Liberation (64 page)

Up at Vedanta Place, they have been having a garage sale of unwanted clothing, furniture, kitchen utensils, books etc. which have been donated to the society throughout the years. The boys made a lot of placards to advertise this. One of them was: “Watergate Sale—everyone's got to go!” But it was vetoed by Asaktananda.

Swami told me, when I was there yesterday evening, that Dr. Kaplan
⁸⁰
had “gone sex mad” and had even propositioned the nuns. Having also talked to Anandaprana, I do think that he must be having some sort of nervous breakdown. He is now saying he wants to go up to Santa Barbara, presumably because he wants to have a go at the nuns there! But Swami's real anxiety is not that Joseph Kaplan will be able to seduce anybody but that he is longing to make a speech at our Father's Day celebration (which, this year, is also the celebration of Swami's fifty years in the States). Kaplan's speeches are always intolerably wordy and long and egotistical, and this one will probably be crazy as well.

Swami now refers to Sarada as “Ruth.”

Everyone now says that the strike will go on indefinitely. Yesterday we had a mass picket at MGM, over sixty of us. But we don't picket regularly.

Don's show keeps changing its aspect. Billy Bengston now says he will give a party, but this is to be only a small one, for the inner circle. So the question remains, what about Irving's party? The ill feeling between Billy and Irving complicates matters. Shall there be two parties, or will they merge? And then, again, who is the show
for
? Don had taken it for granted that it was for celebrity-conscious establishment squares. But now his attitude has been greatly changed by Nick Wilder, who has come out with a most handsome vote of confidence in his work, telling him that he now realizes that the portraits of celebrities are only a small part of Don's work and that he, Nick, wants to show Don's work in his gallery—first with other artists, this fall, and then in one or more one-man shows, later. Nick's encouragement has greatly boosted Don's morale. He now feels that Nick is really appreciating him as an artist. To be appreciated as an artist, not jollied along as a portrait drawer with interesting social connections, is what Don needs more than anything else. For years he has labored under this terrible defeatist sense of inferiority, wondering if he is really an artist at all, etc. I have been able to do nothing to undermine it, because I can't speak with authority. Billy Al, Joe Goode, Peter Alexander and some of the other art friends Don has made lately, have already done quite a bit. But Nick has the supremely convincing quality of being able and ready to put his money where his mouth is. Nick says he thinks Don has been poorly handled by Irving, but that he couldn't make Don an offer until Irving decided to move to New York and thus ceased to be Don's dealer. Oh, if only Nick likes Don's paintings as well as his drawings! (Irving never did, and that, too, made Don doubtful about them.) Right now, I'm prepared to love Nick dearly for the rest of my life. As for loving Gregory Evans, that's no sweat.

 

May 28.
The party problem is still unsolved, because Don hasn't had a chance to talk it through with Billy Al. He is afraid that Billy may be tiresome about it, because Billy hates Irving and would love to spite him—even, maybe, if it inconvenienced Don. Billy was talking the other day as if he wants to force Don to choose between the two of them by opting for the one party or the other. Irving has said definitely that he won't give a party with Billy and that, if Billy wants to give a party, he must do it earlier, before the show, or later, after it.

Yesterday afternoon, Irving came to look through the pictures Don had chosen tentatively for exhibition in the show. He firmly nixed all the paintings and said Don shouldn't consider showing any paintings whatsoever, because he was only just beginning to find a style. He also nixed all the little ink drawings and all the nudes, but this was chiefly because he felt that they didn't go with the big drawings and that the show should be all of a piece. The only drawing he really seemed to like greatly was the one of Montgomery Clift. He told Don not to show the ones of Katharine Hepburn and Norman Mailer.

I can't help feeling that Irving doesn't really think much of Don's work in any category—because, Don says, he was so terrific ally surprised that Nick Wilder would want to give Don a show in his gallery. Now, Irving's even beginning to hint that perhaps he can arrange a New York show for Don! This is all to the good, of course. But it doesn't endear Irving to me.

