Regarding EP and Olga's relationship, as affected by his
antisemitism and related isms, I recall that, during my
'68 trip with them--I was driving them from Sant' Ambrogio
to Venice--we (Olga and I) were talking about EP's
attitudes of the late 30s, when she leaned over the
back seat and said, in a low voice, into my ear: "You
know, Ezra was off his rocker."  It struck me as an
unusually unguarded remark for her to make, and she
made sure--obviously--that EP didn't hear her.  But
who knows what mindgames she was playing with me?!
 
==Dan
 
At 11:02 AM 9/10/99 GMT, you wrote:
>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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