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1980
Describe your image
Describe your image
Describe your image
Describe your image
Saturday January 5
2:00 a.m.
An aged Hebrew, name of Ecclesiastes said:
Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher,
Vanity of vanities; all is vanity. 1:2
Pithy, isn’t it? And again:
All is vanity and vexation of spirit. 1:14
Too true. He gets better.
In much wisdom is much grief: and he
That increaseth Knowledge increaseth
Sorrow. 1:18
He’s certainly got my number.
Obviously he had days when the pith flowed freely not, for:
Dead flies cause the ointment of the
apothecary to send forth a stinking
savor. 10:1
which, though perfectly true, leaves me with a nagging desire for a punch line.
I had it all wrong about Pope. It was Pope who said,
This long disease, my life.
George
Wednesday February 6
Darling Deidre
Though the world is breaking our hearts will you still be my valentine?
G.
Friday February 22
Deidre ---
The point of this little card is to let you know I’m receiving all your postal treats, am filthy with appreciation and have been quilting a reply for some time.
Apart from being sick which nobody wants to hear about and being IN A VILE MOOD which nobody should endure from me the only good news I have is that I found a ROOM OF MY OWN. Mine mine all MINE….
It’s a large studio (bachelor) which I know you’ll LOVE; in fact my whole search was counterpointed with the knowledge you were coming and just any place was not good enough. Thus, when a roomy affair pinnacling Russian Hill with a fanciful toilet came my way, I took it. The long room, hardwood-floored, fronts Jones St. with two plain French doors. These give onto a small balcony-cum-fire escape which will be darling with geraniums and other comely flora by your arrival.
Gianni is living not far away on Russian Hill too. He has a flat on “The Crookedest Street in the World” a cobbled hairpin stretch of Lombard St. for the tourists. So we need never worry about privacy while you’re here – if I want to fuck I’ll go over to Gianni’s. And if you want to fuck, I’ll go over to Gianni’s. Simple huh?
Your loving George
Tuesday March 12
Dear Deidre,
Here’s the San Fernando Valley (behind the Hollywood Hills) at sunset, which I saw today at sunset, and which looked hardly anything like this but it possessed a beauty of its own. I have driven down here for the second week of a two week vacation. Staying with Jim Shelton. Who has already, unwittingly, begun to drive me crazy. A savage paranoia vis á vis blacks, Mexicans, anything that owns a car, the public transit system – the annoying thing is it begins to rub off and I’m repelled by such a hateful view of any world, even Los Angeles.
Moved into my new studio apt. When are you coming? Gianni jealous/insecure – naturally – over my having a place of my own, coming to L.A., wanting time to myself, feeling asexual etc. etc.
L.A. not so hot temperature-wise so I mayn’t get a tan. Back to S.F. for St. Patrick’s Day.
love George
Thursday April 26
Jones St.
San Francisco
Dear Deidre
I was sitting in the afternoon flood of sunlight that inundates my apartment with my back to the voice on the radio, working hard at a letter. I was told that Jean-Paul Sartre had died today at the age of seventy-four in a Paris hospital. I stopped and turned towards the digital; it was 5:15 p.m. The fact was confirmed by the voice going on to explain exactly who Monsieur Sartre was.
I was surprised at first and then almost immediately not at all. As I got ready for work, intending to do the dishes and then at the last minute stacking them, ironing a shirt and all the rest, I hardly gave the news a thought.
It wasn’t until I had left the Olympian mists of Russian Hill decreasing my altitude into an encroaching Chinatown that I was overtaken by the shock. Not so much that I had lost Sartre but that Simone had. I empathized to the point of tears, seeing Simone bereft of Sartre and certain that had her entire life been a preparation, it could not have lessened the loss.
I suppose it isn’t at all surprising but I wish to mention anyway how very similar to yours was the reaction I had to the reaction I sensed around me. I felt alone; I wanted to tell someone. To me this was NEWS but I realized that even if they did happen to recognize the name they wouldn’t care, not like I was caring.
