SIGNED Original Gordon Lish 1987 personal letter & envelope KNOPF letterhead

Description

SIGNED Original Gordon Lish 1987 personal letter & envelope KNOPF letterhead
“Dropping left & right...etc”
Details:
SIGNED Original Gordon Lish 1987 personal correspondence to my father, Don Wolf (Z”L RIP),
on THE QUARTERLY, KNOPF letterhead in original KNOPF envelope.
You get: ONE Signed original letter UNREDACTED and ONE original envelope.
I am putting my Gordon Lish ephemera collection up for sale in order to raise the rent. Gordon Lish grew up with my Dad, Don Wolf Z”L (R.I.P), in Long beach, Long island, NY. They stayed in touch over the years and I ended up luckily having a few of the letters in my possession. I met Gordon for the first time (besides when I was a baby) in 1993 when he received an Honorary Doctor in Letters from my college, State University of New York at Oneonta (aka SUCO) . My professor, Dr. Patrick Meanor (author of Wrath of Grapes and others) was friends with Gordon and helped put him up for the honor. So I was at the Convocation, a packed house at the end of the school year. I wrote my senior paper on Gordon's first novel, “Dear Mr. Capote” and sent it to him. Gordon wrote back to me and awarded me a scholarship to his infamous writing class, but, alas, I did not take it and like a fool that I was I went to Israel instead. I wish I had taken the scholarship, but I was young and foolish. By the time I got back the class was not active any more.
This letter you are bidding on today begins with Gordon commenting that people around him are dying: “ Yeah, they're dropping left and right – suicides...” etc. Here is another line I will share with the public from the letter: “This is the death decade of the death nation.”
I hope Gordon doesn't sue me and inherit my debts, but I have to raise the rent. I hope this goes to someone who can bring it to the attention of those who might be concerned with these amazing details of a Great Writer , editor and friend (of my Dad's). The letter also announces the book “Mourner At The Door” (Viking Press). He also mentions, my mother, Riva in the letter. She passed away 2 years ago and my Dad passed in 2015.
You can see I redacted the rest. This way YOU will be the 7th person to read the letter. (Gordon, Dad, Mom, Me, Dr. Meanor, my wife. ) When you present it, this listing will be deleted and all of the material will be fresh and unpublished for your presentation however it is you decide to present it, if at all. AND there are more coming, so please message me with any questions or comments, or just if you want me to keep you in the loop. I am posting this on 8/29/21 so by the time you read this the other ones may or may not be up and may or may not be sold already. BID HARD AND FAST!!!
If you are still reading this and don't know who Gordon Lish is, AKA Captain Fiction, look him up for all the gory details. There is too much to say here on eBay. He was fiction editor at Esquire and editor of The Quarterly. He has tons of books to his credit, starting with "Dear Mr. Capote" which is my personal favorite - the one I wrote my senior paper on.
For an extra treat (or a torturous experience, depending on how you look at it) I am including the beginning of one of the many drafts of my initial series of attempts to write a listing for these papers from this Gordon Lish epehemera collection. I did not finish it, and ,
Note: this listing is for only one UNREDACTED letter and one envelope.
Live Long and prosper!
Enjoy:
FAQs
(That's, incidentally, Frequently asked questions, for the uninitiated of abbreviations, but, actually, no one has ever asked me these questions, except the first one, without the answer to (it) would leave one with more questions about the following questions. So The answer to that question is: What the hell am I? Wikipedia? Look it up. Light it up, right click, open in new tab, assuming your default page is a search engine i.e. Google. The wiki hit or some of the others are informative, and of course some are not. I did not write them. Not yet. That sentence is implying future tense to a past tense or some kind of tense (perfect shmerfect participle schmarticiple? ), and then some kind of future tense. Which means, I think, if I write something in the future, and its Googleable (Google-able?) you may refer to it as I wrote (something) – in which case the “not yet” part would not apply.
