William Louis Dreyfus: Not your ordinary billionaire

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I was sorry to hear of his passing.  He wasn't just a billionaire humanitarian, supporting the arts on a large scale and from a great height.  He was also a man who wrote lengthy, remarkably clever fan letters to obscure poets like myself.  By snail mail, no less.  On the most beautiful paper I've ever seen.  This was a few years ago.  I remember googling his name to discover who on earth he could be.  I remember following the public trail of an eccentric, private mind, and marveling.  A couple of years ago his daughter, Julia, directed a PBS documentary about him.  Well worth seeing.  If I can locate it online, I'll link to it.

He'd seen my work in The New Criterion, and reached out on a whim.  To the whim, and the whirl, and the ripples left behind.  Good night, strange prince.

William Louis Dreyfus Dies

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