Meanwhile, Nick gets dearer by the minute. Or rather, to my fondness sympathy has been added, because he has just had a horrible shock. The day before yesterday, Gregory Evans took off for London. He was going to stay with David there and then spend the whole summer in Europe. Yesterday, Nick got the news that Gregory had been stopped at London Airport because the immigration officials saw that he was dopey (on Valium) and then found needle marks on his arms (he used to shoot heroin) [. . .] After being questioned, poor Gregory was sent back to the States, where he was again questioned. We saw him last night, after he had gotten back here, very late. He and Nick are determined to appeal and somehow force the British to let him back into the country; but this looks like being a long campaign.

Amidst all the strains and stresses connected with the show, Don has been at his terrific best. He works tirelessly, takes all responsibility upon himself, never despairs when things go wrong. After driving down to San Diego to see Rex Heftmann,
⁸¹
who was to design the show catalogue, he made up his mind that Rex wasn't up to it and phoned Rex and called the whole thing off—a horribly embarrassing scene to have to play. And how marvellous he looks! At thirty-nine he has the figure he had in his early twenties, after he'd started going to the gym. And how adorable and sweet he is to his old Plug (whose weight is again this morning up to 154 and ¼)!

This is Memorial Day and I'm working away, sitting out the holiday. Don has gone to draw Norton Simon. I fixed this up, after a scene of (if I do say it) Kissingerlike diplomacy. I asked Jennifer if she thought Norton would agree to it. Jennifer said she would
make
him agree, because she wanted the portrait for herself. While they were arguing, I said, “Norton, I can promise you one thing—if you say no, Don will never ask you again—he never nags at people—I'll give you an example: years and years ago, he asked Jennifer to sit for him, and she said no, and he's never once suggested it since then, has he, Jennifer?” To be frank, this was a lucky shot, not a carefully aimed one. But it hit. Norton grinned and said, “I'll make a bargain—I'll sit for Don now if Jennifer will promise to sit for her portrait in time for me to have it as a Christmas present.” And Jennifer agreed! The interesting thing I noticed was that Norton was genuinely eager to have his portrait hanging there amidst all the other celebs in Don's show.
If
Don can do a portrait that pleases him—a huge if—I really believe Norton and Jennifer will come to the opening party, which would delight Irving and all the gallery snobs.

 

May 31.
Don did an excellent drawing of Norton—so good that he'll probably include it among the eighteen which will be reproduced in his catalogue. After talking to Billy Al, he feels that Billy is going to be reasonable, after all, and that both parties can be held at different times, without creating friction.

Triumph over Yorty, yesterday. Bradley is mayor
⁸²
and Burt Pines City Attorney. I have considerable doubts about both of them, but hope for the best. At least we're rid of Yorty, who's as slimy as oil and as crooked as his friends the oilmen. Bradley is pledged to protect the coastline and Pines to protect the gays.

Was at Vedanta Place yesterday evening. Swami seems very frail, but he gets out for his two daily walks and continues to initiate people. He told us how Brahmananda reproved him once for not being sufficiently interested in the work of the Math. Brahmananda told him that he must love everything about the Math, including the trees and the flowers, because everything there was dedicated to God.

This reminds me that I talked to Jim Gates on my previous visit, May 23. I asked him how he now felt about being a monk and he assured me that he was very happy. He said that, when he left the monastery and went into other people's houses, the atmosphere seemed “burnt up.” (I wondered if he was consciously referring to Buddha's Fire Sermon.) He's a bit too pure, and quite a bit too malicious. We were standing outside the office in the temple building and Jim suggested that I should ask Krishna for copies of his photographs of the garage sale placards. “He's in there now,” Jim said, and before I could object he unlocked the office door with a bunch of keys and there was Krishna working on the tape recorder and really cross for a moment at the intrusion—cross chiefly with Jim, but with me too. I felt terrible. And then I knew instinctively that Jim had done it to tease Krishna.

