It is 12:10 in New York and I am wondering if I will finish this in time to meet Norman for lunch ah lunch! I think I am going crazy what with my terrible hangover and the weekend coming up at excitement-prone Kenneth Koch's I wish I were staying in town and working on my poems at Joan's studio for a new book by Grove Press which they will probably not print but it is good to be several floors up in the dead of night wondering whether you are any good or not and the only decision you can make is that you did it yesterday I looked up the rue Frémicourt on a map and was happy to find it like a bird flying over Paris et ses environs which unfortunately did not include Seine-et-Oise which I don't know as well as a number of other things and Allen is back talking about God a lot and Peter is back not talking very much and Joe has a cold and is not coming to Kenneth's although he is coming to lunch with Norman I suspect he is making a distinction well, who isn't I wish I were reeling around Paris instead of reeling around New York I wish I weren't reeling at all it is Spring the ice has melted the Ricard
is being poured we are all happy and young and toothless it is the same as old age the only thing to do is simply continue is that simple yes, it is simple because it is the only thing to do can you do it yes, you can because it is the only thing to do blue light over the Bois de Boulogne it continues the Seine continues the Louvre stays open it continues it hardly closes at all the Bar Américain continues to be French de Gaulle continues to be Algerian as does Camus Shirley Goldfarb continues to be Shirley Goldfarb and Jane Hazan continues to be Jane Freilicher (I think!) and Irving Sandler continues to be the balayeur des artistes and so do I (sometimes I think I'm "in love" with painting) and surely the Piscine Deligny continues to have water in it and the Flore continues to have tables and newspapers and people under them and surely we shall not continue to be unhappy we shall be happy but we shall continue to be ourselves everything continues to be possible René Char, Pierre Reverdy, Samuel Beckett it is possible isn't it I love Reverdy for saying yes, though I don't believe it 1959