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I've run across in a good while.

 When I first came in here I started work on a play, the idea for which had been bouncing around in my mind for a while. I wanted to keep my mind active, and divert it

from my troubles and all the sordid dullness around me, but the effort at concentration was too great, and the beating I was taking took the heart out of me - But I'd still like to finish it when I get out, if only because I think I have something to say about musicians and entertainers and homosexuals that hasn't been said. Then too, of course, I enjoy doing it. It's called A Tinkling Piano, about a two-piano team, based on characters I've known, like Jimmy Page and Gwen Paul, among others. Gwen was certainly an unforgettable, robust, ribald, beautiful soul with a flair for jazz, and a perception that many musicians cannot equal.

 I have another project left unfinished in Chicago that I'd like to get back to. I was working with a young composer, a brilliant guy on a play called Season in Hell, built around the scandalous and tragi-comic affair between the two poets Verlaine and Rimbaud. Some of the music, tone-poems on Rimbaud's Illuminations, was already written,

when we had a temperamental tohu-bohu and quit. But I still think it's a fantastic and moving little story, and that there's a play in it, as the agents say.

 I would certainly appreciate a copy of Midland Humor, if you want to trouble to send it, Jack. I remember skipping through it once and liking what I saw. Thanks again for your kindness, and I hope you will write soon.
                   Sincerely,
                     Jim Blake

2635 Commonwealth Av. Jax, Fla.

on side: P.S. The duplication of the letters I wrote you was merely to insure one of them getting out. Underground mailing is rather uncertain.