Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker

Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting

Michael Rumaker to Don Allen, July 9, 1964

How do you like the new format of Evergreen. Looks like Barney’s trying to be the Hugh Heffner of the writing world — they seem to have something in common — Heffner, that movie, leaning up against the balustrade, saying into the camera,, “When I was a woman . . .” The Genet piece is so beautiful. And that’s about it. I like some of those photographs. But, o dear god, Burroughs is a Bore! (I almost get strangled when I say this downtown) Whyn’t he take off his cruddy gym sneaks and stand on the ground, damn him. If only his world were the reality of an egg, that’d be something. But all this puking, smarmy laziness. Cut-ups indeed! Whyn’t he get off his pinpricked ass and write a decent piece of prose (like there were moments of in Naked Lunch), just moments.