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Lake Valhalla
Cold Spring, New York 10516

April 15, 1968

Phil Leider
Editor
Artforum
667 Madison Avenue
New York, New York 10021

Dear Phil, which, once again, you will interpret as "Sirs:"

Dearest Phil, I have recently returned from Europe to discover that you, now posing preposterously as the aggrieved party of the second part, persist at performing your self-depreciating, cute, personal innuendos in "instantaneous", Hessian-Art Newsian type editorial retaliation against my mail (without ever answering the good Professor's original inquiry). On this basis, you probably have had and will continue to hold your "abject and utterly hopeless" but apparently desirable "last word." Obviously, you remain, as ever, a cunning little "sweetheart" in print. From here on in, tell me anything that you wish from behind your desk, but please promise me the Lanvin - for Sonja, of course, for when it's "Safety First" politically, the tubes you save may be my own - and not Clement Greenberg's. By the way, Phil, you appear to be mistaken once again. Contrary to the third disclaimer of your April editorial, as the editor of so much of my writing, its content reviewed, you must have become somewhat "a connoisseur of Mr. Flavin's integrity, artistic or personal" as well as an involuntary esthetic fan of my sincere tubular displays. (Is that what the "awful Mr. Greenberg" really talks about?)

In closing, dearest Phil, as another little Phil surnamed Rizzuto exclaims by microphone in behalf of an infrequent Yankee "long ball", "Holy Cow, he really 'creamed' that one." Try again, if you must.

Love,
Sult.
"The Sultan of Swat"

P.S. Please print my entire letter this time. Last time, Mr. Sousé would have preferred you to disclose his complete identity as he had stated himself, "(with an accent grave)."

P.P.S. As the atmosphere warms, it's a spring once more. During this one, a first anniversary ought to be noted. Last May, with blooms