Appendix A: Dates for Journals
This section will provide dates for the various entries from Holty’s writings in the text. The following entry might help separate the memoirs from the journals. Holty wrote it under the title “Journals Resumed – 1970,” after a hiatus of about three years.
March 1, 1970
From now on I hope to keep the journals on a day-to-day basis devoted mainly to current events and with a minimum of comments about the past. The earlier journals were notebooks of things remembered rather than journals, a sort of chronicles at random, with an interpenetration between the past and the present but without real sequence of any discernible kind.
I had to begin somewhere to gather on paper memories and events long past as I had been asked to do by friends who were entertained by what I had told them and who felt that some of these stories and tales: long and short, should be preserved for future generations to read.
Though I had written certain memoirs, artistic and personal, about friends and also about myself, I had no desire to write a real autobiography and so on a certain day early in the summer of 1961 I began to write as I did. The journals actually began as chronicles of the days, events and persons as they took place that summer but without explanations of any kind or the particular and necessary information to clearly define whom and what I was writing about. A friend who read those early pages confessed that he was confused at the loose references they contained and at first gathered the impression that he was reading the beginning of some modern novel in which the dropping of obscure names and events was a technical device to capture the reader’s attention by gently arousing his curiosity.
Little by little the day’s events began to serve my purpose, which was to bring back to memory the past through the experiences of the day, conversations with others on such a day and events, minor and frequently obtuse, that could be seen related to somewhat similar but more significant events and personal encounters of the past.
As I continued those journals de pensee, the sequence of events, such as there was, was frequently interrupted by minor essays on this or that subject (most if not all of them relating to art) and occasional biographical studies, and bit by bit there was a filling out of personal reminiscences that took care of most everything that had been of note and of interest to me. A friend of many years who read them felt that I had completed the chore and, as he put it, had brought the story “pretty much up to date.”
While writing those journals I had more or less scrupulously avoided commenting on current events in the art world as well as registering important opinions about living contemporaries because I was afraid to air them. I just did not feel that such criticism and opinion belonged in such a lengthy and free-styled piece of writing.
Here and there, to make a point, something akin to criticism managed to slip into the journals but always in relation to whatever evoked it, and I managed to resist the temptation to continue in a critical vein.
Now that I will become engaged in keeping the chronicle abreast of the time in which it is written, I dare say that critical commentary will become part of the day’s experience and proper enough. Nevertheless, the day’s events will be based on all actual matters that inspire the writer to note them and I do not plan to concentrate on anything in particular.
The next entry, of April 26, 1970, prompted some follow-up remarks to the above, before Holty launched into the account of his studio on Mercer Street, in Soho, which is recorded in Chapter 8: “Almost two months have elapsed and I have not made one single entry in the new journals. There are the introductory remarks and nothing more. I begin to wonder whether a daily record of fresh events is possible. My life is not that varied or adventurous on the day-to-day level, and one day passes much as the next. Collectively, however, the days provide me with certain ideas and reflections I do feel should be noted.”
For what they are worth, dates are provided herewith for the excerpts from Holty’s writings I, the author, have chosen to tell his story. The dates listed are those on which Holty wrote the particular entries. The dates on which the events, or episodes, he was recounting occurred were either given by him or may be implied by the periods they represent in his life. The Roman numerals below refer to the sections into which Holty divided his writings. They are distinguished by their placement in the chart, as follows:
Holty section : Date written
I, 10 : 7/22/61
I, 11 : 7/23/61
I, 20 : 11/1/61
I, 50 : 1/2/62
I, 64 : 1/17/62
I, 65 : 1/17/62
I, 80–83 : 3/2/62
I, 119 : 4/9/62
I, 122 : 4/12/62
I, 143–44 : 5/3/62
I, 156–60 : 5/20/62
I, 167 : 5/27/62
I, 168 : 5/27/62
I, 196 : 9/5/62
I, 202 : 9/12/63
I, 212a–212b : 10/14/62
I, 221–23 : 11/18/62
I, 228–29 : 1/8/65
II, 9 : 6/20/65
II, 19 : 8/24/65
II, 22 : 9/2/65
II, 24–25 : 9/5/65
II, 29 : 9/14/65
II, 30–31 : 9/19/65
II, 32–33 : 9/21/65
II, 53–55 : 1/30/66
II, 42 : 10/30/65
II, 60–61 : 4/2/66
II, 87–88 : 1/7/67
III, 6–7 : 1/20–1/26/63
III, 9–10 : 2/1/63
III, 37–38 : 9/3/63
III, 41 : 9/10/63
III, 42–43 : 9/10–9/11/63
III, 58 : 2/29–3/1/62
III, 65 : 3/20/64
IV, 1–31 : no date
IV, 35 : no date
IV, 39–41 : no date
IV, 44–47 : no date
V, 2107 : 2/3/72
VI, 1016–21 : 4/26/70
VI, 1021–25 : 4/26–6/11/70
VI, 1038–39 : 7/22/70
VI, 2080–81 : 12/28/71
VI, 2082–83 : 12/21/71
VI, 2083–84 : 12/28/71
VI, 2156 : 1/14/72