the last book I ever read (The Basque History of the World: The Story of a Nation by Mark Kurlansky, excerpt fifteen)

from The Basque History of the World: The Story of a Nation by Mark Kurlansky:

The Guggenheim is just the most noticeable part of the plan to change Bilbao. As befitting a Bilbao museum, it has an industrial setting on the Nervión. But the container-loading rail yard next door is slated to be moved elsewhere. The city’s problems and the solutions that are being found are very much like those of other nineteenth-century industrial cities, such as Cleveland and Pittsburgh. Except that Clevelanders are not trying to build a country.

the last book I ever read (The Basque History of the World: The Story of a Nation by Mark Kurlansky, excerpt fourteen)

from The Basque History of the World: The Story of a Nation by Mark Kurlansky:

How Bilbao ended up with a Guggenheim museum, paid for by Basque taxpayers, was a demonstration of the inner workings of the Basque Nationalist Party, the PNV. The project was a party dream, with nationalist motives that involved almost every imaginable calculation other than art. Josu Ortuando, mayor of Bilbao, said, “We were able to win out over Salzburg and other cities because city hall, parliament, and the Basque government could act as one.” Though it is not clear that the other cities wanted to win, what the mayor was referring to was the fact that all three levels of government were controlled by the PNV.

The Guggenheim Foundation, in financial difficulty, was shopping for a site to build a new Guggenheim, one that would not cost the foundation anything and in fact would generate revenue for it. Tokyo, Osaka, Moscow, Vienna, Graz, and Salzburg were among the cities that had already turned down this financially dubious proposition when the foundation director, Thomas Krens, heard of this curious thing—a Basque government. In the end, the Basque parliament, led by the Basque Nationalist Party, but in coalition with Socialists, approved the project. It was not so much the Basque government of the Basque legislature that was drawn to it as the Basque Nationalist Party. The key figure behind the scenes in the negotiations, the man whose thumb up or down was critical but who held no elected office, was Xabier Arzalluz, the Basque Nationalist Party boss.

the last book I ever read (The Basque History of the World: The Story of a Nation by Mark Kurlansky, excerpt thirteen)

from The Basque History of the World: The Story of a Nation by Mark Kurlansky:

For years, nationalists struggled with this class image of Euskera as the language of peasants. The lower-class status of the language was often more image than reality. Many educated people spoke Euskera, and in some towns, notably the metal-working center of Eibar, Euskera was the language of both workers and management, a prerequisite for working in a factory even for an inmigrante from Andalusia.

Like Atxaga, Saizarbitoria found his inspiration in the invention of Batua and the works of Gabriel Aresti. Published in 1969, Saizarbitoria’s first novel, Egunero hasten delako (Because It Begins Every Day), was about abortion, which was legal in the rest of Europe but banned in Spain. The book’s subject and lean, carefully crafted prose launched a new genre in Eureskera literature—the modern social novel.

His second novel was published after Franco’s death, in 1976. Titled 100 metro, 100 Meter, it relates the thoughts of an ETA suspect in the last moments of his life, chased a final 100 meters, before being shot to death.

Saizarbitoria was never an ETA activist, but he was a sympathizer he said, “like almost everyone.” He has remained resolutely political. “I want to defend my culture and my identity, and sometimes nationalism is the only possibility. When I am with nationalist I am against them, but when I am with others I am a nationalist.”

the last book I ever read (The Basque History of the World: The Story of a Nation by Mark Kurlansky, excerpt twelve)

from The Basque History of the World: The Story of a Nation by Mark Kurlansky:

Teaching Euskera was not allowed, but the Basque Nationalist Party and ETA offered “cultural events” that amounted to courses in Batua. Joseba’s teacher was a Basque Nationalist Party activist who, in between cultural events, more than once helped take over the radio station.

