Homage to Fats Navarro (1978)

For *Paul, Harry, Chuck, Brian, Bill, Mark, & Lou

For Alice

For Roberta Pryor

"To the conscientious and dedicated employees of the Central Intelligence Agency, whoever you are, for persevering in your efforts to alchemically change certain literary imaginations into mush and shit."

"We live in a dangerous world. So do the ants.
Nevertheless, they cooperate."
-Zoltan Gestetner ("Stimme")

"Of hominy, of heavenly hominy..."
-Lucullus
"Don't ever say you gonna cut or shoot somebody 'less you do it, hear?...'cause when Theodore Navarro says he's gonna cut you that's what he's gonna do..."
- Fats Navarro (as reported in Charley Mingus' "Beneath
the Underdog")

Copyright ©1978 by Richard Elman

*Paul Pines (http://www.paulpines.com), Harry Lewis, Chuck Wachtel (https://www.amazon.com/Chuck-Wachtel/e/B001HCVMQQ), Brian Berger, (Bill) William Bronk (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Bronk, Mark Weiss http://www.pw.org/content/mark_weiss_2), & Louis (L.S.) Asekoff (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L.S._Asekoff).

Roberta Pryor was Elman's literary agent. (http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/17/arts/roberta-pryor-77-literary-agent-f...).