Rachel Loden wrote:
> Ken, yes,
>
> I spent my childhood in that rubble -- or in that slow-motion mine collapse.
> (I talk about it in a couple of interviews, including the one at Jacket.)
>
> We all grew up there, I guess, in one way or another, given the long fingers
> of international stupidity.
>
> This morning especially I keep remembering that "nobody ever went broke
> underestimating the intelligence of the American people" (inexact quote,
> attributed to Mencken).
>
> Sorry about the mercilessness! Can't take prisoners in this poetry business,
> you know.
>
Merciless is welcome. I recall that painting in the National Gallery in
DC, in fact: Francis Bacon's Study after Velazquez's Portrait of Pope
Innocent X. It's horrifying. Put a smoking jacket on the ol' Pope and
there's The Hefster.
ken
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