Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting Introduction In the summer of 1963, poet Paul Blackburn wrote an essay in Kulchur 10 entitled “The Grinding Down,” which mapped the contemporary landscape of the Mimeo Revolution and lamented for those beloved days of yore when Robert Creeley’s editorial vision surveyed the…
Tag: Little Magazines
Rhinozeros — Subscribe Now
Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting Subscribe now. Written by Jed Birmingham and published by RealityStudio on 8 July 2012.
Carl Weissner in My Own Mag
My Own Mag 12, Page 5 Carl Weissner, “Interior,” May 1965 My Own Mag 13, Page 2 Carl Weissner, “Mailbag Cuttings Re Meeting Suggested in Mag 12,” August 1965 My Own Mag 14, Page 3 Carl Weissner, [Correspondence,] December 1965 My Own Mag 14, Page 10 Carl Weissner, “The Moving Times,” December 1965 My Own…
Weissneriana
“Demolition Plan 23” Text by Carl Weissner, International Times 60 (July 18-31, 1969) Fruit Cup: No. Zero Includes cut-up by Carl Weissner, “Historia de Chiquita D.,” published by Beach Books, New York, 1969 Download Complete Fruit Cup Fruit Cup: No. Zero Includes cut-up by Carl Weissner, “Historia de Chiquita D.,” published by Beach Books, New…
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…
Intrepid Archive
Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting Intrepid 1 Intrepid 2 Intrepid 3 Intrepid 4 Intrepid 5 Intrepid 6 Intrepid 7 Intrepid 8 Intrepid 9 Intrepid 10 Intrepid 11-12 Intrepid 13 Intrepid 14-15 Intrepid 16 Intrepid 17 Intrepid 18-19 Intrepid 20 Intrepid 21-22 Intrepid 23-24 Intrepid 25-35 Intrepid 36-38 Intrepid…
Jan Herman and the Fold
Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting At the DC Book Fair I was pleasantly surprised to see a small collection of books about the Beats huddled together at a book dealer’s stall. Interesting Beat books are few and far between in the nation’s capital. So what if they were…
Jan Herman as Writer
In Answer to Questions from Jean-Jacques Lebel Jan HermanIn Answer to Questions from Jean-Jacques LebelThe San Francisco Earthquake 31968 Jan HermanIn Answer to Questions from Jean-Jacques LebelThe San Francisco Earthquake 31968 Jan HermanIn Answer to Questions from Jean-Jacques LebelThe San Francisco Earthquake 31968 Jan HermanIn Answer to Questions from Jean-Jacques LebelThe San Francisco Earthquake 31968…
Jan Herman as Publisher
The San Francisco Earthquake The San Francisco Earthquake 1 1967 Contains William S. Burroughs, “Word Authority More Habit Forming Than Heroin” (C175) The San Francisco Earthquake 21968 Contains William S. Burroughs, “Salt Chunk Mary” (C217) and “Last Awning Flaps on the Pier” (C218) The San Francisco Earthquake 31968 The San Francisco Earthquake 41968 Contains William S….
Jan Herman as Artist
Jan Herman“This Is My Song” CollageVDRSVPNova Broadcast Press1969 Fantastic Architecture Something Else Press 1971 Ed Sanders“Hairy Table” Design by Jan HermanKaleidoscope (Milwaukee underground paper)19 Sept 1970Reprinted from San Francisco Earthquake 4 Jan Herman“Deadline Telegram” Mark in Time: Poets & Poetry / San FranciscoGlide Publications1971 Jan HermanNixon’s Banquet Collage1972 Jan HermanNotre Dame de Vidéo Video1972 Jan…
William S. Burroughs’ “Abstracts”
The “Abstracts” As an Attempt to Write the Immediate Image By Dave Teeuwen The “Abstracts” of 1969 are a series of seven writing experiments which William Burroughs developed in the writing of his novel The Wild Boys. He published these “Abstracts” that year in small-press journals and underground newspapers, his usual testing ground in the…
Abstract (Lip 1969)
A Text by William S. Burroughs With an Introduction by Dave Teeuwen In 1969 William Burroughs published seven short pieces titled “Abstract” and sent them out to various small-press literary magazines and underground newspapers. Throughout the 1960s Burroughs was extremely active with the alternative press. Bibliographies of his work show that he was published hundreds…
Interview with Alex Neish, Editor of Jabberwock and Sidewalk
Jabberwock Talk: The Scottish Drug (Literature) Connection by Graham Rae Well, the internet certainly can lead you to some interesting and unexpected places. After seeing him mentioned on RealityStudio and on Nakedlunch.org, I recently became intrigued by Alex Neish, a Scotsman who put out an issue of the Edinburgh University Review entitled Jabberwock in 1959…
Interview with Tom Veitch on William S. Burroughs
Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting Let’s start with Literary Days. Can you describe that book? Literary Days is a 25-page 8.5×11 pamphlet edited by Ted Berrigan from two longer works — a novel called WHATS that I wrote in 1963 and a novel called Malgmo’s End that Ted…
Bunker Interviews
Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting In the My Own Mag section of the Bunker, there is a long interview with Islwyn Watkins that allows readers to get a fuller picture of the community within which My Own Mag started and flourished. That interview inspired me to try and…
Semina Culture
Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting You know how today we store up, shoring up, fragments of better days, against these our so fragmentary lives. Stephen Jonas, “A Poem for Tony Sherrod” Floating Bear 35 The weekend before St. Pat’s, I rode the Chinatown bus up to New York…
Kulchur
Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting Kulchur 1 (View complete issue)(Spring 1960)Editor Marc Schleifer; Managing Editors: John Fles, Charles Olson, Leroi Jones, Martin Williams, Donald Phelps. Cover by Stephen Solosy. Selected Contributors: William Burroughs (“The Conspiracy”); Allen Ginsberg (“Paterson”; Diane Di Prima (“Whims”); Charles Olson (“Pieces of Time”; Basil…
Printing Techniques: Offset
Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting Before the internet and web publishing, offset printing was the major innovation of 20th Century printing. I view offset printing as commercial printing, i.e. large volume printing. (See Wikipedia.) I think of glossy, large distribution magazines, like Life or Time, or novels with…
Printing Techniques: Mimeo
Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting If the letterpress represents the magazine or book as high art, the mimeograph machine epitomizes lo-fi production. The master of the mimeograph machine must first of all be a master of the stencil. The stencil is a floppy wax sheet backed by carbon…
