Correspondence #65: Ryan Mathews
Not missing a Beat
Email, November 27th, 2025
Hi Simon,
Re: the Harry Tsvi Strauch’s comment today about David Amran and Joyce Johnson being the last of the original Beats … what about Gary Snyder and Joanna McClure? They’re still with us.
Pegarty Long is still alive and well in Venice.
Pictured above: Poet Joanna McClure – still very much around
And you have the generation right behind them, folks like Clive Matson, Gerald Nicosia, etc.
I agree with your correspondent. They are fading fast, but they aren’t quite ALL gone.
Hope all is well.
Ryan
See also: ‘Correspondence #64: Harry Tsvi Strauch’, November 27th, 2025
On this Thanksgiving day, let us give thanks to those who remain, those that inspired them that do. And, of course, let us eat to the beat!
Yes, Pamela, you are right I forgot to mention Charley Plymell. But in a synchronistical way, I did attend a party in the lower Haight Ashbury in 1966 put on by Michael Ferguson and Chloe who owned the Magic Theatre for mad men only, Alan Ginsberg was there spouting and gesticulating in the living room and I happen to run into Charley in the bedroom being filmed by Bill Hamm