Yes, I wrote something, but its not on The Internet (Yet.) More about that later in the answer to one of the FAQs. And that thing I wrote is about the thing. You know, Gordon Lish, and more specifically about his book, his first novel, “Dear Mr. Capote” which is a long long letter from a serial killer to his publisher, Truman Capote. The letter, according to “Yours Truly”, what the protagonist calls himself, or “YT”, is the thing...the thing that will make money, as a publication, so his son can be sitting pretty after, YT, I assume, we all assume, goes to jail for murder(s). Already, I can see the hate mail, because I am sure I got all that wrong, but the title, implies that the letter is addressed to Truman Capote. I say that again because (searchability) Ha! There's a word - searchability. But I wouldn't expect to see it on a word-a-day calendar. It's a “new” word like “Google (Verb - to Google i.e. I Googled it). They didn't have words like that in my day. (In my day – that's a cliché . ) (The spell checker suggested search-ability, but I don't like it. I am re-inventing the English language.) (there are too many parenthesis in this thing, which makes me wonder, what is the plural of parenthesis – can you have just one? Would that be called a
parenthesy
? I will leave that one with a little red line under it. The spell-checker thingamywhatsit doesn't know about it yet. (That was an allusion, which is not an illusion, but an allusion. Look it up! Hey! I mean, the part about the re-invention of language, not the part about parenthesi(s) or spell checkers.))). Words, words. Each victim gets killed with a knife named “Paki,” stuck through a word-of-the-day calendar page, in(to) the eyeball (of the victim). I have said too much. Imagine that. That is called a spoiler. I shouldn't have put 2 “thats” together. Someone would have edited that (and all of this) to DEATH.And I'm just getting started. (That's a pun – to DEATH, I mean. Not the fact that I am an old fart. Fart is not a curse word, but I think it used to be. Neither is suck,btw. ).I am way over 50 years old now and don't remember and don't care if the period goes inside or outside the parenthesy. You can see that sometimes I do both: inside and outside, that is. Someone once told me not to start (begin actually, they said) sentences with “and” or “but. But I say to them, “Go f*ck yourself” and “eat sh*t and die”) . Why use asterisks in curse words? Because 1. I have class and 2. I don't want eBay to edit me. eBay might actually be my editor. That blows my mind (a little).
I just spelled “the” “tio” and the spell checker suggested every 3 letter word in the English language starting with “t” except “the”, the most common word in the English language. This is original literature btw (that means “by the way” for you abbreviation aficionado, btw). Some people sell it, but you can have this piece this WHOLE piece for free. (Does “i” go before “e” before “c”?No. I would have noticed.)
Anyyyyyyyywayyyyy...This is the eighteenth beginning (I wrote/am writing) of/to this sales schpiel. (Does [“i” before “e” except after “c”] apply to Yiddish? Dunno. But (there's that but again) I think its better to use brackets than double quotes. Always hated those motherfu**ers. I hate (the) double parenthesis, I mean, not the Yids. I
am
a Yid. ) ) Before I tell you why this is the eighteenth beginning, and all that, and ask/answer the second FAQ, which is , “What the hell is this about?” (comma) I want to tell you about the funniest thing I saw on Youtube this week. OK. Listen.
Quick, take a break and go to a video called
I made Kylie's Christmas Dress for !
from a talented You-toober (new word!) named Micarah Tewers. She makes clothes in fast motion from affordable materials (hilarious and talented!!!) but her awesome (overused word) mega-rapid-paced videos are sooooo much more. So now you are enjoying the video, as the kids say: WAIT FOR IT..... chicken at 3:10. Stop here and minimize the page, that's right, right now. I mean, the page that my thing here that I am now writing is... Yes, Stop and minimize my page and just look at her video because the next thing I say will be a SPOILER. Spoiler ALERT!
Ok You're back! You saw it! Yes! The chicken butt SPEAKS!!! For those of you who didn't see the video, the chicken's actual tuchus says. “Guess what? Chicken butt!” Which is, of course, what chicken butts say just before they, you guessed it, lay an egg. So that gives you an idea of the level of sophistication of the humor we aspire to in this house. Hell, if you don't like it, what can I say, you are dead inside. (Message me for explanation of how to pronounce tuchus. I get a lot of mail, so be specific when you write. Tuchus.) On a side note, her pet chickens are all addicted to whipped cream.
Now. Back to this: This piece of writing is also an interview. Its a fictional interview, much like the one in my
paper
(more about my paper later) , so I say fictional because the only people in this room are me, myself and my cat, Tiger.
By the highway
, Tiger, bless his furry little heart,
must
be involved in all the “action”. He is
concerned
that something might happen without him (in between naps of course) and that includes all “actions” involving a keyboard and a mouse. You may treat yourselves to a photo of Tiger – involved with my ********** on my blog. More about that later.
And I do not want Micarah Tewers to be the only person besides Gordon Lish, a.k.a. Captain Fiction,
I mention by name in this monstrosity of an eBay advert. Bernie Sanders. Honorable mention. Yeah. If I had his money and I were (notice I didn't say “was.”) his age I would be drinking margaritas in a pile of girls. Bernie LOVES us! (Here are some commas. You can insert them wherever you like. OK? , , , , , , , , , , , Happy now? ) Damn, I, also, just, accidentally, typed, Captain Fu**tion, which, would, have,been, well, equally appropriate.
Yes! Here we go!
FAQs (For
real
this time. Eventually.)
Who is Gordon Lish?
