The Allen Ginsberg Connection. Part III
From Cherry Valley to Muktananda to Maharaji to Forever.
My new online friend Michael from Vancouver, who is very interested in the 60’s beat scenes and Greece, hence me and Ginsberg, Residu, Richter, Cholst, Valouritis and Corso just out of the blue said he received by mistake a treasure trove of Ginsberg-Zimardi correspondence from the Stanford archives. Letters that I never received from the curator last year (Maharaji again).
Michael original email:
There is discussion of Residu 1 and 2 in this talk by a Greek scholar just last year. Fascinating!! You must look at it and let me know if she has this right. The Residu material starts at around minute 31 however there is lots before that about the Beats and Ginsburg in Greece.
"The Reception of American Literature in Greece in the Long 1960s” | Maria Nikolopoulou
Background from Dan Richter, mime, actor, friend: Dhammadipo and I joined (Princess) Zina and Ronnie (Vial) in Athens. Ron, Johnny and I found a place to rent at number 2 Dafnomili, high up on Lykavittos hill. The old house sat baking in the sun with a view over Athens, Piraeus, and the sea beyond. We were joined by an array of hip characters; Johnny’s friend Psychedelic Ben, Peter “Skyfuck” Zimmels, Ron Zimardi and many more. Out on the island of Hydra, the beautiful Marianne was living with her boyfriend the Canadian poet Leonard Cohen who wanted to turn his poems into songs. Jill, my first wife, had landed in Athens with stories of the underground scene in Morocco where she had worked on the poetry review Gnaoua with Ira Cohen. Together Jill and I (and Ron Zimardi) published a poetry review called Residu that embodied the new hip ethos that had taken over my life.
This link will take you to the remaining Ginsberg letters I sent him that are not in Substack Part I and II Allen Ginsberg. (He saves like a squirrel, I didn’t. Well, Stanford did, God bless their soul.)
https://www.dropbox.com/s/imhmbf6cj3t8lvh/ron%20ginsberg%20ashramletter.pdf?dl=0
I don’t know what else to tell you, the letters are unique and revealing if you can plow through them. Anyone want to type them out, blessings. I don’t even remember the many faces of Ron as told in these letters, somehow he seems more loving than I am now. That’s because I have become the Angel of Death.
