From
Robert
B. Weide: ''On Saturday, June 21st, a public tribute/celebration
honoring Allen Ginsberg was held at the Wadsworth
Theater in Los Angeles for an audience of approximately
1,500 people. Vonnegut was asked to speak, but had
plans to be out of the country on that date. He did
agree to write an original piece for the ocassion,
provided that someone else could read it at the event.
I was asked to perform that honor, which I gladly
accepted.''
Please,
please, please. Nobody else die!
Allen
Ginsberg and I were inducted into the American Institute
of Arts and Letters in 1973. A reporter from Newsweek
telephoned me at that time, and asked me what I thought
about two such outsiders being absorbed by the Establishment.
I replied, "If we aren't the Establishment, I don't
know who is."
Allen
was inducted nominally as a poet, but had in fact become
world-famous for the radiant love and innocence of his
person, from head to toe.
Let
us be frank, and admit that the greatest poetry satisfies
few deep appetites in modern times. But the appearance
in our industrialized midst of a man without guile or
political goals or congregation, who was doing his utmost
to become wise and holy, was for many of us a surprising,
anachronistic feast for our souls.
Allen
and I met at a dinner given in Cambridge by the Harvard
Lampoon in 1970. We would hold hands during the ensuing
entertainment.
I
had returned from witnessing the end of a civil war
in southern Nigeria. The losing side, the rebellious
Ibos, had been blockaded for more than a year. There
had been widespread starvation. I was there with my
fellow novelist Vance Bourjailly. We arrived on a blockade-running
Catholic relief DC-3. We were surrounded at once by
starving children begging for mercy. They had distended
bellies, everted rectums, hair turned yellow, running
sores, that sort of thing. They were also dirty.
We
were afraid to touch them, least we get an infection
to take back home. But Vance was ashamed of his squeamishness.
He said that if Allen Ginsberg had been with us, Allen
would have hugged the children, and gone down on his
knees and played with them.
I
told this story at the Lampoon dinner, and then said
directly to Allen: ''We have not met before, sir, but
such is your reputation.''
From
Robert
B. Weide: ''On Saturday, June 21st, a public tribute/celebration
honoring Allen Ginsberg was held at the Wadsworth
Theater in Los Angeles for an audience of approximately
1,500 people. Vonnegut was asked to speak, but had
plans to be out of the country on that date. He did
agree to write an original piece for the ocassion,
provided that someone else could read it at the event.
I was asked to perform that honor, which I gladly
accepted.''
Please,
please, please. Nobody else die!
Allen
Ginsberg and I were inducted into the American Institute
of Arts and Letters in 1973. A reporter from Newsweek
telephoned me at that time, and asked me what I thought
about two such outsiders being absorbed by the Establishment.
I replied, "If we aren't the Establishment, I don't
know who is."
Allen
was inducted nominally as a poet, but had in fact become
world-famous for the radiant love and innocence of his
person, from head to toe.
Let
us be frank, and admit that the greatest poetry satisfies
few deep appetites in modern times. But the appearance
in our industrialized midst of a man without guile or
political goals or congregation, who was doing his utmost
to become wise and holy, was for many of us a surprising,
anachronistic feast for our souls.
Allen
and I met at a dinner given in Cambridge by the Harvard
Lampoon in 1970. We would hold hands during the ensuing
entertainment.
I
had returned from witnessing the end of a civil war
in southern Nigeria. The losing side, the rebellious
Ibos, had been blockaded for more than a year. There
had been widespread starvation. I was there with my
fellow novelist Vance Bourjailly. We arrived on a blockade-running
Catholic relief DC-3. We were surrounded at once by
starving children begging for mercy. They had distended
bellies, everted rectums, hair turned yellow, running
sores, that sort of thing. They were also dirty.
We
were afraid to touch them, least we get an infection
to take back home. But Vance was ashamed of his squeamishness.
He said that if Allen Ginsberg had been with us, Allen
would have hugged the children, and gone down on his
knees and played with them.
I
told this story at the Lampoon dinner, and then said
directly to Allen: ''We have not met before, sir, but
such is your reputation.''