Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting An installment in The Visible Man: A Coffee Table Zine of Photographs of William S. Burroughs In the last few years there has been a trend in book-collecting circles of getting away from traditional books in favor of ephemeral documents like photographs and…
Tag: Allen Ginsberg
Don’t Hide the Madness
Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting Don’t Hide the Madness: William S. Burroughs in Conversation with Allen Ginsberg, edited by Steven Taylor There is no single, right way to tell the story of William Burroughs. Here was a guy who distrusted and refused to believe in the tyranny of…
William S. Burroughs and John Wieners’ Measure
Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting I’m that type of guy that gets lost in the footnotes. So ridiculous, but more often than not there is a ton of cool information to be found in there. Read beneath the lines because many times the real story lies buried at…
Birth
Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting Last month, Alex Wermer-Colan, intrigued by the virtual Bibliographic Bunker, sought out its physical location for a brief twenty-four hours. Specifically, Alex wanted to get direct access to the magazine appearances from 1959-1965 in order to recreate the contemporary encounter with Burroughs and…
Index to the Contents of C: A Journal of Poetry
Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting C: A Journal of Poetry No. 1 (May 1963) Cover Page: A title page and table of contents [i] Endless Resoundings Fill the RCMM — Dick Gallup [1] Ember Grease — Dick Gallup [2] It’s Everywhere, Like So Much Glue — Dick Gallup…
Collecting William S. Burroughs and the Arts
Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting There are a lot of “what ifs” in book collecting. What if I had bought this and not that? What if I had more money? Or more time? What if I collected this and not that? “What if I did not collect William…
William S. Burroughs, Jacques Stern, and The Fluke
An Archive of Materials by and about Jacques Stern Including the Complete Text of The Fluke William S. Burroughs had known Jacques Loup Stern for little more than a year when he declared the man a “great writer.” Writing from the Beat Hotel in Paris on June 8, 1959, Burroughs reported to Allen Ginsberg that…
Archive of Charles Plymell’s The Last Times
Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting The Last Times was an underground newspaper published in San Francisco in 1967 by poet and printer Charles Plymell. It contained works by William S. Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, Charles Bukowski, Robert Crumb, Carl Weissner, Claude Pélieu, Mary Beach, Antonin Artaud, and others. Issue…
Rhinozeros 5
Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting Rhinozeros #5 Front cover Rhinozeros #5 “Song” by David Meltzer Rhinozeros #5 “Song of the Tusk” by Anselm Hollo Rhinozeros #5 “Attention!” by Gregory Corso Rhinozeros #5 Poem by Michael McClure Rhinozeros #5 “An Africa Ode” by Edward Dorn Rhinozeros #5 “Spel 1”…
Kulchur 1
Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting Kulchur 1 Front Kulchur 1 Title Page Kulchur 1 Table of Contents Kulchur 1 William Burroughs“The Conspiracy” Kulchur 1 Kulchur 1 Erick Hawkins“Here and Now” Kulchur 1 Donald Phelps“The Muck School” Kulchur 1 Kulchur 1 Kulchur 1 Kulchur 1 Diane Di Prima“Whims” Charles…
Review of Beat Memories: The Photographs of Allen Ginsberg at the National Gallery
Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting I have lived and worked in the Washington DC area for over 15 years and have yet to take full advantage of all the opportunities DC’s museums offer. Hell, they’re free and air-conditioned; what more could you want on a stifling day in…
The Lager Letters (A Satirical Review of The Yage Letters)
Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting In Burroughs’ first appearance in Chicago Review in 1958, he is presented as a San Francisco poet. As Linda Richman would say, Burroughs was neither in San Francisco nor a poet, discuss. Well, to say the least, many poets in San Francisco were…
UFO
UFO was a little mag put out by Udo Breger and Expanded Media Editions. Edited by Breger, Carl Weissner, Jürgen Ploog, and Jörg Fauser, it published their work alongside other writers such as William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, Claude Pélieu, Mary Beach, Timothy Leary, et al. UFO 1 June 1971 UFO 2 October 1971 UFO 3…
Gasolin 23
In 1971 Carl Weissner, working with Jürgen Ploog and Jörg Fauser, produced the first issue of a new zine called Gasolin. It contained a loose collection of manuscripts, letters, and cut-ups. Subsequent issues would appear intermittently until 1986. As with Klacto, Gasolin 23 was notable for its experimentalism and its quality roster of contributors, which…
Klactoveedsedsteen
Klactoveedsedsteen — the title came from a 1947 Charlie Parker album — was a little mag begun by Weissner in 1965 and distributed through his own PANic Press. Five issues, each in a different format, appeared in two years. The zine was notable for its experimentalism and the quality of its contributors, which included William…
45th Anniversary of the International Poetry Incarnation at Royal Albert Hall
Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting The 1960s began in Britain exactly forty-five years ago on 11 June 1965. The International Poetry Incarnation at Royal Albert Hall featured Alexander Trocchi, Harry Fainlight, Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Gregory Corso, Anselm Hollo, Simon Vinkenoog and host of others. The disembodied voice…
The Death of Bill Cannastra
Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting Each day of the work week I spend roughly four hours commuting. By and large, I sit in the same seat, on the same car, at the same time, with the same people. Monday through Friday. Month after month. For three years now….