See the beginning of this listing (scroll up to the top)
What are you selling?
“Selling.Selling. That's good. Ah! You're wicked!” (That's an
allusion
to the Monty Python sketch, “Nudge, nudge.” Anyone who recognizes it gets a cardboard cookie with rubber raisins. So I put quotes around it cuz it's not mine, you know, it's theirs.(“i” before “e” except after “th” ???!!! Wtf? ) That, my friends, is called “attribution”. Attribution is an oasis of a class act in the cesspool of rule-less blather that passes for discourse these days.
I
know I'm good. And classy. “So shines a good deed...”
Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory 1971
The screenplay was written by Roal Dahl & David [
sic
] Seltzer. Thanks Wikipedia! Thanks Obama! The book, which may or not contain that line, has a different title,
Charlie
& The Chocolate Factory
and was also written by Roald Dahl. Attribution should not be confused with retribution which is what I am hoping Gordon will execute against me once he catches wind of this eBay ad. Step right up! Get your tickets to my mind! OK, so finally a little of what I am selling:
Three (3) pieces of Vintage Original Ephemera Correspondence from Gordon Lish with two (2) original envelopes.
(Originally two of the letters came in the same envelope. Some of the correspondence and envelopes have authentic letterheads from
The Quarterly
. (See the
redacted
photos**************) ).
-The first letter is dated 12/22/87 . Its on The
Quarterly
stationery, typewritten and hand-signed. Its a letter from Gordon Lish to my father, who passed away in 2015.It's a personal letter.
-The second letter is a letter from Gordon Lish to my late father, typewritten, and the sign-off is his type-written initials: GL . It is also on
The Quarterly
Stationery. This letter is a rejection of a literary submission my father sent to Gordon for publication in
The Quarterly.
More about Lish rejections and such later.
The third item is a handwritten note from Gordon to my father, on
The Quarterly
stationery and hand signed “Kisses, G.”
I redacted the photos of the correspondence, but you will get the original letters and envelopes,
un-redacted
. You can be the first to publish them, show them off at parties, whatever you like. I reserve the right to include them on my blog, or in any fashion I like after 2 years have passed. So that gives you plenty of time to publish them, brag about them, or re-sell them as unique items.
Do you have more ephemera/correspondence?
Yes, I do.
Why are you only releasing these three and not the others?
I need money.
These are a lure to drum up interest in the whole deal, which will hopefully mean that the next letters following these letters will fetch a bigger price.
Why are you asking yourself FAQs?
1. Its the easiest and clearest way to convey the information.. and...
2. It is the same format, that is, fictional interview, of the
paper
I wrote, which I also plan to sell. More about that later.
Why these particular 3 letters and not some other 3 letters?
I wanted to include one letter with “Beef”, one that was hand-written, and one of a more personal nature that was also hand-signed with a full signature and not just an abbreviation or initials.
Spoiler:
I have another letter on my desk signed
“Lifnofski!”
Plus another letter written to me.
Why include the envelopes?
Because I have them
Because they have a company letterheads
Because they have dates
Because they increase the value of the correspondence
Is there more to this story, in order to put the whole thing in context?
Yes, below I will continue with the story.
Why don't you just write plainly, normally and simply like normal people? After all this is just an eBay listing and people don't want to read a whole bunch of your cryptic meandering bullsh*t.
If you are not into this kind of...prose...then...
You did not run out and buy a copy of Dear Mr. Capote by Gordon Lish and read it. ...or..
You are not getting the idea that the piece here,
my
piece, here, is connected somehow with this particular style of writing, literary academics (grammar, style, literary devices, etc).
Spoiler: My paper is also connected.
Besides, you don't have to read all of this if you don't want to, you can just bid high and p*ss off I guess. People
these days
mostly skim stuff anyway, so it wouldn't shock me if you are not even reading this sentence, or just skimming over it in some frenzied millennial stupor. Know this, though: Everything is edited and edited and edited. I started this section 12 times at least. I think this version right here is the 13
th
time that I am writing this, and I have finally settled on this near-perfect paragraph. That is the level of
care and detail
we go for around here, buddy.
But there are still mistakes and typos in it.
You can always edit it one more time. It is
never
enough. When doing research for this project I stumbled across a Wordpress Blog titled, “Gordon Lish Edited This.” Oh boy, are they gonna be happy when they see I plugged their blog in my piece. (Either that or they won't give a flying f*ck at a rolling doughnut. ) Btw, Gordon Lish did NOT edit
this
.
Nor this: Here's what happened. It was a dark and stormy night. If you don't believe me you can go ask NASA. They had a better view of it all from the top.
I stopped writing at this point. Maybe I will finish later. Wait with bated breath, you should.