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Aug/7/53
San Francisco
3A Varennes St.


Dear Dorothy:

I’M more than sorry about that Bursitis. Damn. Wish I had something to recommend for it if only as a gesture. At least I hope it soon clears away.

It seems your summer has been somewhat like mine: an at-home deal. I too have travelled very little since the highball across the country. After taking the engine of the Jag apart and putting it together again my nerves settled down in a most genteel way. Have only this last week noticed them beginning to look for trouble again so ------. May be seeing you people sooner than I anticipated. For I left New York with the conviction that I should stay away for a very long time. We’ll see what we see.

Especially in view of your report on B.B. Newman. I had only heard that The Mirror had printed something he sent them. I felt that was proper, since The Mirror is mostly interested in “Laff” stuff, the Human Comedy, irony, etc. But your letter throws the incident into its really sordid and sinister position. I find it hard to know what to say, because if I start, a flood of words may follow. If I am silent I will seem to condone his act. Since we all have known him well, (we thought) any comment is apt to invite feelings of guilt. Yet I cannot resist a sentence or two. Just for the record, for it is a long story. And, from my point of view, evil to the point of incredibility. Two years ago I wrote an analysis of Barney to Rothko . It irritated Rothko to the degree that he set out on a program of insult which continues every time I meet him (now most rarely because of many things). Since it all coincided with my departure from Parsons, which jeopardized their myth and their captured interest in Parsons gallery you can believe that I took a hell of a beating from several sides as far as the issues which move me were involved. Before the public they were my very best friends, but privately it was the meanest war I could know. And on several occasions I felt a horror that I never want to feel again. Only one thing I knew at all times and that was that I had to stay in close and fight to the finish or every principle I believed in and the work that grew out of it would be turned into a monstrous instrument of will against life. I could relate a dozen incidents of specific viciousness or ruthlessness but the general point remains. Frustrated ambition, a lust for power at all times, and a moral idiocy unsurpassed is at the root of it. Barney has no quarrel with the principles of “institutions” — he just feels that he should be running ‘em. Qualifications matter not a bit. He can seize and learn the means from others. It is “his to muscle his way to the top”. A ruthless, crafty,