Thursday, 27^th November

Today is Thanksgiving Day — have been watching tacky thanksgiving parade on TV (From New York) — awful plastic looking floats.

Have just been to Jim Dixon's Advance Duplicating Co., a ramshackle processing set-up with everything dusty and higgeldy-piggeldy — to transfer the image films on to the jelly. Then back to Joe's studio. A sunny day, crisp and still.

Joe is at this moment blocking out the prepared imaged screen with 'transparent blue concentrate block-out'. Now Ralph is doing the finishing touches with a brush. They prepared three more screens, the final ones, all a very delicate business, wiping away the moisture and peeling the acetate, leaving the images bright blue and pristine on the screens. I started to draw the view from the front steps, the little courtyard and the ivy-topped stone building with the church steeple behind. I got a little cold but was happy to be sketching again.

We stopped at Joe's father's house, a pretty grey stone building in a tree-lined street. Inside the furnishings were confortably traditional. I admired a painting by Joe's father, a white horse in a stable — very accomplished, fine work.

We came home for a snack as deSha's was closed for Thanksgiving. I opted to stay and watch the video of Stargate while they returned to the studio to put down the first of several reds. They bought it back to show me — it is beginning to look very rich.

I prepared a potato dish and salad to go with our Thanksgiving lobster dinner which we ate with a fruity Californian Cabernet.

Friday, 28^th November

Had a visit from John Dinsmore this morning ( he has produced an an extensive bibliography of Ralph's work). He looks heavier than when we last saw him — dressed in bright orange tracksuit and bright red sweatshirt.

Ralph and Joe went to carry on with the printing while I waited to be collected by Jessie to go out to lunch. While I waited I did a little hoovering and dusting and started writing comments regarding the Weidenfeld and Nicholson contract for 'Gonzo the Art' which has several dubious clauses in it with phrases that ring alarm bells: 'Net Receipts' and 'Royalty Inclusive'.

Jessie was a little late because she had been to a job interview. She looked very chipper in a smart black suit and new shorter hairdo. We set off for the restaurant on the edge of town. Part restaurant and part craft shop, it had a garden with flocks of buff-coloured birds feeding at a bird table. — I watched a cardinal bird, bright red from beak to tail, fly into a redleaved tree and become thereafter perfectly camouflaged. Our waiter delivered his little speech prefaced by 'My name is Doug. I am your waiter today. Let me tell you something about our specials…'

Then we drove around the old districts of Lexington. We stopped at an enclave of gracious houses around a grassy tree-lined square. I walked around the square, photographing the steep-roofed towers, the painted porticoes and wide verandahs. We stopped again at a redbrick house with a flat wide façade and dark shutters. This was the house of John Wesley Hunt built in 1840 in the so-called federal style, called the Hunt Morgan House. We sat for a few minutes in an open-fronted brick gazebo looking out onto a manicured garden until we were ushered inside by the curator, earnestly academic in appearance with a high soft voice. First we signed the visitors' book and talked about Kent where our guide often went to visit friends near Ashford. Jessie and I were the only clients until a girl in her twenties appeared — a tiny mouse of a girl with a sharp nose and closely-spaced eyes. The curator was steeped in the history of the Hunt family and seemed to be personally enthralled by the generations who had lived there and the minutiae of their lives. His favourite story, he told us, was about Hunt's grandson, General Morgan, who once galloped into the house through the wide-arched front door on horseback, paused to kiss his mother and galloped out the back way pursued by Union troops. He evaded them and managed to rejoin his troops. Much of the furniture was original, again the federal style which corresponds to the style of Wren and Hepplewhite in England. Simplicity itself and made of lovely woods. I especially liked the long reception room with its carved suns on the mantlepiece and the long Georgian windows going down to floor level.

The family story the curator had to tell was one of the acquisition of incredible wealth and numerous slaves whose quarters were outside the house. The reception rooms testified to lavish entertainment in the grand style. John Wesley Hunt, the founder of this dynasty, had business acumen. Not only did he involve himself in import/export but also in banking so that his money would have a safe haven and could grow unimpeded. This was a closely knit society. Hunt was friendly with politician Henry Clay whose much larger, grander house (yet to be visited) is at the end of Joe's street. The family's saving grace, in my opinion, is the fact that Hunt's great grandson, Dr. Thomas Hunt Morgan, became the first Kentuckian to win a Nobel Prize for his work on genetics.

