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 very interesting. Burroughs contributes “The Word,” “a first draft of a section of [Naked Lunch] and contains material that has never been published before — given to Swank by poet Allen Ginsberg.” In the introduction to the piece, John Fles, a former editor at Chicago Review during the Naked Lunch scandal in 1958, writes “The Word is the striptease the author does for you with the snake of language. The Word — this is just a thin slice of a 60pp unpub’d ms. — is the précis of all of Naked Lunch…” In fact, this piece of The Word manuscript appears in cannibalized form in the Atrophied Preface section of the Olympia Press and Grove Press Naked Lunch. The prefaces of the Grove and Olympia printings differ from each other and differ from this selection in Swank. In fact, this piece from Swank does not directly correspond with the version of “Word” that was published in Interzone.

In July of 1961, Naked Lunch had yet to be published by Grove. The book was, in certain circles, highly anticipated and expected at any moment. A note attached to Fles’ Introduction states that publication was expected in April or May of 1961. The book was not officially released until November 20, 1962, over a year later. One reason for the delay was the expected (and rightly so) obscenity trial following the novel’s publication. Barney Rosset and Grove Press were waiting until the time was right to defend the novel in the courts and the court of public opinion. The trials surrounding Lady Chatterley’s Lover and Tropic of Cancer set the stage. The potential obscenity trial surrounding Floating Bear 9 which published “Roosevelt After Inauguration” in June 1961 further put matters on hold. Every magazine appearance and review relating to Naked Lunch was potential material for the trial, so even this issue of Swank can be viewed as an exhibit for the defense of the novel.

This section of “The Word” coupled with Fles’ introduction stands alongside the more obvious “Deposition: Testimony Concerning A Sickness” and “Letter from a Master Addict to Dangerous Drugs” as a document that provides a statement of purpose for the seemingly immoral and inexplicable Naked Lunch. “The Word” is described as a “striptease” and a “précis.” It is an unveiling, a revealing of the mysteries of the novel. In it, Burroughs lays the text bare in his own trademark style. He shows his hand. I have written elsewhere about how the prospect of an obscenity trial dictated critical and readerly approaches to the novel that continue to be in force to this day. The peek into the flesh of Naked Lunch that Burroughs allows in Word becomes something of a complete revelation in the Deposition. Or does it? Elsewhere, I have also discussed how these statements of purpose are a drain on the power of the novel, and can be considered a con of sorts. Such ideas are by no means original to me or to critics, like Jennie Skerl or Robin Lydenberg, who made similar statements in William Burroughs: At the Front: Critical Reception, 1959-1989. There were concerns about the literary cost entailed in defending Naked Lunch back in the 1960s.

Take “Sigma Project No. 13,” the minutes from the inaugural meeting of John Calder’s Writers Night at Better Books in November 1964 that included Peter Brook, John Arden, and Adrian Mitchell discussing The Theatre and Its Future. This single mimeographed sheet was a supplement to the Moving Times, a rather nebulous newspaper / little magazine project of Burroughs’ that appeared in My Own Mag as well as in a broadside poster issued by the Sigma Project as Project No. 1. The minutes state, 

How much longer must we wait before it dawns on us that the world of William Burroughs’ Naked Lunch is far more real and even at its most phantasmagoric, more to the point than this blind, self-perpetuating, hysterical delusion we call modern civilization.

The fact that we can allow ourselves again and again to be sidetracked into “seriously” discussing whether Burroughs’ book is “obscene” or “art” or anything else underscores how deeply we are immersed in our delusion and just how widely we have missed the point he is making.

Our tactics for defending its publication must surely be relative to the nature of the resistance it engenders and, if they are to be effective, must break entirely with the terms in which that resistance in (sic) expressed. They must be an OUTFLANKING.

The time is NOW. The climate is changing. Let us indulge no longer in the kind of mutual masturbation that will allow the Times Cultural Consensate to show your benevolent faces (incolour) lined up behind Mr. Wesker’s record player as is pumps Bach’s 42nd concerto for Wind, Culture and Community down the coal-mines of the Provinces.

Calder published Naked Lunch in the United Kingdom in 1964 so a similar process of defense to Grove’s was in progress at the time of this meeting. Champions of Naked Lunch were offended by all the various stripteases surrounding Naked Lunch. Some things should be left to the imagination.

