NYC Diary
Drove up w/ 4 people in front seat.
Stopped several times on 95.
Could only buy $2 worth of gas on NJ Tpk.
Big D Discount Store—looked like a cartoon.
Found Prince Street easily.
Moved furniture upstairs—Randall De Leeuw lives there.
Dinner at the Luna, in Little Italy. Decorations:
Letter from Gov. of Maine, dated Oct 1950.
Recommendation by Walter Winchell.
Murals w/ cracks painted on.
Picture of a bishop (St. Rocco?)
Christmas lights up on streets of Little Italy.
St. Mark’s Poetry Project:
Rob, looking beautiful.
Anne Waldman, looking sharp (copper hair!)
Patti Smith (sexy!)
Paul Violi’s great poems
Allen Ginsberg, gray of beard
Heckler in back row, Charlie Mingus’ son.
Bad poetry—Oren Eisenberg, Bill Zavatsky.
Taylor Mead, w/ a huge forehead like Allen Tate’s.
Anthony Dowell’s group, incl. his wife who I thought
was Jim Carroll when I only could see her face, and
Val Curzon who is having tea w/ John Ashbery the next day.
The Hasidic Jesus-person who wouldn’t give up the mike.
Back at Prince St. (brush teeth).
Ninth Circle—conversation w/ someone who looks like Michael—
at first glance. Freaked out actor.
The Street—beautiful blond boy in green coat.
Road House—conversation w/ chubby speech therapist from
Brooklyn College. He says he’ll write me a letter.
David’s Potbelly—Ramon’s immense piece of chocolate cake—
my tomato juice—nice waitress, 4 or 6 drunken fat disgusting
men at the next table.
Back to Prince St.
Five in a bed (2 mattresses), a la Three Stooges.
Wake up late Sat. Rain. English muffins, then take taxi
from Houston Street to George Faust’s house. Michael says
he’s an Allen Austin-type person, and his home looks
something like Allen Austin’s.
The cute Faust child. (1½? 2?)
Subway uptown to Fifth Ave. Meet Barbara Baracks for lunch
at deli. Heavy talk w/ Michael while Terry & Barbara have
heavy talk. She’s 22, bright-eyed, and knows considerably
less abt. poetry than I do. She writes well though. Has
printed a broadside which she gives each of us, w/ autograph.
Then to bookstore at Museum of Modern Art. Joe Brainard’s
I Remember Christmas. Joe Brainard’s Christmas card.
Much Duchamp material, in connection w/ current exhibit
at MOMA. Book called The Machine w/ metal cover.
By now it’s sleeting. I’m only wearing a t-shirt under
my coat (the one from New Ingenue).
We run around like maniacs trying to find Terry’s brother’s
office. Finally manage to, but the brother’s not in.
We go to lobby & make phone calls for awhile.
Michael says we can’t visit Brainard because he’s having a fight
w/ his landlady this afternoon. Bus downtown.
Get off next to a Woolworth’s. I need socks and underwear,
so we walk in where we see (fanfare!) Anne Waldman. I
buy underwear; we’re going up the street w/ her for coffee.
A long time talking w/ Anne. She likes the way my book looks.
She wants me to send her the review in the Star where
Sean Mitchell panned her. She says living in India for
4 months is cheaper than living on St. Mark’s Place.
Everyone she knows is poorer than they were last year
at this time. Don’t be shy, she says, and I won’t. I
am very high. She asks me to autograph my book, and
I write something dumb like “Hope you like these.” which
is true, though.
We leave Anne’s and get pictures of ourselves in photo booth
at Woolworth’s. We get to keep 2, and give the other 2
to each other.
Go to the Eighth Street Bookshop. I’m a little upset that SOUP
books are on racks w/ the little magazines, but they do
show off better that way. I want to buy Witt by Patti
Smith, In Baltic Circles by Paul Violi, and Alice Notley’s
book from Angel Hair. Also Magellanic Clouds by
Wakoski, even though Waldman said she’s not writing well
anymore. (Other things A.W. said—APR is horrible
(she didn’t care, I think, for Parker); Ted Berrigan is
responsible for the St. Mark’s group having a bad reputation
because he made them look so cool in lectures around the
country (1968 or so); people get upset not because the
St. Mark’s people are rich or successful in terms of major
publishers, but because they’re having fun.) Anyway,
I don’t buy any of the books for lack of $. We take
a cab to Prince Street.
Drive w/ Ramon to his cousin’s for drinks. 43 Fifth Ave.
(bldg. designed by Stanford White, w/ gargoyles and
cherubs on lobby walls.) His cousin turns out to be
Agustin Fernandez, painter from Cuba who just moved here
from Paris. Wife Lia, from Rumania. 3 beautiful children.
Beautiful apt. Beautiful French houseguest. I get high
on whiskey and soda in beautiful brandy snifter. The
Fernandezs carry on a tri-lingual conversation, mentioning
friends like Anais Nin, Lawrence Durrell, Bowles and Oc-
tavio Paz. Lia thought Burroughs was a disgusting man.
Terry & I talk to Agustin about Irish wakes and anonymous
violence. Ramon leaves in the middle of the conversation.
We split after half an hour, feeling really fine. My
adjectives for Agustin are “magnanimous,” “generous,” and
“rich.” He might do a collaboration w/ Ashbery, whom I
ought to call, who’s haunting, in a sense, this trip.
Next, to a restaurant called One Potato for dinner. I spend
a long time on the phone to Jim (who sounds distant, making
me paranoid—I’m sure I sound drunk which makes me even
more paranoid), to Spin & to parents.
Then to Prince St. Michael, Ramon & Randy are going to the
Club Baths; they drop Terry and me off at the Ninth Circle.
I meet a very beautiful boy named Robert Rooney, who
lives (damn!) w/ his family in Jersey City, who went
to the Christian Brothers school at Hudson, and who works
in the Alumni Shop at Lord and Taylor’s. Talk abt.
coincidences! His birthday is May 9. We can’t get together
tonight, but we talk all night and exchange addresses.
He gives much Rob Dewey cool glamour, which I know
exactly how to handle. That makes me feel good. Randy
Michael & Ramon arrive at 2, and we go back to Prince St.,
again sleeping a la Stooges.
I don’t sleep as well as the night before.
Randy seems like he’ll be glad to see us go: understandable.
Ramon, Michael & Terry split for breakfast, but I’m out of $
so don’t. Listen to Michael’s tapes of the St. Mark’s read-
ings, then write these notes so I won’t forget what I
did in NY. Randy goes out to Canal Street, leaving me
in the apt. with his cat, hairy, black and amorous.
