Ranking one‘s friends in order belongs principally to the realm of grade-school girls, but a quick visit there might be allowed, only to note that Philip Whalen had no better friend than Gary Snyder. Whalen‘s life would have run a vastly different course had a 17-year old Snyder not first seen him from off-stage at Reed College‘s theatre, directing players in a student production, and been impressed with him. Whalen might have taken much longer to run across zen writings, for example—Snyder brought D.T. Suzuki‘s books home to their apartment when they were living together in San Francisco. Philip might never have found work in the mountains: sitting in that same Telegraph Hill apartment in the hot summer of 1952
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