Joan Didion re: Joan Baez

"It is difficult to arrange to see Joan Baez, at least for anyone not tuned to the underground circuits of the protest movement. The New York company for which she records, Vanguard, will give only Manny Greenhill's number, in Boston. "Try Area Code 415, prefix DA 4, number 4321," Manny Greenhill will rasp. Area Code 415, DA 4-4321 will connect the caller with Keppler's Bookstore in Palo Alto, which is where Ira Sandperl used to work. Someone at the bookstore will take a number, and, after checking with Carmel to see if anyone there cares to hear from the caller, will call back, disclosing a Carmel number. The Carmel number is not, as one might think by now, for Miss Baez, but for an answering service. The service will take a number, and, after some days or weeks, a call may or may not be received from Judy Flynn, Miss Baez's secretary. Miss Flynn says that she will 'try to contact' Miss Baez. 'I don't see people,' says the heart of this curiously improvised web of wrong numbers, disconnected telephones, and unreturned calls. 'I lock the gate and hope nobody comes, but they come anyway. Somebody's been telling them where I live.'"

Didion, Joan. "Where the Kissing Never Stops." Slouching Towards Bethlehem: Essays. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1990. 42-60, 1967.