Joseba, who had always wanted to be a writer, at first found it difficult to imagine working in the secret language of his parents. That began to change when he met an infirm poet, old before his time, named Gabriel Aresti. Born in Bilbao in 1933, Aresti did not grow up speaking Euskera and was one of the first Euskaldunberri, literally, “new Basque speaker,” a non-Euskera speaker who learned the language through adult education. He went on to become one of the most influential writers of the new language. Although not a nationalist in the political sense—he was closer to the Spanish Communist Party than the nationalists—he was a passionate lover of Basqueness. His 1964 collection of poems, Harri eta Herri (Rock and People), earned him the affection of nationalists and a summons before a disapproving tribunal. But he also greatly expanded the language through such projects as translating the poetry of T. S. Eliot.

Joseba began writing poems and short stories and publishing them in underground magazines, using the name Bernando Atxaga to protect his true identity. Aresti, having read some of the stories, sent a note telling him that there were only five real writers in Euskera. “If you keep away from the purists you could be the sixth.”

the last book I ever read (The Basque History of the World: The Story of a Nation by Mark Kurlansky, excerpt eleven)

from The Basque History of the World: The Story of a Nation by Mark Kurlansky:

Franco always had contempt for the impact of culture and so frequently neglected to repress writing and art intended as a protest against him. In 1957, José Luis was able to get his first novel published in Euskera under the pseudonym Txillardegi. The name came from the San Sebastián neighborhood where he grew up. Txillardegi writes in a seductively lyrical style that seems to burst uncontrollably into free verse from time to time.

The novel Leturiaren egunkari ezkutua (The Secret Diary of Leturia), was a milestone in Basque literature, presenting the first Basque antihero. Until then, literature in Euskera has been about Basque history and Basque tradition, about the great deeds of Basques. But Txillardegi’s novel was about the human condition—about love, grief, and suicide—a novel in Basque rather than a “Basque novel.”

the last book I ever read (The Basque History of the World: The Story of a Nation by Mark Kurlansky, excerpt ten)

from The Basque History of the World: The Story of a Nation by Mark Kurlansky:

To the French, British, and Americans, Franco’s Spain was a pariah nation. Despite constant overtures by Franco, it was to be excluded from the United Nations, NATO, the Marshall Plan, and later, the European Economic Community. In effect, it was shut out of the postwar Western world. But it was not invaded. Spain was not to be liberated. The policy of President Franklin Roosevelt, stated in 1945, was that the United States would not interfere in Spain as long as it was not a threat to world peace. On the other hand, he said, “I can see no place in the community of nations for governments founded on fascist principles.” Ostracism but not intervention. In 1946, a Polish diplomat tried to make the case that Franco was “a threat to world peace” because German Nazis in Spain were building an atom bomb. This might have led to an invasion, except that the diplomat had no evidence to support his charge.

the last book I ever read (The Basque History of the World: The Story of a Nation by Mark Kurlansky, excerpt nine)

from The Basque History of the World: The Story of a Nation by Mark Kurlansky:

The two met on October 23, 1940, at the train station in Hendaye, which is about 100 yards from the border, the St. Jacques Bridge over the Bidasoa. The meeting resembled a comic encounter from Charlie Chaplin’s film The Great Dictator, which was made the same year. Hitler and the German command were kept waiting, stiffly pacing in the train station. Franco’s slow chugging train arrived, depending on whose version is believed, either eight minutes or one hour late. There were rumors of an attempt on Franco’s life by grenade-throwing Spanish anarchists. No such attack took place, though a plot may have existed. Franco, mortified at being late, fumed and ranted., threatening to fire the officer responsible for his travel arrangements, but recovered in time to step down on the Hendaye platform, tears of joy glistening in his eyes. The Caudillo, as Hitler addressed Franco, was evidently overcome at the moment of meeting the man he addressed as the Führer.

Franco made his case for entering the war. Hitler talked of his war problems. Franco talked of his supply needs to ready for war. The two conversations rarely intersected. Hitler began to grow irritated. Franco, to show a knowledge of war strategy, suggested, as an aide had told him, that once England was defeated, the British would still fight on from Canada. The Führer did not find this an interesting point and, hopping to his feet, announced with notable agitation that it would be pointless to continue the conversation.

the last book I ever read (The Basque History of the World: The Story of a Nation by Mark Kurlansky, excerpt eight)

from The Basque History of the World: The Story of a Nation by Mark Kurlansky:

The Germans and Italians had unveiled their new modern air force with the market in Guernica as its only target. The bombers dropped an unusual payload, splinter and incendiary bombs, a cocktail of shrapnel and flame personally selected by Richthofen for maximum destruction to buildings. As people fled, the fighters came in low and chased them down with heavy-caliber machine guns.

