“Edie Sedgwick was living a few doors down. Through her door came all the most attractive men and women of the period, I was not among them, but I longed to be among them. There was, on the corner of 7th Avenue and 24th Street, there was a Mexican magic store, with potions, candles and powders, which could be used to draw influences into your life — to secure love affairs, or to guarantee successes. My situation was such at the time that I believed in them, so I bought a couple of candles, and a book about candles — I just read that, and the I Ching, though I couldn’t follow anything from one paragraph to another. At a certain point, through some graceful accident, I was invited into Edie Sedgwick’s room. It was filled with very beautiful young people. It was dark, and illuminated by candles, 30 to 40 candles, burning everywhere, on plates, on the stove … I had no credentials at the time, there was nothing I could say. I walked into the room of her glittering crew, and I said, ‘this display of candles is extremely dangerous.’

“So, I presented myself as … an Expert in The Candle. And this did not go over well. So I left at an appropriate time. The next day, her apartment burned down, and my prestige soared.”

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