Well not to spill all the beans (but there’s so many of them) but one of the items author
Pat Thomas has listed among his favorites in the just-recently-released Material Wealth
(and which he alluded to in his notice last week) – “a bizarre letter that Allen sent to the American Nazi Party during the George Lincoln Rockwell era, something about “I heard you wanted to kill me, can we meet and discuss it?”
Well, here’s the said item:
headed: “To American Nazi Party Office , 2124 North Damon, Chicago, Ill, USA”.
Dear Sirs, I hear you have opened an office and have discussions & someone sent me your address and said you wanted to kill me. That’s a very scary idea. Is it for real or is just bullshit gossip! In any case, I am very interested. Please let me have more information about me especially what it is you’re annoyed with me about, if you are really annoyed – and why and what it is you would like me to do, if you have any thoughts about the matter. As you can see the matter concerns me and you so we ought to get in touch with each other. Please also send me your literature and an application form for membership in your group, it may be we have much in common. Sincerely, Allen Ginsberg
ps – it is very hot here in Calcutta but the monsoons have just begun. I am living on the top floor of a Moslem hotel in the bazaar district & have been broke the last few weeks but I eat in Chinatown where food is cheap”
“it may be we have much in common” – (Allen is being gracious and polite, but clearly not literal/serious here).
Similarly, his request for “your literature” (sic) and “an application form for membership”
(he is following his practice of being informed, gathering primary information, (infiltrating, if you will), so he can be giving his adversaries, (and those most extreme, most marginalized), the widest possible berth) – making a sincere attempt at compassion and understanding
and here’s another of his forays (guileless forays) into the actual face of, the epicenter, of evil Ginsberg phones up Henry Kissinger, proposing a meeting to end the Vietnam War – see here
that monstrosity (fat chance!) might be open to sagacity and reason!