At 7:45 the planes disappeared, leaving the blackened forms of the few remaining walls silhouetted against the bursting flames, which glowed into the night sky.

The cratered streets were cluttered with the entrails of bombed out buildings—blackened bricks and twisted wires and pipes. In the rubble were the charred corpses of people, sheep, and oxen. The Basque government estimated that 1,645 people were killed in the three-hour attack. Guernica’s population was only 7,000, though between refugees and the market, there may have been another 3,000 people in town that afternoon. The only ones who had a chance to accurately count casualties were Franco’s troops, who occupied the town three days later. Records of what they found have never been released. At first they said it never happened. Later, they admitted to possibly two hundred casualties. But given the intensity of the attack and the population of the town, the number of dead must have been far higher than the 258 deaths in the much briefer bombing of Durango.

the last book I ever read (The Basque History of the World: The Story of a Nation by Mark Kurlansky, excerpt seven)

from The Basque History of the World: The Story of a Nation by Mark Kurlansky:

Of the twenty-one major-generals on active service in the Spanish military, Franco was one of only four who were not loyal to the Republic. A squeaky-voiced, insecure little man, forty-four years old, Franco had an ability to lead and inspire that is hard to explain. Perhaps it was his confidence, his almost naïve belief in his ability to prevail. Among his few admirable qualities, he had demonstrated great physical courage as a young officer in the endless Moroccan war. With a keen sense of the power of terror and little knowledge of modern warfare, he loved bayonet charges, because they were frightening. He was both ruthless and heartless, using fear as his favorite weapon. As a field officer, leading charges, mounted on a white horse, he was known for brutality both in Morocco and, in 1917, when he was in command of one of the units putting down a miners’ strike in Asturias.

Franco had cunning rather than analytic intelligence, and an instinct for self-preservation rather than an ideology. He was capable of the most dramatic reversals, if they served his needs, fawning over Hitler when he thought Germany would win and then becoming pro-American to save himself. Acutely sensitive to symbolism, he wore clothes that reflected complex alliances and fantasies. When in the north, he often wore the red beret of Carlism, with the black shirt of fascism, and sometimes added a white admiral’s jacket.

the last book I ever read (The Basque History of the World: The Story of a Nation by Mark Kurlansky, excerpt six)

from The Basque History of the World: The Story of a Nation by Mark Kurlansky:

The Spanish-American War, the Disaster, the Cuban War of Independence—it was a different war for different people. But only the United States won. Though the war’s boosters in America had promoted it as the war to rescue poor Cuba in its noble struggle against Spanish tyranny, once the new territories of Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Phillipines were taken by military force, the United States had little interest in setting any of them free. In fact, the United States granted Puerto Rico and Cuba less self-government than the Spanish had offered. The new territories were, to the Americans, delicious war booty. Books with titles such as Our New Possessions excitedly introduced these prizes to the American public. Meanwhile, the Spanish public had to adapt to suddenly being without these places, the last of the empire that they had known for four centuries. Spain had lost the lands won by Columbus, Magellan, Elcano, and all the other great men reproduced in stone and bronze. The places with which they traded, the places to which a Spaniard went to seek a fortune or adventure, the places to go when things went wrong in Spain, the places that were Spain’s claim to being a world power, were gone.