Jan Herman as Journalist
Jan HermanGinsberg’s Poetics: From Illusion to EnlightenmentInterview with Allen Ginsberg in Boulder, ColoradoLos Angeles Times24 Feb 1980 Jan HermanBurroughs at 70, His Surrealistic Vision Still CookingReview of Place of Dead Roads Chicago Sun-Times25 Feb 1984 Jan HermanLiterary Saint and SinnerPhone Interview with William S. Burroughs Chicago Sun-Times25 March 1984 Jan Herman“Buried” Novel Comes to LightReview…
We Saw the Light
Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting A while back I reviewed Daniel Kane’s Don’t Ever Get Famous, a book of essays he edited on the New York School of poets. Kane’s decision to stray from the beaten path was one of the selling points of that book. No heavy…
Philip Whalen and the Beats
Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting In July 1976, Gordon Ball took a photograph of William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg and Philip Whalen sitting in a sauna or sweat lodge. It has become an iconic image for me. Even more so after having just read Whalen’s Collected Poems edited by…
The Letters of Allen Ginsberg
Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting When I was briefly in graduate school in 1995, I was fascinated by the fate of the letter in the digital age. While studying abroad at King’s College in 1992, I wrote letters weekly and eagerly checked my mailbox daily. Just three years…
William Burroughs in Mademoiselle
Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting On the flipside of the men’s magazine is the fashion magazine. The porno industry represents the seedy underbelly of the seemingly glamorous fashion industry. Both worlds expressed an interest in the Beats in the 1950s and 1960s. In her landmark memoir, Minor Characters,…
Charles Plymell and Now
Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting When I began collecting William Burroughs in 1993, the junk that fed my book habit was the signed titles derived from and relating to the Naked Lunch Word Horde. The Olympia Press Naked Lunch was the ideal fix, and I would have crawled…
Letters to Allen Ginsberg
Geneva: Claude Givaudan/Am Here Books 1978, an edition of 100 numbered copies signed by Burroughs. Text in English only. Hardbound in a clear acetate dust jacket with facsimile signatures printed in blue. Published simultaneously with the bilingual edition listed below. _____ the trade edition limited to 400 numbered copies. Hardbound with clear acetate dust jacket…
Yugen
Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting Several years ago, I wrote on the potential joys of collecting Charles Olson. Olson loomed as a literal giant over the small press and little magazine scene from 1950 until his death in 1970. As a result, his work appeared in some of…
Fragment of an Interview with Allen Ginsberg
(Originally appeared in the Berkeley Barb, 1974) Interviewer: I’d like to return to Burroughs’ theory of evil. What would you say is its source? Ginsberg: Well, originally it was analyzed by William Lee the factualist (perhaps representative of a trust of giant insects from another galaxy) in Naked Lunch. But since then in Nova Express…
Interview with William S. Burroughs
(Originally appeared in Journal For the Protection of All Beings, 1961) By Gregory Corso and Allen Ginsberg Gregory Corso: What is your department? William Burroughs: Kunst und Wissenschaft. Gregory Corso: What say you about political conflicts? William Burroughs: Political conflicts are merely surface manifestations. If conflicts arise you may be sure that certain powers intend…
The Boston Trial of Naked Lunch
Boston, Mass., once the scene of such famous censorship trials as those involving Forever Amber, God’s Little Acre, and, more recently, Tropic of Cancer, again attracted a distinguished gathering of literary luminaries on January 12, 1965, when “A Book Named Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs” found itself the defendant in Boston Superior Court before…