6. From California to New York (1962–1967)
1 Back during our San Francisco conversation, Thom Gunn had recalled how “at one point during his craziest stage, maybe 1963 or so, he announced he was going to train himself to get the California State weight-lifting championship. At which point he put on a huge amount of weight. At one point, I was quite shocked, he waddled across the room, just like Jell-O, he was veritably wobbling. I said, ‘God, Oliver, what would your mother say if she saw you?’ To which he replied, ‘She’d probably say, “So you’re really taking after your father now, are you?”’”
2 For more on this period of Oliver’s life and much else, see my conversation with his colleague and one true friend at Einstein, the pediatric neurologist Isabelle Rapin, in the SourceBook.