This disaster produced the greatest flow of literature Spain had seen since the period from the mid-fifteenth century to the late sixteenth century known in Spanish literature as the golden age. The new turn-of-the-century writers and artists were called “the generation of ’98,” a group who responded to El Desastre by seeking to analyze and redefine the newly diminished Spain. Through paintings, novels, poems, and essays, they searched for the essence of Spain in Castilian landscape, in the history of the golden age, in critical examinations of classic literature such as Cervantes’s Don Quixote de la Mancha. The pivotal question was: How can Spain undergo a regeneration?

the last book I ever read (The Basque History of the World: The Story of a Nation by Mark Kurlansky, excerpt five)

from The Basque History of the World: The Story of a Nation by Mark Kurlansky:

Nothing so illustrates the romance of the Carlist cause as their hat, the Carlist trademark, a large red beret. The Carlists brought the beret into fashion in Europe, and it has never since gone out of style. Although the first known used of the word beret dates to a 1461 text in Landes, and through Gascognes and others in the region had worn this hat of unknown origin, there has been a long-standing association between Basques and berets. Jesuit novices wore a birette, and a bas-relief in Tolosa dated 1600 shows berets. The Carlists wore it in red, the color traditionally worn on Basque holidays, and made it their own. La Boina, “the beret,” was the name of a Carlist newspaper, and it was during the First Carlist War that the French began referring to the hat, as they still do, as le beret Basque. Since the First Carlist War, the hat not only has become a central symbol of Basqueness but has also gained international popularity and is generally associated with the political left. Argentine leftist revolutionary Ernesto Che Guevara saw no contradiction in using the image of the beret, because it is the hat of the underdog fighting the establishment.

the last book I ever read (The Basque History of the World: The Story of a Nation by Mark Kurlansky, excerpt four)

from The Basque History of the World: The Story of a Nation by Mark Kurlansky:

The Carlists often seemed fanatically right-wing. They opposed an elected representative parliament as a foreign concept. They opposed universal male suffrage because it dismantled the privilege of rural landowners. Freedom of religion was objectionable because it diminished the power of the Catholic Church, and they were infuriated by the long overdue abolition of the Inquisition even though it had persecuted Basque peasants.

Freemasonry, a nonsectarian religious movement, was singled out by Carlists as a particularly odious enemy that, according to the bishop of Urgel, chaplain of the Carlist army, “has been robbing Europe and the new world of its beliefs and Christian morality.” Mystifyingly, Freemasons, by virtue of their lack of Church affiliation, have always been a target of denunciation, but especially in the nineteenth century. In the United States, the Anti-Masonic Party of 1827 was the first third party.

Though today Carlism seems extremist, in the volatile nineteenth century, Carlists were often seen as romantic figures. They were the underdogs, the brave and hardworking people of the countryside, fighting the powerful. Curiously, the great anti-cleric voice of the nineteenth-century industrial masses, Karl Marx, praised the Carlists and not the anti-Church Liberals: “The traditional Carlist has the genuinely mass national base of peasants, lower aristocracy and clergy, while the so-called Liberals derived their base from the military, the capitalists, latifundist artistocracy, and secular interests.”

the last book I ever read (The Basque History of the World: The Story of a Nation by Mark Kurlansky, excerpt three)

from The Basque History of the World: The Story of a Nation by Mark Kurlansky:

The drink that Cortés brought back also quickly became popular in Spain, and when both Louis XIII and Louis XIV married Spanish princesses, their brides brought the drink to the French court. Louis XIV’s bride, María Theresa, the same bride who was served macaroons at her St.-Jean-de-Luz wedding, did little to dispel the belief that chocolate was a toxic and evil addiction. She could not stop drinking chocolate every day, and this was thought to be the reason that she lost all of her teeth.

the last book I ever read (The Basque History of the World: The Story of a Nation by Mark Kurlansky, excerpt two)

from The Basque History of the World: The Story of a Nation by Mark Kurlansky:

In the early years of Christianity, hermetism was a common phenomenon, not only in the Basque region but throughout northern Iberia. Devout men lived harsh, ascetic existences alone in mountain huts. In the year 800, one such hermit in the northwestern Galicia region of Iberia saw a shaft of brilliant light. Following this beam, he came upon a Roman cemetery. Under the shaft of light he found a small mausoleum concealed by overgrown vines, weeds, and shrubs. Since beams of celestial light don’t lead to just anyone’s grave, he concluded that this must have been the burial place of Saint James, Santiago, brother of John the Divine. The cemetery became known as Campus Stellae, the star field, and later Compostela.

