference to herself in the third person, so readers could occupy the position of the listener at the other end of the phone. The New Year entries accordingly preserve not only parties and famous guests but also Warhol’s transitions between them: a call, a workday, a disappointing pizza, the darkness before sunrise, and a stove piled with food for luck.