My First Job Was Working In A

Life Was An Impenetrable Mystery Cloaked In Babble.

In My Early Twenties, That's When I Really Began To Write. Before That, I Was Too Busy Working, Keeping Myself Going.

Labels Not Only Free Us From The Obligation To Think Creatively; They Numb Our Sensibilities, Our Power To Feel. During The Vietnam War, The Phrase Body Count Entered Our Vocabulary. It Is An Ambiguous Phrase, Inorganic, Even Faintly Sporty. It Distanced Us From The Painful Reality Of Corpses, Of Dead, Mutilated People.

My First Job Was Working In A Dress Shop In Los Angeles In 1940, For $7 A Week.

And What Movies We Saw! All The Actors And Actresses Whose Photographs I Collected, With Their Look Of Eternity! Their Radiance, Their Eyes, Their Faces, Their Voices, The Suavity Of Their Movements! Their Clothes! Even In Prison Movies, The Stars Shone In Their Prison Clothes As If Tailors Had Accompanied Them In Their Downfall.