According to legend, James, one of the first disciples chosen by Jesus, after the crucifixion went off to a distant land, sometimes specified as Iberia, to find converts. Having failed, he returned to Jerusalem, where he was beheaded by Herod, who refused to allow his burial. Christians gathered up his remains at night, placing them in a marble sepulchre, which they sent to sea aboard an unmanned boat. According to early Christian legend, the ship was guided by an angel to the kingdom of the Asturians, which is an area between Basqueland and Galicia.

The Church confirmed the hermit’s finding in Galicia and had a church built over the spot. As the legend grew, an outbreak of miracles and visions was reported from Compostela. Sometimes Saint James was portrayed as a pilgrim and sometimes as a Moor-slaying knight. It was the age of Moor slaying, and many of the miracles and legends had to do with the triumph of Christianity over Islam. Much evidence even suggests that the French had fabricated the legends about Santiago, or his body, going off to Galicia, because they wanted to rally Christendom to defend northern Spain. One legend from the time claimed that Charlemagne himself, the great anti-Moorish warrior who died in 814, had found the body of Santiago in Galicia.

the last book I ever read (The Basque History of the World: The Story of a Nation by Mark Kurlansky, excerpt one)

from The Basque History of the World: The Story of a Nation by Mark Kurlansky:

On August 15, 1534, Iñigo and his group of seven founded their new order, the Society of Jesus, otherwise known as the Jesuits. The founding ceremony, typically Jesuit and, perhaps, typically Basque, took place by a crypt in Montmartre, a subterranean site beneath the hill north of Paris, said to be of pagan significance. The Jesuits, whose vows were simply chastity, poverty, and a pilgraimage to Jerusalem, would become known for a tendency toward the occult but also for their strict discipline. They shunned the wearing of habits and renounced loyalty to local Church hierarchy. But they were fiercely loyal to the pope, leading the orthodox Counter-Reformation that tried to reclaim Protestant populations. True to the traditions of the Loyola family, the head of the order bears the title of general.

Ignatius was one of the Catholic Church’s great mystics, given to visions and trances. His eyes would run with tears for hours as he tried to recite prayers. The Jesuits became the first worldwide order, accomplishing more than Queen Isabella’s knights ever had to carry out her dream of spreading Catholicism to the new global Spanish Empire. In his battle against the Reformation, Ignatius made Jesuits in the tradition of medieval romance, knights who went forth in the world to conquer lands for the Church. Francisco, known as Francis Xavier, was his leading knight. Once the handsome and gregarious Francis, still only thirty-four, sailed from Lisbon for Asia in 1541, Ignatius would never see him again. Francis was a missionary in Japan, the Molucca Island, and Malaysia, and died in 1552 en route to China. He is remembered as the patron saint of missionaries. After his death, other Jesuits went to Africa, to the Caribbean, and to the Americas.

In 1556 Ignatius fell ill, this time deteriorating so quickly that he died without receiving last rites. At the time there were 1,000 Jesuits.

the last book I ever read (Train Dreams: A Novella by Denis Johnson, excerpt seven)

from Train Dreams: A Novella by Denis Johnson:

Over on Second Street, the Methodist congregation was singing. The town of Bonners made no other sound. Grainier still went to services some rare times, when a trip to town coincided. People spoke nicely to him there, people recognized him from the days when he’d attended almost regularly with Gladys, but he generally regretted going. He very often wept in church. Living up the Moyea with plenty of small chores to distract him, he forgot he was a sad man. When the hymns began, he remembered.

the last book I ever read (Train Dreams: A Novella by Denis Johnson, excerpt six)

from Train Dreams: A Novella by Denis Johnson:

“God needs the hermit in the woods as much as He needs the man in the pulpit. Did you ever think about that?”