 

June 4.
The writers' strike has again been prolonged and Lenny Spigelgass (whom we met at a party given for Gottfried and Silvia Reinhardt, the day before yesterday) seems to think there is now no hope of ending it for a long time. Gottfried looked just the same but fatter; Silvia a bit shrivelled. All the guests were old, nearly all were film Jews. I spend very little time with old people and almost none with big groups of old people, so this party depressed me—not because the old were old but because they were so desperately competing with each other as show-off survivors.

Last night, Joe Goode, Mary Agnes Donoghue and Peter and Clytie Alexander came to supper. Joe is teaching at Irvine and he was very interesting, telling us his ideas on how to teach art students. One of the most important things was, he thought, to have carpenters, plumbers and builders explain to them how to build their own studios or convert existing buildings into studios. He got Nick Wilder to come and tell them all about the relations between the artist and the art dealer.

Joe loves talking about nature. He and Mary Agnes had gone up Canyon Drive in Hollywood, right to the top, in the hills of Griffith Park, where you can picnic. There had been lots of rattlers; this is the season when they breed. Joe told us how he had sat on a rock, with the snakes rattling all around him. “I enjoyed the feeling of danger.”

After talking to Ted on the phone yesterday, Don is afraid that he may be starting another of his attacks.

Today, Don has gone to the printers in Pasadena to see about the printing of his mailer for the show and of his catalogue. When he drew Muff Brackett the other day, she told him that she had always thought his portrait of Charlie was too grim, but that, after Charlie had had his stroke, she had
recognized
the grimness in his face. Another instance of Don's uncanny gift of seeing potentialities in people—like the madness he saw in Sarada.
⁸³

 

June 7.
On the 4th we had supper with Chris Wood, just returned from England and wildly enthusiastic about it—except that, being Chris, his enthusiasm is expressed in terms of anti-American aversion; he kept saying how ghastly the food is here—you can't get eels, or proper cold meat, or Melton Mowbray pies. He had spent most of his time in London walking around, especially in the parks. He had seen John Gielgud and Raymond Mortimer, both of whom had been very kind to him. He hadn't seen Dodie and Alec, or Joe Ackerley's sister Nancy, or Patrick Woodcock. He still can't make up his mind if he really wants to go back and live in England. Maybe the charms of living here and bitterly yearning for England are greater.

Gavin writes from Tangier that Georges has vanished into the depths of Yugoslavia. He couldn't get another passport and he was so eager to rejoin Gavin that he altered the date on his old one, and was detected by the Italian authorities, with the result that they handed him over to the Yugoslavs. The Yugoslavs didn't arrest him but took away his old passport and gave him “a rather sinister document good for one journey to Yugoslavia only, to be used within two weeks.” Gavin also says that Tom Wright has returned to Tangier and is busy on his Amazon book. Gavin seems fairly happy otherwise; says, “Tangier is growing on me.”

Last night, Swami told us that one of the devotees had an initiation from him in a dream. She came and told him about it and he agreed that the mantra she had dreamed that he had given her was an authentic one, and that the instructions that went with it were the right ones, also. I couldn't quite figure out what Swami's attitude was to all of this, but I got the impression that he was pleased, satisfied, maybe a bit honored. He said, “Well, it's happened at last!” And then he told a story of how a devotee received a mantra from Maharaj in a dream, but a word was missing, Maharaj was already dead, so the devotee went to one of the other direct disciples (Shivananda?
⁸⁴
) and he went into Maharaj's old room and meditated and presently returned to the devotee and gave him the complete mantra.

My left foot is getting, if anything, more swollen, despite the “Earth Shoes” which Don and I bought, a couple of weeks ago. They have very low heels and raised soles, so that you walk on your heels which is supposed to be better for your posture. They are comforting to wear.

Poor wretched old Larry Holt called this morning and moaned because, after having at last arranged an interview with Swami through Anamananda (behind Anandaprana's back) he got colitis and wasn't able to see Swami after all.

 

June 8.
Well, we're off tomorrow to Yosemite, with John Schlesinger and his friend Michael Childers. We are both of us dreading it just a tiny bit, but that's chiefly, I think, because it's an interruption of our beloved routine and because we don't usually care to spend much time continuously with other people. We are to fly to Merced, then take a rented car.