I lost your photo. How could I do this? Ya don’t have another around, do you? Perhaps some day we will meet over a beer. It’s a long way to Sacramento, but perhaps a good horse…a little luck? And then we’d only be bored and disgusted with each other. Keep working with the poem; if you treat it right, it is the most faithful and truest of all.

[To Jon and Louise Webb]

March 26, 1963

[* * *] If you think the interview with Kaye (Lit. Times) was rough for me in the sense of the poppyseed question, you should have heard afterwards…when we’d both had a bit more to drink:

K: “Look, if the world were going to end in 15 minutes what would you do, what would you the tell the people?”

B: “I wouldn’t tell ’em anything.”

K: “Now LOOK, man, you’re not cooperating! If the world were going to end in 15 minutes, I wanna know what you would do!”

B: “I’d lay down and rest, just like I’m doing now.”

K: “But what would you tell the people, man, the PEOPLE!”

B: “Don’t forget your streetcar transfer.”

And the odd thing is, you tell these people the truth and they think you are not cooperating. [* * *]

[To Jon and Louise Webb]

March 28, 1963