The Selected Letters of Elia Kazan by Elia Kazan

Author:Elia Kazan [Kazan, Elia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-385-35041-9
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2014-04-21T16:00:00+00:00

TO MOLLY DAY THACHER

PM: Piggott, Arkansas, September 27, 1955

We had a great day today. I’m getting to know a lot of people here too. Its too much, but necessary—here. This morning we watched a drum majorette rehearsal. The Piggott High School. Then we went to the Farm Loan office and sat a while talking to the Chief Clerk. I dont know what the hell that had to do with anything, but it was instructive. Then we drove over to another town: Paragould (what towns! Paragould, Pocahontas, Piggott) And we met the owner and operator of the local Radio station. A very very small radio station with a very very local program. We talked with him a very long time and got an awful lot from him. We’re going over Wednesday and spend the morning with him, watching the operation. About this time I became convinced that Jackie Gleason wasn’t it. Yesterday I spent a couple of hours in the town square. In the big town square sits the Court House. It sits in the middle of a square park. Around the park is a square lining of the stores in the town. Just about every store including the dentist office is in a four sided layout around the town square. On the grass is a band stand, a world war no 1. monument, a brace of tables for the checker players who sit there most of every day playing checkers, and a couple of benches for the two whittlers. I sat with the wittlers for two hours. I got friendly with them. They do a lot of whittling (I’ll finally find how to spell that goddamn word) most of it of nothing in particular. They also do a lot of knife buying and knife swapping. I bought a knife. A Case (the brand) Three bladed. One of the brands is hollow ground and is marked: “for flesh only”. Its used for castrating pigs and cats and dogs. No sooner had I bought the knife than a fellow came up to me and wanted to talk swapping with his knife, which was also a good knife. I sat there and some one gave me one of five little lengths of cedar he had in his pocket. I whittled. They told stories. Very strong type stories. I got friendly with a guy named Uncle Bob who had two knives a two blader and a three blader. He didn’t want to swap. He gave me something he had whittled: a finger tip belt balancer. Tell Nick I’ll bring it home and give it to him. Anyway talking to these fellows made Jackie Gleason seem synthetic. I began to cool on Jackie Gleason. This afternoon I cooled more. Its always both stimulating and disturbing to visit the scene. You feel how superficial you really are. From the moment we had “settled” on Gleason we had done nothing, but adapt and adjust and justify. Finally we had him left behind by a small broken down Carnival.

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