Prologue

3

Jack Daniel’s, not Jack Daniels

3

Langley Porter Clinic, not Langley Porter Psychiatric Clinic

5

Jack Daniel’s, not Jack Daniels

Beatrice

14

In the sentence that begins, Its sales in 1929 had increased 50 percent over the previous year, and the company kept adding new articles, like the Kees Frost Kleerer, insert: a windshield defroster that attached with suction cups, the original lawn sprinkler tractor, and the Kees Postascope classroom projector.

Lincoln

35

Lowry C. Wimberly, a folklorist and literature professor, not Lowry C. Wimberly, a Nebraska-born, Harvard-educated folklorist and literature professor

52

ss Orizaba, not ss Orisiba

Denver

104

Shostakovich, not Shostakovitch

New York

115

After the sentence, He could be the personification of New York Burggeist, the kind of man Saul Bellow met at a party in Greenwich Village, whom “the French call sympathique, very tense, but charming.” insert: (Kees also had the Village’s noblesse oblige for its most famous panhandler, Joe Gould, whose diary entries preserve Kees’s generosity.)

116

The sentence that begins Kees wandered should read: Kees wandered over to the Brevoort on lower Fifth Avenue but found it jammed with Jewish refugees from Europe. The other hotels he tried were also filled. So he walked to the Chelsea on W. 23rd, since he knew some of the people who lived there, among them James and Hortense Farrell.

131

The paragraph that begins When Kees started work at Paramount’s uptown studio, should read: When Kees started work at Paramount’s uptown studio, the newsreel industry was undergoing a temporary respite from a period of decay as a propaganda organ of the Army Signal Corps, an arrangement facilitated by the lack of competition. Paramount, Pathé, Movietone, Hearst’s News of the Day, and the other newsreel services already shared footage and unionized cameramen. Their lack of any pretense of journalistic independence made it easy for the Signal Corps to take over production of all war-related footage in 1942. Despite this, each studio still edited and scripted their formulaic newsreels individually, creating the employment opportunities and easy work that benefited Kees. Paramount became a vast improvement over the madhouse of Time and he could still enjoy the lifestyle of an uptown professional as well as meet interesting people such as the night editor. Robert Wilbur, who later opened the Gramercy out-of-print bookstore with Kees’s encouragement, shared Kees’s interest in modern first editions—and drove a maroon 1932 Rolls Royce that inspired the poet to purchase his own faded luxury car. Together with his wife Lorraine, Wilbur became close friends with the Keeses, making the end-of-the-year holidays—”turkey-&-tinsel time” as Kees called it—their special time and when Kees could get away from the literary and art crowd.

                For lunch, Kees dined at Diamond Jim’s at 42nd and Broadway, where he ordered the delectable pot roast and potato pancakes, or at Marnell’s, on East 47th Street. There were also good restaurants between 7th and 8th Avenues on 45th Street, such as the Hapsburg House, the restaurant Ludwig Bemelmans established, decorated with murals of the little girls like in his Madeline stories for children. As the author of a poem like “For My Daughter,” Kees could find this atmosphere almost as ironic and enchanting as the lesbian clientele, which included Marlene Dietrich and Greta Garbo.

                He often ate with Martin Andrews, […]

Provincetown

185

The sentence that begins Sitting at an outdoor café should read: One of these may have been Lowry’s supposedly apocryphal account of sitting at an outdoor café near the Pont Royale, where he had encountered Gore Vidal on his way to the American Express. Vidal asked Lowry if he wanted to walk along. Lowry said he wanted to finish his drink first, so Vidal sat down and began talking about what a wonderful sex life he was having with a Frenchman--and about their game, in which they pretended to be jousting knights with their erections. (Lowry had also been as playful with Kees and his sexual identity, making an officer’s mistress in his novel Casualty (New Directions, 1946) "a dark friendly girl," whose "father had been some sort of small manufacturer in Beatrice, Nebraska.).

200

The sentence that begins A Jackson Pollock drip painting should read: A Jackson Pollock drip painting, Number Seventeen, hung besides Kees’s own canvas in Gallery 200; it was the same painting that would be used to illustrate the forthcoming issue of Life that profiled Pollock and asked, "Is He the Greatest Living Artist in the United States?"

224

The sentence that begins Kees and his wife looked more to people should read: Kees and his wife looked more to people on the periphery of Provincetown society, the relaxed bohemian kind, including a couple who were followers of Wilhelm Reich and who brought the first orgone box to the Cape that summer.

San Francisco

234

Joe Rushton, the saxophonist, not Joe Rushton, the trumpet player

239–41

The paragraph that begins An Englishman, Bateson reminded Kees should read: An Englishman, Bateson reminded Kees of the poet Nigel Dennis from his days on Time magazine’s back pages. Kees found it amusing, too, that he now worked with Margaret Mead’s former colleague and husband, an accomplished figure in his own right with an affinity for poetry and art. (Bateson had served on MacAgy’s panel of cultural luminaries for the West Coast complement to New York’s Studio 35 sessions.)

                Every Thursday and Friday, Kees drove to the Langley Porter Clinic in San Francisco and reported to Jurgen Ruesch, […]

286

Jack Daniel’s, not Jack Daniels

297

The paragraph that begins Near the end of May should read: Near the end of May, Ann and Weldon spent a pleasant Sunday afternoon at Bob and Kay Helm’s country place, affectionately known as the “Chicken Shack,” in Marin County. Janet and Charles Richards came too.

209

Jack Daniel’s, not Jack Daniels

351, top

Jack Daniel’s, not Jack Daniels

351, midpage

Jack Daniel’s, not Jack Daniels

351

The sentence that begins He caught Janet just as she and Charles were leaving should read: He caught Janet just as she and Charles were leaving for the airport to pick up an elderly aunt.

Epilogue

360

The paragraph that begins The Poets’ Follies of 1956 opened should read: The Poets’ Follies of 1956 opened on January 26 at the Cellar Stage. This time, Michael Grieg assumed much of the role Kees had, including a weaker parody of the “Has Tux, Will Travel short distances” motto Kees made from the title of a Bob Hope autobiography for the vaudevillian handbills of the first Follies.

Index

397

The entries for Robert and Lorraine Wilbur should read:

Wilbur, Lorraine, 131

Wilbur, Robert, 131