Clearly, the July 1961 issue of Swank proves of interest to those immersed in Burroughs on several levels. This issue advertised itself as “the search for sex in hipdom’s high society.” Here are articles on jazz (Charles Parker), blues (Billie Holiday), the French, modern art, and beatniks. Jonas Mekas, the critical voice of underground cinema, contributes an article entitled “The Honest Art of Hollywood.” Tuli Kupferberg, who later gained fame as a member of the Fugs, writes an article. Check out Tuli’s staple bound treasures from around 1961/1962, Yeah and Birth, if you get a chance. They are a sign of the times around the corner. Similarly, the gumbo of obsessions that boiled over later in the decade is present in this issue of Swank.

I mentioned in an earlier post that a collection of men’s magazines is an inexpensive way to collect the writers of the Beat Generation. As you can see from this issue of Swank, such a collection is very informative as well. The multifaceted role of sex in the avant-garde and counterculture is a field that has been turned over by scholars for years, but there is much left to uncover. Publishers, like Taschen, have issued multiple volumes on the history of men’s magazines, but for the most part these books reproduce images rather than study them. Stephen Gertz’s book, Dope Menace, provides a similar look into elements of sleaze in drugstore paperbacks. Yet his essay introducing the book is worth a close look as well and opens the door to future scholarly attention. Gertz’s book has gotten quite a bit of notice in the media. At last count, two dozen University libraries have purchased the book, and Gertz has been asked to lecture on the subject at the University level.

And then there are the photos. The recent death of Betty Page brings to the forefront that many images from men’s magazines in the 1950s and 1960s have become iconic. Many people appreciate them as art. Many enjoy their comic elements, just as many others despise them. For better or worse, the men’s magazines of the post-WWII era are a major part of the story of not just the sexual revolution but the myriad other revolutions occurring after Hiroshima. As a brief scan of these magazine covers related to Kerouac and Burroughs reveals, much has changed in the presentation of sex since the 1950s and 1960s, but much has remained the same. The story of the sexual revolution is still in the act of being told. Whether you are telling a cautionary or celebratory tale, a close look at the photos and articles of men’s magazines are an essential part of the history.

William Burroughs in Swank

“The Word”
Swank
(Front cover)
Vol. 8, no. 3: 51-55. New York: July 1961 (50 cents).

Download

“The Word”
Swank
(Introduction by John Fles)
Vol. 8, no. 3: 51-55. New York: July 1961 (50 cents).

“The Word”
Swank
(Burroughs text, page 1)
Vol. 8, no. 3: 51-55. New York: July 1961 (50 cents).

“The Word”
Swank
(Burroughs text, page 2)
Vol. 8, no. 3: 51-55. New York: July 1961 (50 cents).

William S. Burroughs in Men’s Magazines

• Burroughs and Beats in Men’s Magazines: Introduction
• Burroughs in Men’s Magazines
• William Burroughs Appearances in Adult Men’s Magazines
• William Burroughs’ Word in Swank

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 every page and hides behind every corner. Take John Ciardi’s book of children’s verse: Doodle Soup. When I worked in a used bookstore in the Washington DC area, signed copies of Doodle Soup turned up from time to time. Ciardi dedicated the book to his Aunt. The aunt got a hold of several signed copies of Doodle Soup which she would further inscribe to friends and family for Christmas gifts. Copies continue to find their way into rare bookstores. Talk about re-gifting. This book of light verse includes such gems as “Why Pigs Cannot Write Poems.” It reads as follows:

Pigs cannot write poems because
Nothing rhymes with oink. If you
Think you can find a rhyme, I’ll pause,
But if you wait until you do,
I’ll have forgotten why it was
Pigs cannot write poems because.

Of course, Ciardi is completely off the mark here. Poetically conservative critics, like Ciardi, have been labelling the Beat writers ignorant swine for decades. And that’s to say nothing of what feminist critics have labelled the Beats. In addition, as E.B. White documented in Charlotte’s Web, pigs have been poets for quite some time. The poem below was found in Wilbur’s (not Richard) uncollected writings.

I awoke with
a startled oink
hit by the sudden
realization, boink!,
that I am a mere
forty winks
from being turned
into sausage links.

Some pig! This poem failed to make the pages of Charlotte’s Web and cannot be authenticated. Possibly only a publisher, like Ed Sanders, unscrupulous enough to announce that he would publish anything would dare touch it. In any case, you could argue that Charlotte probably ghost wrote the poem anyway.

