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Ishvara?” and he nodded.
    David Hockney went back home yesterday, planning to make a stopover in New York. We both of us feel very fond of him, and admiring, too. Don said that he has an “easy grip” on things.
    On Saturday night, when we were giving him a goodbye supper, Nick Wilder (whom David had asked us to invite) arrived wearing a kind of formfitting dark female gown, and leather boots. He also forced us to have his friend Jason in after supper. Jason talked a lot of shit about art which greatly irritated Billy Al Bengston. Billy Al said, “I’m an autocrat,” and added that nobody was going to talk to him about motorcycles who couldn’t get out there and ride one—“faster than I can” was implied.
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    June 12. Today I finished chapter 13 of Kathleen and Frank in rough. That means that I’ve covered more or less all of the family history material, Marple Hall as symbol of the Past, the ghosts, etc. Now my feeling is that I’d like to push on hard and try to get as much roughed out as I can, before some new interruption takes place. Playing projections is really a meaningless game, but —if one projects two weeks per chapter, then I ought to be able to get five more chapters done in rough before my birthday. That would mean I’d have eighteen out of twenty chapters done, assuming that I can do the rest of the book in seven chapters, which I think is really quite possible. I don’t want to dwell nearly so much on Strensall, Frimley and Limerick. 7
    Yesterday, Peter Schneider came over with Jim Gates, and Don did three of his very best pen and ink drawings of Peter. I honestly can’t see how anyone wouldn’t have to admit that they put David’s work to shame; but that’s a silly remark, because of course David’s not being able to draw too well is the whole point. Don caught so beautifully the grossness and the cuteness of Peter, his thick gross lips and his big dirty feet. Peter actually looks adorable now, with his beautiful golden skin; while Jim seems to be getting homelier by the week. Peter has decided to go and live in the back country someplace and grow nuts and meditate, and Jim seems to be thinking of coming with him. Peter is very grand and superior about the “typical American adolescent” he has staying with him now (and paying him eleven dollars a week rent). This youth smokes, and he says fuck and shit, and it’s so awful to watch him getting up in the morning that Peter has taken to sleeping out in the yard in a blanket. Nevertheless, Peter feels that the Ramakrishna atmosphere is starting to work; the youth is slowly improving. He is the same age as Peter, nineteen.
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    June 15. Gloom today, despite the glorious weather, because a writers’ strike is almost certain to be called for tomorrow 8 and somehow or other we have to find a way of wriggling out of picket duty. Don has a much better case than I do, because this really isn’t his profession, only a sideline, and he can maintain with a great show of reasonableness that he has to keep making appointments to draw people and really cannot be expected to wear himself out trudging back and forth in front of a studio. They have already asked us both to picket and I have said I will, tomorrow, just as a token of willingness. I’m only supposed to do two hours. They have asked Don to do three, and to show up at six in the morning, but that’s the day after, so maybe he can get out of it.
    Swami had a mild attack of flu, so I had to give a reading at the temple yesterday. I read Vivekananda, Brahmananda and the Gita. Swami much better already. I think this is one of his demonstrations to nudge the Belur Math about his assistant.
    We had supper with Gore, who showed up in town as unexpectedly as usual and is leaving today. He said, of Morgan’s death, “Well, we’ve all moved up one rung higher.” That’s such a typical remark;