“I don’t believe I am a hermit,” Grainier replied, but when the day was over, he went off asking himself, Am I a hermit? Is this what a hermit is?

the last book I ever read (Train Dreams: A Novella by Denis Johnson, excerpt five)

from Train Dreams: A Novella by Denis Johnson:

“Terrence Naples has took a run at Mrs. Widow,” he told Grainier, standing at attention in his starched pants and speaking strangely so as not to disturb the plaster dabs on his facial wounds, “but I told old Terrence it’s going to be my chance now with the lady, or I’ll knock him around the country on the twenty-four-hour plan. That’s right, I had to threaten him. But it’s no idle boast. I’ll thrub him till his bags bust. I’m too horrible for the young ones, and she’s the only go—unless I’d like a Kootenai gal, or I migrate down to Spokane, or go crawling over to Wallace.” Wallace, Idaho, was famous for its brothels and for its whores, and occasional one of whom could be had for keeping house with on her retirement. “And I knew old Claire first, before Terrence ever did,” he said. “Yes, in my teens I had a short, miserable spell of religion and taught the Sunday-school class tots before services, and she was one of them tots. I think so, anyway. I seem to remember, anyway.”

the last book I ever read (Train Dreams: A Novella by Denis Johnson, excerpt four)

from Train Dreams: A Novella by Denis Johnson:

Grainier had seen people dead, but he’d never seen anybody die. He didn’t know what to say or do. He felt he should leave, and he felt he shouldn’t leave.

the last book I ever read (Train Dreams: A Novella by Denis Johnson, excerpt three)

from Train Dreams: A Novella by Denis Johnson:

He lived through the summer off dried morel mushrooms and fresh trout cooked up together in butter he bought at the store in Meadow Creek. After a while a dog came along, a little red-haired female. The dog stayed with him, and he stopped talking to himself because he was ashamed to have the animal catch him at it. He bought a canvas tarp and some rope in Meadow Creek, and later he bought a nanny goat and walked her back to his camp, the dog wary and following this newcomer at a distance. He picketed the nanny near his lean-to.

the last book I ever read (Train Dreams: A Novella by Denis Johnson, excerpt two)

from Train Dreams: A Novella by Denis Johnson:

Grainier thought he must be very nearly the only creature in this sterile region. But standing in his old homesite, talking out loud, he heard himself answered by wolves on the peaks in the distance, these answered in turn by others, until the whole valley was singing. There were birds about, too, not foraging, maybe, but lighting to rest briefly as they headed across the burn.

the last book I ever read (Train Dreams: A Novella by Denis Johnson, excerpt one)

from Train Dreams: A Novella by Denis Johnson:

He climbed to their cabin site and saw no hint, no sign at all of his former life, only a patch of dark ground surrounded by the black spikes of spruce. The cabin was cinders, burned so completely that its ashes were mixed in with a common layer all about and then been tamped down by the snows and washed and dissolved by the thaw.

the last book I ever read (A Day Like Any Other: The Life of James Schuyler, excerpt sixteen)

from A Day Like Any Other: The Life of James Schuyler by Nathan Kernan:

When Tom spoke to Jimmy in the morning, he seemed much as he had the evening before. Tom was still worried, however, especially after he called him again later in the day and got no answer. At around 3:00 in the afternoon Tom went up to the room. He found Jimmy sprawled on his bed, unresponsive and unable to talk, almost unconscious. He had wet himself and everything in his room was knocked about. When Tom asked what was going on, Jimmy could only laugh and make ambiguous hand gestures. Tom then called Raymond Foye, who came down from his apartment. They called an ambulance, but while Raymond was out in the hall meeting the medics, Jimmy had a seizure and flung himself to the floor. When Jimmy had finally been loaded into the ambulance and it had begun to pull out from the front of the hotel, a car ran into it, and the first ambulance had to wait at the accident scene while another one was sent for. Finally Jimmy made it to St. Vincent’s, where he was admitted to the intensive care unit. A CT scan and other tests showed that Jimmy had had a stroke and a heart attack, but the heart attack had been more than twenty-four hours earlier. That evening, he remained unconscious and was on a respirator.

the last book I ever read (A Day Like Any Other: The Life of James Schuyler, excerpt fifteen)

from A Day Like Any Other: The Life of James Schuyler by Nathan Kernan:

Jimmy had already decided that he wanted to write a long, book-length poem of about a hundred pages during the visit. Two or three days after arriving in East Aurora, he sat down at the typewriter to begin. To himself he designated that morning as “the morning of the poem,” and that became the title. From that point on, he spent most of his mornings at the typewriter.