Ralph and Joe were back at home with a writer called Ed McClanahan, tall with wirey grey hair, he reminded me of Dimitri Sidjanski, but more hoary looking, but the same stance somehow. Off they went to do some more printing while I dozed. On their return they told me they'd put down white ink on certain areas of the prints and a dark burgundy red. After this last red they'll need the final black image — and then it's done, bar the signing and trimming the edges.

Just as Joe was putting the beef on the outdoor grill, the phone rang. It was Heidi, Hunter Thompson`s lady -friend, or 'bride' as he calls her. Then Hunter and Ralph talked for ages — Hunter faxed through the start of his next Time piece — funny but disorganised at this stage. We decided to eat while Ralph was still on the phone, and delicious it was too, especially the yams which I ate with oodles of butter and pepper.

Saturday, 29^th November

On the way to the studio this morning we stopped at the art shop for tracing paper. Ralph wants to do the Hunter piece as a print straight off. Joe and I aren't convinced that many people would want to buy a print concerned with necromancy. We'll see.

At the studio I hunkered down to carry on with my drawing. While Joe finished the second red, Ralph and I walked to deSha's where we had a drink and something to eat. Then I carried on with my drawing and more or less finished it, to my satisfaction. Joe's friend Royce, the hairdresser, (who cut Ralph's hair the other morning) came in to watch the black going on. Mesmerising to watch since the black ink was viscous and gloopy as it dripped off the squeegy bar. It was with a great whoop of delight that we saw the last one going down.

Decided to eat out downtown at Regina's — New Orleans cooking, a little heavy but tasty and spicey. Came back to watch Independence Day on TV. I was so tired I went to bed before the end and literally fell asleep as soon as my head touched the pillow.

Sunday, 30^th November

Joe really worked hard on the last printing yesterday, like the member of a chain gang hauling up stones for the pyramids!

We are on our way to Louisville to visit Hunter's mother, Virginia. We did a few errands first — buying her a plant, returning the portable Canon printer that doesn't work with the Psion and collecting my photographs.

Notes on the road to Louisville:

Rain and leaden skies. Freeway with bare trees. Modest brick houses in suburbs. Glass Office blocks. 'Kentucky Sports Medicine'. 'Lakepointe Apts'. A church with a golden dome, a garage, Woodhill Circle Plaza. Imperial Hunan Restaurant. Champion Preferred Vehicles. Dairy Queen. Mayflower Storage. WT Young Storage. Equipment Rental. Christmas Tree Lot. Liberty Road. Restaurant Equipment. Seoul Supermarket. Sam's Club. A car pulls over with with a smoking exhaust. Hall's Campers. Open ranches with wooden fences. A red and black barn.

Stopped for takeaway at Macdonalds.

Now it's open country on both sides with horse ranches, barns, rolling pastures with pristine brown fences. Sign for Shelbysville/Louisville. Road goes through gully, woods below, about to cross Kentucky River. It snakes steel grey through wooded slopes. Limestone cliffs hacked into ravine to make the road. Frankfort. Louisville — 50m. Traffic consists of families returning from Thanksgiving Holidays. Bikes on roof racks. Grey and white silos in small dip. Graefenburg. Shelby County. Small river and stone bridge. Waddy/Petona. Wooded landscape sloping and dipping. Large gabled house on hill with a tower. Groups of black barns with tin roofs. Shelbyville Historic District. Taylorsville. Beautiful Dutch barn and two silo towers in muted rainstained grey and buff. Simpsonville. Field with hay rolls. Middleton. Dutch barn with arched doors by a small creek in a green hollow. Gene Snyder Freeway. Floyds Fork. Rain all the way. Middletown. Tom Sawyer State Park. Bleak church with wide red roof and minimalist cross on the top — looks like a multi-storey car park. Heavy rain. University of Louisville. Outskirts of Louisville. J.C. Penney. Rows of clapboard houses with fenced-in yards. Cream condominiums set among trees with tennis courts.

We drove in the rain to the Episcopal Church home where Virginia lives. It is a modern complex that could be mistaken for a hotel with its glass entrance, carpeted ante-rooms with artfully arranged groups of sofas, armchairs and coffee tables to make intimate seating areas by the large picture windows.