Printing Techniques: Letterpress
Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting I have said it before, but I must once again recommend Steven Clay and Rodney Phillips’ A Secret Location on the Lower East Side. I reread it and it is as informative and fascinating as ever. This book, more than any other, shaped…
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…
Yage Redux
Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting The first edition of Yage Letters published by City Lights in 1963 is a slim and seemingly unassuming book. The cover has become famous and the book sells well, but it remains largely undiscovered territory to scholars. Only 18,000 words long and struggling…
Regrets
Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting Regrets. Every book collector has a few. Sometimes it is buyer’s remorse: a drop in the stomach when you realize you paid too much for an item. Often, the collector feels the persistent burn of desire when a highly prized book is passed…
Published High and Low: Men’s Magazines, the Pulps and Academic Journals
Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting According to Beat legend, the shooting death of Joan Vollmer gave birth to William Burroughs, the writer. Grief and guilt forced Burroughs to the typewriter. The work of recent Beat historians, like Oliver Harris’ William Burroughs and the Secret of Fascination, separates the…
Obscenity and the Post Office
Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting Several years ago, I had an argument with my step father regarding the Ginsberg obscenity trial. He thought the trial occurred in the 1960s in Pennsylvania. I was sure the trial took place in San Francisco in 1957. Turns out we were both…
Locus Solus
Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting The history and contents of the magazine Locus Solus provide insight into the type of progressive poetry circles and ideas Burroughs started tapping into with his small scale, textual cut-up works of the early 1960s. A testament to refined taste, Locus Solus was…
Kiss and Couch
Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting Rolling Stone magazine just celebrated its 1000th cover with a tribute to / touching up of the legendary Sgt. Pepper album cover. Reportedly, the new cover cost over $1 million to produce. It is fun and interesting, but I doubt it will reach…
At the Kerouac Fest
Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting The following powerpoint was presented on September 8, 2006 at the final Kerouac Fest in Windber, PA. For more on Kerouac Fest and the wonderful activities of host Blair Murphy see thecemetery.net. The presentation covers many of the topics that I have been…
Jan Herman and William S. Burroughs
Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting It was in 2006 that Jed Birmingham wrote the following text about the relationship between William S. Burroughs and Jan Herman, publisher, writer, artist, and connoisseur of the cut-up. It is with tremendous pleasure that RealityStudio now uses that text as the introduction…
Interpol
Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting By the late 1950s, literary magazines were much on Burroughs’ mind. He was no longer satisfied with publishing his numerous routines in letters to Allen Ginsberg. Naked Lunch began to take shape as a novel and Burroughs sought a larger audience. Mainstream publishing…
Insect Trust Gazette
Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting Little magazines tend to streak across the literary sky like a comet briefly full of passion, poetry and prose before disappearing out of view. Few little magazines last several issues and fewer make a lasting cultural or artistic impression. For every Paris Review…
Floating Bear
Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting Also see Jed Birmingham’s Floating Bear Archive and article on Floating Bear 24. After my deal to obtain Floating Bear #24 fell through a month or so ago, Floating Bears have been much on my mind. I broke down and bought a run…
Floating Bear Archive
Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting For more information about Floating Bear, see Jed Birmingham’s articles on Floating Bear and Floating Bear 24. You can also download this spreadsheet mapping the recipients to whom copies of Floating Bear were mailed. Floating Bear 1February 1961 Download Floating Bear 2February 1961…
Floating Bear 24
Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting Book collecting is full of regrets and missed opportunities as much as exciting acquisitions. Previously, I wrote about some of my regrets: the biggest involving a complete set of Black Mountain Review. I have also had my share of books and magazines slip…
The Edwin Blair Auction of Beat Literature
Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting The Edwin Blair sale is over and the results highlight issues raised in posts to RealityStudio. Manuscripts, the Olympia Press Naked Lunch, vinyl and even the Olympia Ticket That Exploded are all headline stories in the Burroughs items up for sale. Without a…
Burroughs in Germany and Belgium
Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting Living in the Beat Hotel in Paris and traveling around Europe in the 1960s, William Burroughs possessed the opportunity to rub elbows with several avant-garde circles active at the time. Previously, I wrote about Burroughs and his relationship with Scottish literary magazines. In…
Burroughs and Scotland
Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting A recent post mentioned the Edinburgh Beat scene. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, William Burroughs appeared in several Scottish literary magazines and made a memorable appearance at the International Writers Conference in Edinburgh. I have often wondered why Scotland was a…
Yage Letters Redux
RealityStudio Reviews the New Edition Prepared by Oliver Harris It is an acknowledged paradox at the heart of William S. Burroughs’ work that his greatest books called into question how much they were even his. Whereas Samuel Beckett tried to eviscerate the novel from within — to “naughten” it, to borrow a term from Heidegger…