well done. muy interesting. i envy your time with the artifacts and appreciate
your observations, especially the correlation to magic, possession. but now you have me wondering about that correspondence with ian somerville, who along with brion were his sorcerer collaborators. radio static…fade out mambo music…

With respect to William S. Burroughs and ‘nostalgia,’ Thom’s excellent report takes me back to 1973-74, after I had received a copy of “A Descriptive Catalog of the William S. Burroughs Archive” – London: Covent Garden Press.

I spent months of study with this catalog, enchanted with many of the photographs reproduced and intrigued with all of the texts.

Thom’s notes on the horoscope from THE SUN, June 21 1972, pasted into a typescript are charming, and serve as a fine example of the rather high caliber of the uncanny which inhabits the archive.

All the best with the thesis, Thom.

Nice piece. I wonder if there’s maybe a “not” missing from the following?

“Given The Sun‘s longstanding reputation as Britain’s most scurrilous tabloid, it’s hard to imagine how Burroughs came across the horoscope in the first place…”

The wikipedia entry for Murdoch’s rag includes this:

“The tabloid Sun first published on 17 November 1969, with a front page headlined “HORSE DOPE SENSATION”…”

Excellent article. Your concise points made me rethink Burroughs’ work too. It also made me want to see this archive; I presume you have to have a letter from a university to get in? Is there anyway a guy like me who is merely an enthusiast could spend a couple of days looking through some of it?

Also inspiring to learn more about the different methods Mr B used to generate his material; I am reinspired to try some similar approaches in my own humble efforts to write stories…

fascinating stuff!!

i hope the thesis will find its way into print, a la ‘Queer Burroughs’??

The copy of The Sun was most probably left my Bill’s live in boyfriend Johnny Brady. Johnny read the Sun.