Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting Q: What is with all the men’s magazines? A: Oh, I read them for the articles. Really? In part. Take exhibit A: the July 1961 issue of Swank. For anybody interested in the textual history of Naked Lunch, this issue proves to be…
Tag: Beat Generation
And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks
Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting For the obsessed, the pursuit of the subject of fascination inevitably ends in minutiae. If that subject is an author, it means that the entire bibliography has been analyzed and devoured. The secondary sources have been exhausted. The pursuit has bled over into…
Beats at Auction, April 2008
Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting Looking over eBay results in the last few weeks and reviewing the prices realized for the latest PBA Galleries Beat sale, I thought of two important little mags from the post-WWII era: Judson Crews’ Suck Egg Mule and Ian Hamilton Finlay’s Poor.Old.Tired.Horse. Yes…
Beatific Soul: Jack Kerouac On the Road
Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting On entering the New York Public Library on 42nd Street and 5th Avenue, the first thing you see is Jack Kerouac’s name lit up in neon. Beatific Soul: Jack Kerouac’s On the Road, the headlining exhibit at the library, is clearly a big…
The David Oakey Collection of Gary Snyder
Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting Whenever I see a notice for an auction of an individual’s collection, my first thoughts are not so much about the books in the collection, but about the motivation for the sale. Why is he/she selling their books? I must admit the scenarios…
The Groff Auction of Bukowski and the Ronan Sale of Beat Literature
Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting This piece may be old news as the Groff Auction of Bukowski and the Ronan Sale of Beat Literature took place roughly a month ago, but a look at the financial pages highlights that auctions and collectibles are very much a breaking story….
Kulchur 4
Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting Onward, as Robert Creeley would say. Let’s move to Kulchur 4. What strikes me about this issue is Burroughs and Kerouac’s picture on the cover. Gilbert Sorrentino guest-edited this issue. In his essay in The Little Magazine in America collection, Sorrentino writes, “Marian…
Kulchur 3
Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting I have not read all twenty issues of Kulchur cover to cover, but of the issues I have sampled, I enjoy Kulchur 3 the most. Issue 3 presents Kulchur at its most Beat. William Burroughs (“In Search of Yage”), Jack Kerouac (“Dave”), Gary…
Burroughs and Beats in Men’s Magazines: Introduction
Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting In the last few weeks, eBay featured a couple of men’s magazines with William Burroughs appearances. A nice copy of Man’s Wildcat Adventures attracted several bidders and sold to a book dealer in California. Later, a copy of the little known British magazine…
Ten San Francisco Poets
Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting When it rains it pours. In the space of a week, several wonderful LPs fell into my lap. I found a beautiful copy of Jack Kerouac’s second record on Hanover, Blues and Haikus, at a bookstore in Washington DC. On eBay, I won…
Baird Bryant
Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting I often talk about little magazines in the context of a literary or artistic community. I am filled with nostalgia for the literary circles from 1945-1970, but there are loads of vibrant networks active right this minute. I have been lucky enough to…