12/01/1989: abolish the damned thing

"Inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, along with [Elizabeth] Hardwick, [William] Gaddis, [James] Merrill, [Helen] Frankenthaler. The solemnity of it all in that vast, empty assembly room, especially laughable when the big discussion came up whether or not to abolish the damned thing. [Ralph] Ellison piped up, no, he believed in hierarchy."

~~ from Alfred Kazin's Journals, Selected and Edited by Richard M. Cook

his miserable needs

". . .but now fallen to poverty and deceit, borrowing money, betraying and cheating anyone in reach, bullying anyone less talented, that is to say everyone, in the name of the art which he still holds bitterly sacred, supplying his miserable needs with any dodge he can devise. . ."

~~ from Agapē Agape by William Gaddis

that I'm forgotten

"Fact that I'm forgotten that I'm left on the shelf with the dead white guys in the academic curriculum that my prizes are forgotten because today everybody's giving prizes for that supine herd out there waiting to be entertained, try to educate them did they buy those 'Educator' piano rolls teach them to play with their hands no, went right on discovering their unsuspecting talent with their feet here's Flaubert yes, 'The entire dream of democracy' he says, 'is to raise the proletariat to the level of bourgeois stupidity.'"

~~ from Agapē Agape by William Gaddis

3/29/1985: on Yom Kippur with Isaac Rosenfeld and Marc Chagall

"Thinking about [Marc] Chagall in [New York] during the [second world] war, when he once met up with Isaac Rosenfeld and me on Yom Kippur, 57th Street. I feel a comradely twinge toward a fellow Jew when I remember his speaking Yiddish to us and admitting that though he could not get himself to work on the High High Holy Day, he was sauntering on to Pierre Matisse's gallery for a look (no doubt at his own work). Chagall and Vitebsk did summon up that feeling about Jewishness being a kind of sealed treasure, so deep within oneself. . . And what is it? In my case, the sense of all those others who have gone the long, long road. Solidarity. . . especially with those who so silently died at the hands of one power mad group or another."

~~ from Alfred Kazin's Journals, Selected and Edited by Richard M. Cook

Good Saint Nick

My first cousin, "Good Saint Nick," lost his trailer and possessions in a powerful explosion, and friends in his community are raising money for him to rebuild. His wife aided my father tremendously when he was sick with cancer, and they were all living in Virginia, so I'm extremely grateful if you could find it in your heart, or your wallet, to help. Thanks for considering!

6/10/1953: I'm sick to death of all this talk

"A long procession of intellectuals, intellectuelles purés wind through my evenings and my days; and Lord, O Lord how sick I am of them—I mean bored, excruciatingly bored, bored all over. The minute you enter the house, see the drinks laid out, the first conversational gambit given, you know it all in advance. The point is that the intellectual without originality, without real heart or vision or grace, an intellectual by habit, a competitive soused-up intellectual is a mockery of the artist's and the religious man's vision—he comes in always walking in shoes that are too large for him, he talks by habit, he lives in a routine. You never know with these people whether you are talking criticism or gossip. I'm sick to death of all this talk, self-perpetuating, competitive talk."

~~ from Alfred Kazin's Journals, Selected and Edited by Richard M. Cook

covid19 in the black community

"By the age of 28, [Dosha DJay] Joi had a bachelor’s degree in human services, he had trained as a substance abuse counselor and he was working toward his nursing degree. He served as a court-appointed special advocate for kids aging out of foster care and lobbied lawmakers in the Wisconsin capitol and Washington D.C., forming a special bond with Rep. Gwen Moore, who represents Milwaukee in Congress. But the years of hardship took an enormous physical toll; Joi suffered from hypertension, heart and lung problems and at his heaviest, he weighed more than 500 pounds. When COVID-19 arrived in the Midwest, he was particularly vulnerable. He died on May 14."