[Tim Murphy]

Our Nick was my opening act Saturday and Sunday. Saturday he read for fifteen minutes to the Powows on the screened porch at Espaillat's, and did so confidently and convincingly. Sunday he played a tougher gig, when I INSISTED he read three poems to Dick Wilbur at Cummington. He received the ultimate compliment when Dick asked him to repeat two of the poems. He appeared equally confident, and he turned the volume up given his listener's hearing aids. Afterwards, however, he was in the bathroom for a very long time. And when Dick went to bed he plaintively asked if I could fix him a double Jack Daniels on the rocks, a drink he'd never resorted to before!

It was a privilege to go on tour with Nick in Massachusetts. I thank Quincy for undertaking a very long bus ride to catch the show.

[Nicholas F.]

Whiskey yes, but all of the pants-shitting was purely psychological. Great times.

[Tim Murphy]

Dick courteously assigned Nick a bathroom just three steps from the laundry room!

A brief report on The Chairman. He's very hale. He's grown noticeably forgetful, but he's alert as ever. And anyone who reads the New Yorker, or better, has read Anterooms, knows that he is writing terrific short lyrics at age ninety. He has at long last completed all 99 of Symphosius' Latin riddles and will publish them in book form. The KEEP WRITING clock Roger Slater sent on our behalf for his 85th birthday keeps perfect time on the mantle, and every time he looks up from his writing chair, he sees it and goes back to work.

[Catherine Chandler]

Thanks for the report, Tim.

[Rory Waterman]

Thanks, Tim. Nick reads well, and writes even better. As for the rest: I've seen him wet himself. Better to spend a long time in the bathroom and make sure, methinks.

[Roger Slater]

Tim, the clock was my idea, but someone else took the initiative and sent it. I can't remember who.

[David Rosenthal]

I remember the whole clock deal -- thanks for that report Tim.

Way to go Nick!

David R.

[Bill Carpenter]

Fantastic, congratulations!

[Tim Murphy]

Rhina has written a very funny poem about finding a young man's underwear under a bed. Freshly laundered, they will be mailed to Ithaca NY.

The first time I read to Wilbur I was 44, not 24. It was in Key West, and I needed the Jack Daniels' before, not after, the reading.