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NauenThen

Ron Padgett

Tuesday night Johnny & I went to a bookstore on 10th Ave in Chelsea to hear Ron read from & talk about his novella Motor Maids Across the Continent, a book that most important has a character named Elinor ("not you, my dear") & that I learned was something he first wrote in 1964. He said every 7 or 8 years after that he would take it out & revise it & only now did he finally get it to what he wanted.

He bound 3 copies of the earliest version, kept 1 & given the others to his friends Joe Brainard & Ted Berrigan. In the Q&A, I asked if Ted liked it. "He did," Ron said. "In fact, he immediately used my technique [of overwriting an earlier novel] to turn a Max Brand novel into Clear the Range." Then we tried to remember who made Clear the Range into a play/musical. Bob Holman? "I was in it," I mentioned. "Did you sing?" Ron asked.

After that we ate very good vegetables & a pretty bad crème brûlée doughnuts at the Empire Diner.

(I'm writing this on Wednesday morning, November 29, but will arrange for it to post while I'm away.) (And I want to point out, once more, that I love Johnny Stanton.)
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