You want to talk famous people, I met Bernard Sanders. Ruth
At 7:07 PM -0500 3/15/03, Ken Follett wrote:
>John,
>
>I'm not disappointed with either of our outcomes. Though the other night
>when I woke up suddenly at 2:25 AM with a start dreaming that loading the
>shotgun in the closet and blowing my head off might be beneficial to the
>family... mind you, this is not catastrophic suicidal but a measure of
>personal engagement with the outcome of not wanting to let my friends or
>family down... the stress caused me to pause long enough to wonder what
>the f*ck this is all about! Christ, John, ask Jim Hicks if I am not
>suffering from am unshakeable belief that I am responsible for the well
>being of the entire universe.
>
>Always willing to assist in the development of good character.
>
>Yeah. I sat directly across from Allen at table for a lunch at the
>Rockland County Community College and had a pleasant chat with his
>humbleness for close to an hour before he went on to his reading. Meeting
>him was one of the goals of my youth. He was wearing a suit and tie and he
>was not what I had expected. Prior to that I had seen him performing at an
>anti-war rally in Washington. Meeting him was a turning point in my
>de-mythologizing of the hero. It was also when I found out that young
>muscular stonemasonry bucks eating lunch with famous old poets would
>attract ditzy female poets with large gazoongas. Though I enjoy his early
>work, particularly Howl and Kaddish, his later work I feel got a bit
>flaccid and he was running on fumes. He wrote a poem about a green terra
>cotta building in Manhattan that I recall was very moving... Sharpshooter
>will know the building. Ginsberg remains a character that I am curious
>about, the full extent of his career and how much of a pure businessman he
>was about promoting his group, the beats. He was damned sharp about
>business and promotion. He was still busy promoting the beats when I met
>him. I was tagging on the heals of a lesser known beat, Charlie Plymell,
>an old friend of his. Plymell turned out to be a manic-depressive coke
>head with all sorts of emotional and anger control problems. Charlie's
>wife Pamela was the daughter of Sylvia Beach, a publisher of James Joyce.
>Sylvia ran around with a French guy named Claude Peleu (sp) Washburn who
>was a real whacka-do. I also met and spent some time with Ray Bremser who
>at that point was totally strung out and near the end of his life. It was
>not long before we could not stomach Charlie -- particularly after he
>decided that I was the Ken Follett that had just got a $35,000 advance on
>my first novel and that I was not sharing -- and we split that scene. The
>fact that Ginzberg died is more significant to me than the death of Mr.
>Rogers. Anyone that would piss on the desk of a dean at Columbia,
>apocryphal or not, has got my interest.
>Where is our Ginsberg now? The man legitimized the left and most certainly
>poetisized politics. I regret though that I did not ask him about his
>meeting with Ezra Pound. And there is one thing that sticks in my mind
>which is Ginsberg talking about losing ourselves to the point that we not
>only relenquish our belongings,like a transitorized Marcus Aurelieus, but
>that we may even approach the consciousness of losing our name. I've been
>out to look toward that place of silence and losing name and feel that
>without going there that we will never quite be whole with ourselves. Sort
>of akin to the strategy that Zen poetics -- snap bang --
>
>My favorite encounter with a famous poet was going to a reading of Robert
>Creeley in Buffalo. The reading was at a small coffee & new-age donut shop
>kind of place with mint tea and incense so we all sat on wooden folding
>chairs and it was real close. Early in the afternoon on a Saturday. I like
>to sit up front. Creeley was late, real late. We had driven a long long
>way to see him. He showed up drunk and brought his own six of beer. He
>proceeded to wobble around in his chair and mumble and curse at us, pop
>his cans and drink beer. Finally I told him that if he could not give us
>any poetry at least he could share his f*ckin beer. He was not in a mood
>to share and we left. As far as I can tell the guy has written one really
>good poem. He should be happy.
>
>My disappointment was when I did not get to actually see Borges. He was
>speaking at NYU and I drove into town from Westchester after working all
>day. DUe to circumstances beyond my ambition we ended up spending too much
>time in a friggin pizza parlor and by the time our friend got us to the
>gig we had to stand outside and listen to Borges over an intercom.
>
>Today and yesterday my favorite poet is Vachel Lindsey.
>
>Tell Patrick that if he wants to meet someone famous that he should listen
>to you about getting an education... and when the time is right you can
>tell him that all you got to do is have the b*lls to say, Hello, how are
>you? Nice weather, you know." Problem we got here these days with
>industrialized celebrity is that the famous people to meet are usually
>very shallow. Who wants to really meet Donald Trump or Michael Jackson?
>
>][<en
>v-z)^zڶ*'-X
>ZƧv^w(}hr쨺 اm"-g"rzۺYZkbvi
--
Ruth Barton
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Westminster, VT
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