On 7 September, Dan Pearlman wrote:
 
>
>When I was with Pound and Olga in the summer of '68, they
>spoke to me about the '67 Ginsburg encounter.  We ate together
>at the Restaurante Cici', in Venice, which is where Ginsburg
>met them.  According to Olga, they found Ginsburg very distasteful,
>and they described the rather comical method in which they
>subsequently managed to avoid him.  It seems that the Cici'
>has four different entrances--and sections, therefore--and
>that they eluded poor G. by eating in sections of the restaurant
>that G. either didn't know of or where he didn't imagine he'd find them.
>You can, of course, assume that we know only Olga's reaction to
>G., since she almost never let EP get a word in edgewise--on this
>or on almost any other topic.
>
>==DP
>
 
This is interesting evidence. "Poor G.", as you say.
 
There is a reference in Humphrey Carpenter's biography to Olga's alleged
view of Ginsberg as "like a big lovable dog who gives you a great slovenly
kiss and gets lots of hair all over you." It is not clear from the notes
where this comes from but it might be Alen Levy, *Ezra Pound: The Voice of
Silence* Permanent Press 1983.
 
When Ginsberg arrived at the flat in Venice Olga asked him to wash his
hands, rather comically putting one in mind of Bunting's "What the Chairman
told Tom": "I want to wash when I meet a poet."
 
I am reminded that Peter Russell was present when the famous Pound/Ginsberg
conversation took place. Has anyone ever approached him to find out what he
recalls of it? Also Michael Reck's son was there.
 
No-one has yet mentioned Lowell's poem "Ezra Pound" in *History*, where he
recalls Pound saying (something like) "That nonsense I talked about the Jews
on the radio, Olga knew it was shit, but she still loved me". What if
anything is known about the circumstances in which Pound said this, if he
did? Anyway, as Jonathan Morse said about the "suburban" remark, the "shit"
remark doesn't seem - clearly isn't - adequate to the situation. One is
reminded as so often of Richard Reid's excellent phrase "insufficient
desperation" which he used in his review of the radio speeches, "Ezra Pound
Asking" in the *Agenda* 21st anniversary special issue, vols 17-18
(1979/80), page 171.
 
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