Conversation

Many, many years ago, one of my profs told me that you can read too much Baldwin. I said, but he's one of our towering geniuses. She said, sooner or later you're going to read one of his very weak essays, & it's going to take you some time to get over it. She was right.
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Tonight I reread one of those essays. (Not entirely by choice.) When, say, Charlie Parker sounded like shit, you could say that he was stoned or drunk or jonesing for a fix or a drink. I don't know enough about Baldwin to guess why he sometimes fell so far short of himself.
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