Comments on: William Burroughs City Lights Flyer

By: Dave Balcer

Dave Balcer — Fri, 11 Mar 2016 14:35:29 +0000

Gotham Book Mart Archives? Wow. I know someone (a big wig) who works @ Penn. Does this mean I’d be able to get access? What’s the process?

By: Ben Ward

Ben Ward — Sun, 21 Apr 2013 02:38:31 +0000

Love it. Glad to see your acumen at dating the poster, and wonderful to see that interest in Burroughs lives on.

By: jed

jed — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 19:38:48 +0000

J Lynn

A really good point. All I can say is that my bibliomania sometimes leads me to go to the Man for my fix. As Burroughs knew, addiction makes you do terrible things. The Bunker is part of a 12-step program to atone for my various book collecting sins.

By: J Lynn

J Lynn — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 15:12:02 +0000

Fantastic story, although I found it ironic that the link for Bill Morgan’s book takes you to Amazon, of all places. Surely there’s a way to get this shipped from an independent seller, yes? Regardless, very cool the way this historic item took you on such an interesting journey.

By: jed

jed — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 00:31:17 +0000

Jim,

Great to here from you. The paper is 8.5 X 11 and appears to be a sheet of City Lights letterhead stationery. That has been magic markered.

No watermark and the paper is beat up. I havent seen City Lights letterhead/business correspondence in person so I am not sure what type of paper they used, but it seems that this sheet is of low quality.

By: Jim Pennington

Jim Pennington — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 20:50:04 +0000

you’ld not think a flyer from 1978 would have age-toned but my guess is that this functioned as a poster and soaked up those toning rays to give it its colour and friability.
Question: what size is the flyer? In UK a flyer is generally smaller than A4/Quarto and would be too small to use as a poster.
and talking of paper qualities, does it have a watermark?

By: jed

jed — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 15:22:27 +0000

The archives of Gotham Book Mart are at University of Pennsylvania. Over 200,000 items. That announcement card should be in the archive along with documentation about the show. I would call the library or see if they have catalogued the holdings yet.

By: bigcrux

bigcrux — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 14:17:31 +0000

Are you taking on any new cases, Birmingham, P.I. ?? Where do I begin to determine when THE MOROCCAN ART OF MOHAMMED MRABET exhibit was held at Gotham Book Mart? I have a postcard that features a long Burroughs quote/comment on the art. The face of the card states THE MOROCCAN ART OF MOHAMMED MRABET – 29 works through April 3rd…Gotham Book Mart Gallery 41 West 47th Street New York City
I am thinking early 60s but??

By: Davee mac

Davee mac — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 10:52:48 +0000

wonderful! who would have thought a single piece of paper could provide so much joy (for you in tracking down the mystery, and us for reading about your detective work!). I’m slooowly getting into the ‘collecting old books’ bug, and i got tingles of joy reading your thoughts on paper-fetishising and ‘collectors tv’. Looks like tv in the USA is all too similar to programmes here in the UK!