Dear Daniel
Good to hear from you. The Propertius is true (Vincent Katz; you had espressos with him this morning over by the Palazzo Barberini) but the Paros is not. I can't believe you're in Roma, amazing. I spent one day there, once. Even just the thought of Italy makes me swoon (I'm boring that way).
According to my sources Roosevelt got Polio on Bear Mountain, up the Hudson.
I'm still in Maine; my life here very full. It's felt good to be based in one place for so long (since early February). I've been reading a lot – mostly on Maine Indian matters. Frank Speck, Fannie Hardy Eckstorm, Bunny McBride, Harald Prins: all your old favorites. Also on New England gravestone carving (Peter Benes, Ted Chase & Laurel Gabel, etc.), continuing that affectionate passion. I've become something of a New Englander. I realized recently what it is I've done: After scattering myself abroad and snagging my teeth hungrily on some of the wonderful things of latin american and various european worlds, lodging my heart in fibres of multiple shores & languages and feeling all the heartstring-stretching aches attendant to such promiscuous connection, I've contracted: into a more manageable economy of enthusiastic engagement. MASSACHUSETTS, for example, is to me now as saturated a text as the Mani; believe it or don't; I can hardly believe it myself; it's altogether true. And exceedingly convenient, for me, considering my whereabouts and my economic station. I commend myself on having (blindly, instinctively) cultivated this situation. It reminds me of when I got so much into AKVARIUM that I could authentically indulge my youthful record-store-consumer psychology in Brighton Beach where CDs only cost two dollars. A little excursion to some Connecticut River Valley village or Plymouth county graveyard can satisfy my hungers now as much as a train-ride to Monemvasia – and can be much more easily arranged. Of course the language element – that particular pleasure – is missing here; though I speak mexican in the strawberry fields (was picking strawberries the past couple weeks) and am considering going into Passamaquoddy.
I need to close here – things to get to –
but yes let's try & be more in touch; I'm delighted to think of you there and in France.
Bruce is well, but in slow decline and not relishing the prospect of my absence (for appling) in september.
Julian found true love, long hungered-for; a young man in New York who works for the Film Forum (and has "gratis + 1" at any cinema in the city). The whole paradigm around Julian's uneasy wordly ambitions for the Music Tapes has undergone a welcome shift consequent to this. Where there was a manic tangle of touring possibilities & record promotion etc. there's now a saner, gentler tangle which stresses less at the boundaries of my own quiet life. I've just today written to Stan & Jenny to commit to apples; I think that might cut me out of some touring activities; but all will be well and all manner of thing shall be well.
I send love to you and yours. L'anniversaire du petit Anatoly s'approche.
Hope I can see you all sometime.
your
Ian

The use of a pronoun – gendered or no – when referring to God is neither safe nor useful.

Old John Neptune, recorded by Thoreau: "Moose was whale once. Away down Merrimack way, a whale came ashore in a shallow bay. Sea went out and left him, and he came up on land a moose."