pavement outside the house; he thought the land on this side of the Canyon is pretty firm, on the Palisades side it is unsafe. He says he has inside information that the building at the end of Adelaide will begin very soon, and that the two towers will be only seventeen stories high. Only! But thatâs a reduction of seventeen stories on the original estimate!
Meanwhile we are preparing to get rid of all kinds of junk. The St. Vincent de Paul people 52 are seemingly ready to take away the carpets, and weâre trying to wish all sorts of other items on to them, including the broken wicker chair from the kitchen, my globe of the world and the statuette I won in a Save State Beach lottery. Then there are artbooks from the bookcase in my room which Don has now moved into his back room. The grimmest deed (which I performed myself ) was twisting up Henry Guerrieroâs horrible mobile, ramming it into a carton from the market and leaving it out for the trash collectors. I still feel that it is a Crime Against Art to destroy any kind of artwork.
The removal of the second bookcase alongside my couch (Don was forever objecting to it) really has improved the room, making it much lighter and more spacious. I think I wanted to cut the room in half because of my memories of Emilyâs sitting room in Buckingham Street; I thought it would be snugger that way but actually I only made part of it unusable.
By yesterdayâs mail I got a letter from Richard Simon of Curtis Brown in London saying he likes the book very much but feels the first (pre-marriage) part is too long. Then Perry Knowlton 53 phoned from New York to say Peter Schwed has read it and wants to publish it, but feels it will only do well as a hardcover and be difficult or impossible to sell as a paperback. So some cutting seems indicated. I have told both Simon and Knowlton that Iâm ready to consider this but want to have the publishers make their own suggestions about cuts before I decide.
Don put off going to San Francisco yesterday and is flying up today with Irving Blum, just for the opening of the show, and coming back by the midnight plane tonight.
Â
December 2. Don had a horrible experience coming back; the plane took off in a rainstorm and lurched about and groaned and struggled until everybody was scared and Irving got terrified and kept saying he was going to be sick. This was all the more sinister because the cunty stewardess had just caused a drunk passenger to be removed from the plane right before takeoff, which made it seem like one of those Ancient Mariner stories (as Don said). He would have spent the rest of his life bragging about how his crime caused him to escape death and destroyed everybody elseâby making them late and thus get caught in the storm!
Don doesnât think the show did him any good at all. Irving apologized to him for the failure of the Los Angeles show but said nothing about doing anything for him in New York.
Meanwhile I puttered around, took books to Needham 54 to be sold, got our driverâs licenses for 1971, etc. etc. My only worthwhile exploit was to jog from the gym all the way down to Olympic [Boulevard] and back, a record. But this was maybe unwise, because since then Iâve had several severe twinges in the upper buttock!
Gavin called to say heâd finished the book. He seems to like it but doesnât rave. Admits parts were too long. However he does like the end, which is important.
Poor old Jo has now definitely heard that Louis [Gold] is going to build on his parking lot very soon, thus driving her out of her apartment. She wept and told me she couldnât move into her own house because she was afraid to live on the ground floor and because she wouldnât get a view of the sea, which she has to have because she has always had one.
Â
December 4. St. Vincent de Paulâs people, a young Negro and a rather terrifying old man with one eye, who looked like Jean Genet,
Meanwhile we are preparing to get rid of all kinds of junk. The St. Vincent de Paul people 52 are seemingly ready to take away the carpets, and weâre trying to wish all sorts of other items on to them, including the broken wicker chair from the kitchen, my globe of the world and the statuette I won in a Save State Beach lottery. Then there are artbooks from the bookcase in my room which Don has now moved into his back room. The grimmest deed (which I performed myself ) was twisting up Henry Guerrieroâs horrible mobile, ramming it into a carton from the market and leaving it out for the trash collectors. I still feel that it is a Crime Against Art to destroy any kind of artwork.
The removal of the second bookcase alongside my couch (Don was forever objecting to it) really has improved the room, making it much lighter and more spacious. I think I wanted to cut the room in half because of my memories of Emilyâs sitting room in Buckingham Street; I thought it would be snugger that way but actually I only made part of it unusable.
By yesterdayâs mail I got a letter from Richard Simon of Curtis Brown in London saying he likes the book very much but feels the first (pre-marriage) part is too long. Then Perry Knowlton 53 phoned from New York to say Peter Schwed has read it and wants to publish it, but feels it will only do well as a hardcover and be difficult or impossible to sell as a paperback. So some cutting seems indicated. I have told both Simon and Knowlton that Iâm ready to consider this but want to have the publishers make their own suggestions about cuts before I decide.
Don put off going to San Francisco yesterday and is flying up today with Irving Blum, just for the opening of the show, and coming back by the midnight plane tonight.
Â
December 2. Don had a horrible experience coming back; the plane took off in a rainstorm and lurched about and groaned and struggled until everybody was scared and Irving got terrified and kept saying he was going to be sick. This was all the more sinister because the cunty stewardess had just caused a drunk passenger to be removed from the plane right before takeoff, which made it seem like one of those Ancient Mariner stories (as Don said). He would have spent the rest of his life bragging about how his crime caused him to escape death and destroyed everybody elseâby making them late and thus get caught in the storm!
Don doesnât think the show did him any good at all. Irving apologized to him for the failure of the Los Angeles show but said nothing about doing anything for him in New York.
Meanwhile I puttered around, took books to Needham 54 to be sold, got our driverâs licenses for 1971, etc. etc. My only worthwhile exploit was to jog from the gym all the way down to Olympic [Boulevard] and back, a record. But this was maybe unwise, because since then Iâve had several severe twinges in the upper buttock!
Gavin called to say heâd finished the book. He seems to like it but doesnât rave. Admits parts were too long. However he does like the end, which is important.
Poor old Jo has now definitely heard that Louis [Gold] is going to build on his parking lot very soon, thus driving her out of her apartment. She wept and told me she couldnât move into her own house because she was afraid to live on the ground floor and because she wouldnât get a view of the sea, which she has to have because she has always had one.
Â
December 4. St. Vincent de Paulâs people, a young Negro and a rather terrifying old man with one eye, who looked like Jean Genet,
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