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For Don-
N.B.

90 University Place 
New York 3, New York
December 5, 1957

Dear Howard, 

Thanks heaps for your charming letter. To think of you this Dec. in the country of the original Santa! (and I do mean George the 3rd). I do wish I were there. What is Fitzroy Street like? I haven't even seen Harry yet, although I heard he was inquiring "after" me. I suppose he and Gerrit are just about getting to mid-June in their conversations and when he is all caught up on Harry's European adventures we'll have our turn. It is nice to know that he's back.

Since I too have difficulty catching you up on the various events, such as most of the summer at Larry's in Southampton, I'll answer your letter first point by point unless distracted by something which seems terribly vital and pertinent. I wonder if I'm competent to judge the last. Not in life, but maybe in letter. I do know and adore the work of Betjeman and often think of him as I meander through a particularly touching lobby and wonder why I can't just sit down and order a banana blush and wait for something not to happen. But one never can. I'm dying, incidentally, to hear more about "subfusc mackintoshed sexuality" (it would make a nice title for an Ode, wouldn't it?) when ever you pick up more information. It sounds like a very engaging way out of the doldrums, if they happen to be leering over one's shoulder. Yes, in answer to your question, I do think sex is unreal and transitory, but by that I don't know whether I mean duration (relationships) or quality (fulfillment). If it's fulfillment you're after, however, I can strongly recommend the new Balanchine-Stravinsky ballet AGON. WOW! it is absolutely dazzling, very crisp, intricate, difficult, sexy, forthright and brilliant. Not only with astounding solos by Melissa Hayden and Todd Bolender (which are also quite humorous), but the great center of the piece is a wildly sexy pas de deux of great athletic insight as well as other insights, danced by Diana Adams and a young Negro dancer Arthur Mitchell. Both of them dance like geniuses and when they're not dancing they are twining around each other, sliding down each other, resting on top of each other, all with the clear objectivity of people who are genuinely interested in what they are doing to each other. The score is gorgeous, too, he said lamely. 

I saw Wystan briefly last week, but none of our friends except Charles Heilamann seem to have seen Chester. John Button heard a "rumor" that he had dropped us as a "group" because nobody called him when he got back. However, this is semi-infuriating, since he was back over a month before he went near his old apartment, and never let anyone know where he was staying. Wystan was in a very pleasant mood and was back in 77 St. Mark's Place.

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Joe Lesueur is now Gian Carlo Menotti's secretary and working very hard and enjoying it very much. He gets more money than at Holliday and works 5 instead of 6 days a week which leaves him more time for writing. Jimmy Schuyler's novel ALFRED AND GUINEVERE comes out (Harcourt) in March. Why don't you review it in England? I read the proofs for him and adored it. I do hope it, in addition to having a much-deserved success, will bring him a little money, in which case you'll probably be seeing him soon there or on the continent. I hear Bobby and Arthur (Gold and Fizdale) are having a big success in Europe. Will you have the chance to hear them? Give them my love if you do. And write again soon, Wolfenden or no Wolfenden.

Love,
Frank

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Transcription Notes:
I don't know were the "am I" is suppose to go in text so just recorded it between the two paragraphs --- It's actually "ansd" - for "answered"