As he had done in writing “The Crystal Lithium” and “Hymn to Life,” he began by setting the margins of the typewriter as wide as they would go, and typed each line more or less to the end of the page. He soon recalled, however, that in setting the two earlier poems in type for their original publication, many of the lines had had to be broken and anything from one to four words at the end were dropped to an indented line below. It made a strong visual and rhythmic effect, and although it was not his original intention, Jimmy came to like the syncopation of the alternating longer and shorter lines. Although “The Morning of the Poem” was also begun in long unbroken lines, early on Jimmy decided to preempt the typesetter and retype the poem, making his own secondary line breaks and indenting the shorter lines. While the first part of each original line retains its initial capital letter, the second, indented part is not capitalized, a deliberate move “to indicate that it was all one line.”

the last book I ever read (A Day Like Any Other: The Life of James Schuyler, excerpt fourteen)

from A Day Like Any Other: The Life of James Schuyler by Nathan Kernan:

Jimmy’s first months at 250 East Thirty-fifth Street were quiet and lonely. A kind of anticlimax set in, and he found himself unable to write: “I sit down at the typewriter, and a big fat nothing happens,” he complained to Clark Coolidge. Jimmy was also conscious of getting older: “This Friday I’ll be fifty, a fact totally unreal to me. I never thought about getting to be fifty.”

the last book I ever read (A Day Like Any Other: The Life of James Schuyler, excerpt thirteen)

from A Day Like Any Other: The Life of James Schuyler by Nathan Kernan:

That summer, the Porters were again on Great Spruce Head Island, leaving the Southampton house in Jimmy’s care. Not wanting to leave him alone again, Fairfield and Anne tried to think of someone who could share the house and its responsibilities with him. After approaching several of Jimmy’s friends, they finally came up with Ruth Kligman.

Kligman was famous as the girlfriend of Jackson Pollock, who had been with him in 1956 when he drove, drunk, into a tree in Springs, New York, killing himself and a friend of Ruth’s who was with them. Frank O’Hara cruelly dubbed her “Death Car Girl.” A beautiful, vivacious, and sensual woman, she was attracted to famous and successful painters and writers, and they to her. Anne Dunn recalled meeting her around this time at Jane Freilicher and Joe Hazan’s New York apartment, where she was wearing a dress of white broderie anglaise, and thinking she was “staggeringly beautiful.” To Harry Mathews, who had a brief but intense fling with her, she was “the greatest courtesan of our times.”

the last book I ever read (A Day Like Any Other: The Life of James Schuyler, excerpt twelve)

from A Day Like Any Other: The Life of James Schuyler by Nathan Kernan:

When the doctor again tried to persuade Jimmy to come with them to the hospital, Jimmy turned to his friends and asked, “What do you think I should do?” It was Joe, according to Kenward’s recollection, who “took command” and was finally able to persuade Jimmy to get into the police car. John rode to the hospital with Jimmy, acutely uncomfortable, and struck by the pathos of the situation, which reminded him of the last scene of A Streetcar Named Desire, when Blanche DuBois is finally persuaded by “the kindness of strangers” to go off to a mental institution. During the drive Jimmy turned to him and said, “John, you do believe that I’m the Resurrection and the Life, don’t you?” “Sure,” said John.

For Kenward, the breakdown, “horrible” as it was, was also in a way “an enormous relief” after his tense anticipation of it for the preceding two weeks. Writing shortly afterward to Ron Padgett, Kenward admitted, “This has been an ‘awful’ happening … that kind of intensity is demonic, and one can’t survive with it. Not for long. Or unless one has incredible experience & training, to get one accustomed to it.”