James Schuyler to Frank O'Hara

Nov 7, 1954
American Express

Rome, Italy

Dear Frank,

Just a note to tell you that I’m taking your note to the local tapestry works, where I’m going to have it copied in Parker blue on Sphinx typing paper gray, wall-size. And my idea of wall-size is the northern flank of the UN Building. You’re cute, that’s what you are.
     Anguillara didn’t work out for beans, so I’m established in a somewhat meager, but pleasant, little hotel in Rome. My days are full, fair and fine, but my evenings barren of any sort of intercourse. I’ve become a moviegoer again, if not a bug or fan; it’s like being an opium addict without getting any lift. Let’s see, I’ve seen: Witness to Murder, Mogambo, Ulisee (I saw it in Italian, so that’s what I call it), de Sica’s dud, Stazione Termini, On the Waterfront, From Here to…and a couple of Italian ones I won’t go into. Not to put a fine point on it, I thought them all hell; though many featured nice-lookers caught looking their best. Tonight it’s a toss-up between Danny Kaye, dubbed, or Gerard Philipe, not dubbed. Maybe I’ll just duck over to the forum and worship a heathen idol instead.
     If you don’t tell me what poems you have in Poetry, I’ll — o I don’t know what I’ll do. Gnash my teeth, perhaps.
     Al K [resch] was here, and having so much fun. He couldn’t sit down without drawing, and he vanished one morning into the Vatican before 9, and had a fit when they told him at 2 they were closing. I can’t spend ten minutes there without thinking how far I am from the nearest comfortable café. But now he’s back in Munich. And Bill [Weaver] is in Vienna, as are the boys. (Do, if you haven’t, write Bill: it seemed as though every time we went to Amer. Exp. together, I got a letter from you. Or so it seemed to him! You know how rejectable our young folk are nowadays.)
     This is just a silly Sunday evening note, brought on by your note, which touched me so.

Love,  Jimmy