HELEN FRANKENTHALER
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response. Anatole seemed jazzy, tuned-in and active, agi le with a
radiant smile. Longish ha ir (whi ch was much much longer when I
ran into him in the ixties). For us the whole scene was desirable a nd
exotic , including vague rumors that Anato le was part Creole. They
were Airty , se rious, att ract ive: the real Village M cCoy, a nd distant.
Often they were met by Ernest van den H aag: German, with glasses,
he appeared as a schol a r-cum-nau ghty boy, a nd with hi s two pa ls
they often tripled -dated with Interesting Looking Girls. H e went on
to become a teacher , writer, a nd psychoana lyst. For seve ral years I'd
see him a round a nd then he disa ppeared from my ken.
When they crui sed it was not fo r our squa re kind ; their some–
time girls were sw ingy ( no l a word used then), tiny, often elegant ,
sexy. Some were blond tall numbers from the Vassar belt slumming,
or
petites vicieuses
loaded with ma keup or none at all. Simultaneously
the aura of 1 he Intellec lua l tha t haloed these two young men
implied a n a tmos phere, the cast of which I was yet to learn. M ean–
time what was not there, we projected.
Late Au gust or early September
1950 ,
I was ea ling supper there
with Clement Greenberg. (We would be going often in years to
come, sometimes altern ating with the res taurant 's competition,
Minetta 's, up the street.) It turned out Clem
knew
Anatole! and
Milton! Anatole was a lways eage r to connect with Clem a nd was
friendly a nd chatty. H e was introduced to me eve ry time we met. I
was dying to talk but had no thing to say. Aggressive but fri ghte ned ,
I looked , I listened, I soaked it up .
Now I occa iona ll y run into Anatole a nd we nod or have a brief
"equal" pleasant excha nge since there's the recognition that comes
with perspective a nd
something
that was sha red then . At a concert
intermis sion , or the Inst itute of Arts and Le tters spring ce remony .
Flee ting deja vu.
I would always connect the two , like the Katzenj ammer Kids
(not the Bobbsey Twins), a nd didn't know until reading Ana tole's
mov ing piece in the
Times
that Milton had died. In a way, they were
my first observation of whal would later be called hippies. ("Hippie"
was not a word used the n ; ra ther "hip ." Not to be confused with
"hep"!)
Clem a nd [ once had a sna pshot taken on the stree t across from
the San R emo. For about twenty-five ce nts it was taken and
developed on the spot by a n Italian who had a box camera on a