Virginia Thompson's door was one of many off a long wide corridor. She had said on the phone to Ralph that she had arranged for a bartender to be there to fix the drinks. The 'bartender' turned out to be her cousin, also called Virginia, and a resident at the same home. She was ably assisted by her daughter, also christened Virginia but everyone called her Jinx. Virginia had risen from her armchair in the corner, holding on to a zimmer frame with a basket attached. On a small table in front of her lay the paraphenalia of an ailing woman — tissues, small plastic cups for taking pills and on the sideboard to her left a state-of-the-art breathing machine. She soon sat down after greeting us and didn't move for the rest of our visit. She was keen for the drinks to be served straight away. Her cousin placed a glass of bourbon in front of her. She produced a pack of cigarettes from her basket, made sure that we all had glasses and ashtrays and for the most part puffed away, swopping Hunter stories with Ralph. She was a tall, big-boned woman and you could tell that Hunter had come from the same mould. She is very proud of his achievements — particularly since they were arrived at without help from the family - though she doesn't approve of all his actions and said that he could be selfish and unfeeling. She worries about his health, and about his drinking, she says, sipping her Bourbon. Deborah had been to visit recently and had arranged her family photographs around the room. I found it a poignant collection: Hunter as a striking, thoughtful young man with Sandy and Juan a chubby baby, photographs of the three brothers (Hunter, Jim and Davidson) — as boys in flannel shorts and V-neck sleeveless sweaters posed slightly awkwardly on a sofa. The old lady sits fiercely independent in spite of her institutional setting. 'I don't like it, but I have to…'

The room became warm and stuffy and the rain poured down outside the window. The cousins left but Virginia insisted we stay. We arranged to come back on Wednesday to bring her a Lizard print for her wall. I cleared up as much as I could, emptying overflowing ashtrays and washing the glasses before we set out on the rainy road back to Lexington along with those families still travelling home after Thanksgiving.

Monday, 1^st December

We went to the studio to sort out and sign the Lizard Lounge prints. First we did a few errands, including picking up our photographs. I had taken in two films and was looking forward to seeing them but was really upset to find that the second lot had come out as transparencies instead of prints. I gave Ralph a hard time for pressing the wrong film on to me. I already had a good supply of print film from duty-free at Gatwick as I always do. Anyway, when I look at them on Joe's light box I found only a few good ones and so hadn't lost too many for my diary.

It took a couple of hours to sort through the `Lizard` prints to find a good set of 77 for the edition and the rest could be kept as 'out of series'.

We had a late lunch and returned home feeling tired and just rested until late afternoon when we went out to have drinks with Ollie and his wife Billie. Ollie is an old friend of Kurt Vonnegut's. Their house, a one-storey bungalow looks quite small from the outside but inside it was spacious, a sitting room with richly covered sofas and a blazing fire. We were ushered into an adjoining conservatory with windows on three sides, white tiles on the floor, cane furniture, pot plants and the sort of chrome and glass furniture that you see in Italian interior design emporiums. Ollie, white haired with an expansive friendly face, seems to be a pillar of Lexington society, immersed in charities for church and town council. Billie, petite and immaculately coiffed, talked away in her lilting southern accent. We stayed for an hour and then drove to the Lexington Brewing Co. where they brew beer and run a restaurant. Bought fish and chips to take home.

Wednesday, 3^rd December

I did a bit of sorting out this morning and packed one of the bags with things I knew we wouldn't need until we got home. I also wrote a list of names and addresses that might be possible sales pitches for the Lizard Lounge.

Then back to Louisville, first picking up a Lizard print from the framer. It looks wonderful. As we set off along the freeway it started to rain hard. Virginia was sitting in her wheelchair in an alcove of the entrance lobby with a little old lady who was her friend from across the hallway. She had been waiting for us with anticipation and wheeled herself back to her room in our wake. The print had been framed with perspex so it was quite light to carry. Virginia insisted on extending her hospitality to us and cajoled Ralph into having a glass of wine. I gave her a glass of coca cola from the fridge and took one for myself - and a new pack of cigarettes for her from a drawer in the bathroom. Her response to the print was joyful: 'I love colours. I don't know what it's about. Maybe you could explain. It's going to cause a lot of trouble around here, so that's good!' It fitted perfectly in the little corridor between her bathroom and front door.

