November 30, 1953
Post #46
Dearest Linda:
I have about seven minutes until Dottie picks me up so here is seven minutes of the very finest prose I have to offer. I think it will be seven minutes but I can’t be sure on account of I am seriously thinking of giving up time again. At Disney’s it was always necessary to be certain places at certain times. God knows why, nothing ever happened, so it was nearly impossible to work there without a timepiece. You could get along without talent, but not a watch. As you know I gave up time about a year before leaving here and I must say I never missed the damn stuff. It is a pleasant thing not to ever know what time it is, a watch is a straitjacket to the artist. So if I have the strength and I can figure out a way to assure Donn’s feelings (he gave me my current watch) then I shall forswear Greenwich (obscure way of saying “time”) and live happily ever after.
Ah..I think this was a good mood—I mean move to return here [to Warner Bros.], I had not realized how much I missed the sweetness of my own solitude. At Disney’s aloneness or desire to be alone generates suspicion, you are always surrounded by people, drifting in and out, exchanging hackneyed pleasantries or just sitting, staring with baleful intensity at one’s own navel. What a waste! What a waste of wonderful talent!
I went to Disney’s with respect for H… L…., I could not fathom him but I felt that there must be some pretty strong talent there, not evident on the surface perhaps but still waters run deep etc. etc. If I still think this then I am the only one who has recently worked there who does. Walt adjudges him a work horse, stolid, unimaginative, but able to get things done if someone else has injected the life and the spark into the material. Many others think of him as simply and purely a dolt and a dull dolt at that. I saw too little of him to make any judgment, but I can no longer assume that he has talent. Isn’t that a pity?
My mental Gruen says seven minutes up.
I love you with a gentle parental devotion.
You snarling little beast.
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