INCONVERSATION BILL BERKSON with Thomas Devaney
Devaney/Rail: Earlier today you said “something something, baby” and were kind of charting a geography of a tone: connecting a sound in Virgil Thomson’s voice, which you said Frank O’Hara was picking up on. Did you know Thomson through O’Hara?
Berkson: Yes, but also through my mother (Eleanor Lambert). It was very interesting to know him. He had such an interesting speech pattern—this kind of Kansas. It was Kansas, but it was your grandmother. Very high pitched. ... And he liked to call everybody baby. And that’s probably what Frank is hearing when he says ”the Brise Marine wasn’t written in Sanskrit, baby.” He’s probably hearing Virgil.
http://brooklynrail.org/2017/11/criticspage/BILL-BERKSON-with-Thomas-Devaney