The conversation centred on the visits that Hunter had made to Louisville for various lectures and ceremonies at the local Louisville institutions, the Arts Centre and University. She described how there would be drinks first (though she didn't like it when she found only wine was being served and no bourbon). She also mentioned Nicole who was Hunter's companion at the time. She was proprietorial about Hunter which annoyed Virgina, being his mother and all. Though Hunter used to get his own back sometimes by dropping her out of the car and saying that 'he'd left her somewhere on 77^th Street.'

We had promised ourselves not to stay too long this time and left shortly after 3 o'clock. Virginia came to the front door with us and insisted that the receptionist at the front desk come and see the print.

The rain was heavy. We drove along the freeway and stopped at the Waffle House. Joe wanted me to experience the ultimate in fast food. The waitress was very solicitous which impressed me. Joe had a double hamburger (he was starving), Ralph had a small one with hash browns and I had a bacon and egg sandwich.

Back in Lexington we stopped off at the Advance Duplicating Co. to collect Ralph's next piece for Hunter's Time story which he had been working on in Joe's basement. Laura had already called earlier to say that Time had been in touch and to go ahead. The subject is Hunter's body being donated to medical science — ideas for Ralph's anatomy collage. Jim Dixon, the proprieter, had prepared the pieces on acetate so that Ralph could bring them back, tape them together and scratch into them and re-work them.

Back at Joe's, I fixed myself a gin and tonic and settled down to watch 'The Parallax View' but didn't get far with it because Lee Thomas, a photographer friend of Joe's, arrived with some photographs he'd taken of Ralph printing and two enlargements for us to take home — and then Joe's house-sitter and friend, Andrew , a 26-year-old civil engineering student, arrived. He his paying his way through college and we compared notes on the different grant/fee/loan systems in England and the States, talked about endangered species, pollution and all sorts of things.

We had arranged to eat out with writer Ed McClanahan ('A congress of Wonders' and 'Famous People I have Known') Ed lives in a two-storey clapboard house with a simple pillared portico on a wooden deck. Inside were polished wooden floors, rugs, highly polished furniture and period details around the doors, windows and architraves which had carved roses at their corners. In one room stood two gleaming pianos — the music room for Ed's Belgian wife, Hildeke. We were taken into the kitchen where we sat on stools around a high round table in the middle of the room.

Ed conversed with a long drawl and punctuated by many pauses in a very relaxed fashion. Hildeke was another person altogether. She greeted us solemnly, a quiver at the corners of her mouth, her eyes sad and limpid. In order to draw her out Ralph asked her about her music at which she became not so much animated as intense as she explained how impossible she found it to perform in public. It took her many months to prepare a piece because it had to be perfect and it never was. 'You know what it's like, sweetheart,' she said to Ed, 'poking him gently in the arm with her finger. He smiled gently.

The restaurant was nearby, called Furlongs, and specialised in cajun food. Very cosy to get out of the rain. It had a blazing fire at one end — and hardly any customers.

Ed told us some amusing tales in his slow drawl, interspersed with ever-lengthening pauses. After one such pause he even said, 'Now' — pause, 'what was I saying?' I found him delightfully droll and enjoyed his dry wit. He talked about the pranksters of which he was a member, along with Ken Kesey, Neil Cassidy et al. He once took the clan to his mother's house, a colonial mansion. She politely passed along the joints that were being passed around the table. Hildeke looked on with her sad eyes. At one point I asked her what she most missed about Europe. She gazed into space: 'I miss the smell of the North Sea. I miss many things, a hundred things, two hundred things. But there are many things here too.'

As soon as dinner was over and we were relaxing over our wine, Hildeke pronounced, 'We must go — the waiter wants us to go,' — it was as if we had a bus to catch, so quickly did she usher us out of the restaurant and out into the rainy street.

Ralph and Joe had intended to prepare the new print — to put it into the gello (that mysterious process) and then on to the screens but it was far too late. We watched part of 'Mother Night' on video. A beautiful film — perennial themes of alienation, things are not what they seem, the ironies of life.

Thursday, 4^th December

Joe went out early to prepare the printing screens and then came back to take Ralph to do the actual printing. I opted to stay here and watch a video — again!

I've just phoned Ralph at the studio. They should be finished within the hour and will be home soon.

In the event, they didn't get home till about seven, having made triple blue, black and red prints, blue on black, black on white, red on black.

We had grilled lamb, salad and sweet potatoes for supper and watched Ralph's programme 'The Beast Bites Back' on video.

Friday, 5^th December

We're all packed up to go home. Ralph is signing the last of the prints. It's snowing.

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