broken link
[on
seeing an online photo of an intern going through clancy sigal's papers at the
ransom]
while
googling myself a few years ago
i
discovered that norman mailer
had sold
his papers
to the
harry ransom center
at the
university of texas at austin
and there
was my name
as one of
his correspondents
in an
index to the boxes of letters
he saved,
probably a dozen
letters
of mine over thirty years
i used to
check the site occasionally
to remind
myself of my brush with greatness
at the
notorious 1968 democratic convention
i'd
gotten an autograph and we'd
exchanged a
few meaningless words before
he flew
back to provincetown
i later
sent him a letter to criticize his version
of
existential philosophy and he sent
a fuck
you reply, but it was a friendly fuck you
so i
continued to send praise or blame
over the
years
for his
numerous works and he'd reply
as the
mood struck him but he put my letters
into a
file, evidently, quite the pack rat, aware
that
someday the biographers would
come
lurking
but
yesterday
i
discovered that the link is dead
and
navigating the site is now restricted
the harry
ransom center requires you
set up an
account--life keeps getting
so much
more complicated
it was
easier at the convention
when the
humphrey people voted down
the peace
plank, meaning we'd stay
in the
war for good--as we have--
you knew
then, finally,
where the
establishment
was going,
and it did
may 2013
may 2013
No comments:
Post a Comment