Just the Thing- Selected Letters of James Schuyler 1951-1991

Oh my good goddamn, I'm pretty sure James Schuyler is/was my soul mate. I take comfort in the fact that when this peach of a man died, God sprinkled little bits of him over Maxwell Heller's little boy head and he grew up to be a beautiful poet with a beastly little soul. Maybe God sprinkled some on my head too? Pretty please?

I opened the book and turned to this:

To John Button and Frank O'hara
South Hampton, New York Summer, 1956

Dear "John" and "Frank,"

(Or shouldn't I call you by your camp names in a letter?)
I loved your antiphonal psalm--it was like getting a jeweler's box with a sparrow in it that had been fucked to death by John Simon (now explain that to John, Frank). So I thought I'd let Schiz and Oid, the two halves of my personality, collaborate and bake you both a plate of my favorite cakes. ("Take one krater of goat piss and crumble in it enough camel dung to make a workable paste. Pat into cakes and put aside to rest. When an iridescent sheen like that in the eye of a peacock feather appears, bake the cakes in a fast oven, garnish with rabbit berries and serve hot in a napkin. These tasty morsels are the Quiffquiff spoken so highly by Lawrence of Arabia...")
My, we really are just like the Bronte sisters...

A M A Z I N G. Expect more delicious tidbits.