Morrison Hotel

Don Q.,

Fab suggestion. In the absence of eyes, you've grown a set of nipples. I was in California once, and I'll tell you about it - if you promise to tell me how your man came to be Elpenor? Has he been reading Ezra Pound again? Or Homer? At any rate, your tale of rooftops and chimneys reminds me of the lines:

Ill fate and abundant wine. I slept in Circe's ingle."Going down the long ladder unguarded,"I fell against the buttress,"Shattered the nape-nerve, the soul sought Avernus."But thou, O King, I bid remember me, unwept, unburied,"Heap up mine arms, be tomb by sea-bord, and inscribed:"A man of no fortune, and with a name to come."And set my oar up, that I swung mid fellows."

I had gone to see Penn and Teller in Vegas. Alice Cooper was the opening act. My sister was not yet in the madhouse, and I am glad that this combination of rock and roll and magic prepared me for the traffic of Bedlam.

Of course I was invited on stage. Asked if I could escape a straight-jacket, I said, "But of course," and settled the matter by stealing Cooper's wallet and watch as he strapped me in. That was before I realized that he was the singer, not the magician. Later, Prudentia, my woman at the time, confessed that Las Vegas is in fact in Nebraska!

At any rate, see about writing me more often and I shall see about doing the same.

H