last nite I startd looking thru old files in search of something. this morning I kept on. I still haven't found that something but I'm finding so much more.
there's a file of my copies of letters -- most from 50 or more years ago. I humbly admit to being a great letter writer in the day. & I think I kept copies hoping that after I'm gone some bright young thing will edit a volume of them. & not because I'm any kind of celebrity but that I've been what I think it was Bryan Borland who calld me this -- a "culture witness." I've been there when so many historic moments happend. or simply when important figures were doing important things. I mean I saw David Hockney paint & Dale Chihuly blow glass & Jean-Claude van Itallie write.
soooooo.... I was reading this 1971 letter to Frank Oatman & thot of being that culture witness. I know some accuse me of being a name dropper. I prefer to agree with Maggie Anderson who wrote that I document my life & in so doing "everything matters." so I'm offering this section of that letter to Frank because all these years later it feels like I was writing history. it was a rich time in the life of a lad still in his 20s. also -- if you haven't heard I have this great book out now calld "A Litter of Lists." & this is a list. yes I've been doing it forever.
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in New York for a week wrapped in a resplendent quilt of happenings:
eating hash brownies with john ashbery (with whom we stayed) before going out for my birthday dinner
listening to jean-claude at his new westbeth apartment read from his indian journal about his trip to conquer fear
coming upon djuna barnes in all her elegant oldness strolling up & down w. 10th in front of patchin place
lunching with lois wilson at sardi's
discovering rauschenberg in a soft brown leather jacket at warhol's opening
dining with henry van dyke at casey's before he took us on a mad spree of friends' apartments & village bars touching edges with lindsay patterson axel de knight james coco
gazing at the swing which hangs from the ceiling of harvey quaytman's loft
watching john perreault argue with ira joel haber outside max's
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