Dear Diary: Master Keefe

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Here I am at 23 months. According to the legend, I’m standing in “Mother’s Library,” which, since my mother wrote it, would be my grandmother’s library. Where was that? And what was Nana Lilly doing with a library? This must have been Grampa’s Sutton Place flat, about which more anon. As you can see, I’m the compleat sophisticate, accoutered with cardie and corduroys, surrounded by books, and reaching, with unsuccessful surreptitiousness, for the maraschino cherry at the bottom of the glass. It would appear that a number of charmed adults have been ruffling my hair.

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At least there isn’t too much hair — a Seventies problem. Here, it is still 1949. Truman is president. Hattie Carnegie lives at the Cooper-Hewitt. This is the first picture of me as I am today. It’s done.

Here is an earlier picture — same apartment — from my life in the American Raj. Is that kitchen neat as a pin, or what? The curtains alone! I clearly learned nothing from my early environments.

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