I mentioned the death to no one. Gianni in fact called to tell me a few minutes after I first heard on the radio. Come to think of it I don’t know how he knew since he doesn’t have a radio and I’ve got his television. I’ve never thought to ask until now but if I do he’ll probably have been in a trance and was tuned in to not only the local news and police calls but the music of the spheres as well.
Cold mornings at home, warm afternoons by the Bay or long evenings not serving Perrier to twenty taciturn audience members, many a daydream of mine features you extolling the beauty of this place where I Iive. I want you to be pleased; you won’t disappoint me will you?
love George
Sunday May 4
Deidre
I knew it. Always in threes. Sartre, Hitchcock and just today, Tito.
Wednesday June 11
Jones St.
S.F.
My battered Deidre,
I am appalled to see that June 11th has surreptitiously arrived without my writing you care of your mother to scream greetings and appreciation of your lovely cards and letters even if they are ugly affairs from Florida. I am now in the all-new all-improved Caffé Roma pleasantly stoned and devouring a tasty roast beef sandwich après theater and of course après our telephone tête-a-tête nipped in its salad days by the finale to the first half of the show.
You should have witnessed this Monday past the perfect dinner party for ten I threw. It was a great success. For me anyway. I was very much the affable chef observing quite drunkenly (I knew it would be a success as soon as the secco Chianti I was drinking began to have an effect) from behind my newly installed counter – spot lit, dimmer controlled – which separated by but a few feet the closet-like confines of my bachelor kitchen and the sprawling arabesquerie of that evening’s dinner: my basket from Aswan was full of freshly baked bread, my blanket bought in anticipation of cold nights en route to Syria padded the floor, Asiatic straw mats still smelling of straw lay here, there; candles, yellow roses. By the merry din I judged the nine diverse elements (half of whom hadn’t really known the other half before that evening) to be jelling convivially although I was frankly too concerned with steps three through six of CUISSES DE VOLAILLE A LA DIABLE to be attentive to the particular dynamics of the feast.
Jim Shelton was due in that night so I actually cooked for twelve figuring that he and the friend he is driving cross-country with would be hungry upon arrival. However the friend, a high school chum removed now by light years from everything Jim is, refused to stay with Jim at my apartment or come to dinner because he apparently is sick to his stomach when he contemplates homosexuality.
This appalled Jim Shelton who immediately recognized the irreconcilable distance between he and Jim the friend, or J2, but this objection cloaked in confused moral grounds stunned and embarrassed J1 thoroughly. In order to avoid the threat, I suppose of rape in his sleep, J2 insisted on staying in a motel which they did but J1 refused to pay a penny of the fifty dollar a night tariff.
Next day J2 did agree to accompany Shelton when he came to see Gianni’s place so we both firmly shook hands with him, then J2 decided seeing the show might be a lark so he did and loved it and even called me by name when he wanted a 7up chaser with his coffee. Afterwards they joined me at Caffé Roma where J2 loosened up considerably so that by our parting, when we’d finished a short but information filled tour of Victorian San Francisco – I informed from the back seat – there was actual friendliness (and probably relief) in J2’s eyes as we firmly shook hands again. Another success as somebody’s first homosexual.
Jim Shelton by the way again extends an invitation to stay with him in L.A. He’ll be coming back through San Francisco first week in September when I’m presuming you’ll be here as well.
Gianni I am still trying to cope with. And he with me of course. Lately, encouraged by his lesbian occultist neighbor downstairs, he has begun to see everything from a qausi-magical perspective relating symbols straight out of a grimoire. Although this irks me to the point of hysteria I am constantly reminding myself that we simply apprehend differently.
Often the whole relationship seems too draining to justify the maintenance, yet if I ceased my participation I would distinctly feel I was junking something it is important to work out. And there is the sex to consider.
Until August,
love George
