Ruth,
We all know it can be an honor to be turned down, especially when you are one of just a few.  During the Bay areas great drought in the mid seventies, I had arrived with my carpentry tools and posted notices at all the health food stores for work.  As I needed some money, I also applied to Stamford University as a pot washer, to see and be seen.  The woman turned me down as "overqualified", despite the fact that I admitted I had never had a job washing pots before.  I switched my typed curriculum vitae for a hand written resume and edited out the education parts and reapplied as Art Peas.  I made no effort to change my appearance and the woman gave me the job!
Best,
Leland

-----Original Message-----
From: "Let us not speak foul in folly!" - ][<en Phollit [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Ruth Barton
Sent: Sunday, March 16, 2003 1:43 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Famous people


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?
>
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--
Ruth Barton
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Westminster, VT

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