“But you know, Ray, Japhy is really sharp—he’s really the wildest craziest sharpest cat we’ve ever met. And what I love about him is he’s the big hero of the West Coast, do you realize I’ve been out here for two years now and hadn’t met anybody worth knowing really or anybody with any truly illuminated intelligence and was giving up hope for the West Coast? Besides all the background he has, in Oriental scholarship, Pound, taking peyote and seeing visions, his mountainclimbing and bhikkuing, wow, Japhy Ryder is a great new hero of American culture.”
