January 2020 Auction Ends Thursday, January 30th, 5pm Pacific
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 1/30/2020
Humorous letter by Hunter S. Thompson, with his hand-annotations in red crayon, which he also uses to circle his sign-off as ''Lord Chesterfield''. Thompson merrily concludes his letter to his friend Paul Semonin by stating ''I have taken up skiing'', appropriate as he was living near Aspen, Colorado at the time. Aerogram letter postmarked 3 February 1964 reads in part, ''Yes, I knew Mr. Semonin; in his middle years he grew dogmatic...Some witchdoctor is said to have inserted a needle into his coxyx bone and drained out all the fluid. Mr. Semonin then took solace in his own balls, which he could no longer see...Yet he had a certain wisdom, which reached its apogee in his reply to the infamous 13 Questions. To one of them: 'What is the meaning of the 'revolution' in SA [South America] and of the Negro question in the U.S.? Mr. Semonin answered thusly. 'It is social change.'...others went off mumbling to themselves: 'Yes, of course, how could we have missed it?'''
Thompson then reverts to facts at hand, ''Yours came this morning, old sport -- crossing mine in the out-going mail -- and I've been chuckling at it all day...The Ingersolls [Thompson's landlords] are rumored enroute from Bermuda and if they get here before I can muster the funds to flee, disaster looms...Your hopes that I will become 'more politically conscious than artistically so' are already doomed. At present I am moving in the opposite direction. After attempting a 'political profile' on Colorado, I have just about given up on my old idea that the democratic framework is capable of dealing with the sort of realities we face these days. For it to work in this country, an entire generation will have to receive a new type of education.
The other systems don't interest me except as phenomena...As for 'the negro movement' in Louisville, it had all the vitality of a card game at the LCC [Louisville Country Club]...That is the problem in this country; the network of pleasant ignorance that surrounds nearly everything. I keep hearing Rut Lilly [a mutual Louisville friend representing conformity] asking Davison about me: 'Is he going back to school?' What hope there?
I do not oppose government in principle -- only in practice. Why have you never mentioned Nkrumah in any letter? [Semonin lived in Ghana at the time.] (except once, to say he seemed quick and charming, or some such fluff...My impression so far is that you live in a vacuum. The only letter mentioning man, beast or landscape was your good one on Kennedy's death. Let's have a bit of local color, politics, violence and that sort of thing. I've found out more about Ghana from TIME than I have from you. If they're lying to me, how so?...I now crouch behind my battlements and await your reply...'' Two page letter on one Aerogram sheet measures approximately 7.25'' x 12''. Very good to near fine condition.
Hunter Thompson Letter With Hand-Annotations -- ''...That is the problem in this country; the network of pleasant ignorance that surrounds nearly everything...''
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