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: Obscenity
John Ciardi: From Doodle Soup to Naked Lunch and Back Again
Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting Read a lot of William Burroughs and soon enough you’ll find evidence of him everywhere. A sense of paranoia develops where everything becomes touched with the Burroughsian. Couple this fascination with a case of bibliomania and it can seem that Burroughs lurks on…
1962 International Writers’ Conference
Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting The Third Mind images from Paris are not the only goodies we have received from our readers. Chris Hughes, a reader from Scotland, forwarded me some scans from a program for the Edinburgh Festival of 1962. 2007 marked the 45th anniversary of the…
Burroughs and Beats in Men’s Magazines: William Burroughs Appearances in Adult Men’s Magazines
Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting This list is by no means comprehensive, although I attempted to make it as complete as possible. I combed through Maynard & Miles and Eric Shoaf’s Checklist marking down all the men’s magazines with William Burroughs fiction, essays, or interviews. I took adult…
Burroughs and Beats in Men’s Magazines: Burroughs
Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting Continued from Part 1, Introduction to Burroughs and Beats in Men’s Magazines. From the 1950s to the late 1970s, William Burroughs supplied men’s magazines with fiction, essays, and interviews. The sheer number of pieces Burroughs provided to the skin trade is amazing. Burroughs…
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…
Burroughs Ephemera 3: Naked Lunch Prospectus Letter
Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting See also Ephemera 1: Olympia Press Catalog and Ephemera 2: Naked Lunch Prospectus.” The recent columns on Burroughs ephemera generated a bit of interest in the Burroughs community. Forum member BigTable was kind enough to send RealityStudio scans of his copy of the…
Burroughs Ephemera 2: Naked Lunch Prospectus
Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting See also Ephemera 1: Olympia Press Catalog and the transcription of Terry Southern’s oft-quoted essay, “A Devastating Ridicule of All That Is False.” Just how high-minded Girodias’s attack on censorship and obscenity laws was is up for debate. Although he was far from…
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…
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…
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…
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…