While working at the store, I became obsessed with Doodle Soup. One day I could not take it anymore and I bought a copy. It now sits on my rare book shelf, and it is one of the quirky items that fills out my Burroughs collection. Seemingly nothing could be further from the Burroughsian, but Doodle Soup in my paranoia fits in quite nicely right next to my Olympia Naked Lunch and my Big Tables. Madness?? Not really. As I said Burroughs is everywhere.

Ciardi graduated from Tufts University in 1938 and became a prominent member of a circle of poets who, like Robert Lowell, were centered in Cambridge/Boston, a place that dominated the immediate post-WWII poetry scene. Several of them were collected in the Mid-Century American Poets anthology of 1950. In a related side note, another practicioner of children’s verse, X.J. Kennedy, also had ties to Tufts. Kennedy taught there in the early 1960s and my father took his course as an undergraduate English major. According to my father, Kennedy often brought poets from the Cambridge circle into the classroom for reading and discussion. Readers of a certain age are probably very familiar with Kennedy without even knowing it. There is a good chance that Kennedy introduced you to poetry. Kennedy edits several Introduction to Poetry textbooks used in high schools and colleges across the United States. The textbooks indoctrinate young readers into a rather conservative reading of poetic tradition. With the rise of New Formalism, these books have come back into favor. This theme of instructing the young in acceptable literature and protecting them from the disreputable comes into play with Naked Lunch and Ciardi. By the way, try reading the anthologies of Jerome Rothenberg for a healthy counterbalance to the established literary tradition.

In the 1950s Ciardi served as poetry editor for the Saturday Review, a weekly magazine. The magazine is largely forgotten now, but in its heyday, it was a rival to the New Yorker as an example of the literary mainstream. To be published in the New Yorker and Saturday Review was to make it to the big leagues as a writer. This is not to say that it was the only game in town. Take the Cambridge of Lowell and Ciardi. Shortly after mid-Century an alternative scene developed. Cid Corman of Origin, Jack Spicer, Joe Dunn of White Rabbit Press, Stephen Jonas, Robin Blaser, Charles Olson and Robert Creeley formed the core of the Boston Renaissance of the mid-to-late 1950s. The term Renaissance links Boston to a similar literary awakening that was occurring at the same time in San Francisco. Spicer and Blaser were members of the earlier (and largely overlooked) Berkeley Renaissance of the 1940s that made the much more publicized San Francisco Scene possible. Of course, Burroughs has Boston ties. As a graduate of Harvard, Burroughs was one of the elite gone to seed. A Satanic figure, Burroughs fit in with a host of degenerate angels who revolted against the kingdom of heaven. In the literary world, that kingdom was academic verse and the tenets of New Criticism. Ciardi was one of the elect.

That said, Ciardi was also one of the first literary men, and maybe the first in print, to recognize Naked Lunch as a “masterpiece.” As editor of Saturday Review, Ciardi wrote an account of the Big Table obscenity trial that included a review of Big Table #1’s contents, ending with a positive review of Naked Lunch. The tie to Burroughs and the quirky value of Doodle Soup becomes more clear. The review was entitled “The Book Burners and Sweet Sixteen,” and it ran on June 27, 1959, a full month before Olympia Press published what Ginsberg thought was to remain published in Heaven. Get a copy of William S. Burroughs At the Front: Critical Reception, 1959-1989 edited by Jennie Skerl and Robin Lydenberg. This collection gathers book reviews and other critical responses to Burroughs’ work over three decades. Like the collections of Burroughs’ interviews, this book is an invaluable resource. “Sweet Sixteen” opens the book after a very good introduction by the editors. Matt Theado’s The Beats: A Literary Reference is another essential book. It contains several other Beat-related pieces printed in the Saturday Review, including an abridged version of “Sweet Sixteen.”

In the introduction to At the Front, the point is made that the early critical reception of Burroughs revolved around legal questions. As a result, Burroughs and Naked Lunch had to demonstrate a moral purpose. As I have argued in my Kulchur piece, this is unfortunate, since robbing Burroughs and Naked Lunch of their obscenity and their offensiveness lessens them both in my mind. Readers get robbed as well. To me, the sensation of being shocked and offended is very invigorating. I relish that feeling of shock that accompanied my first reading of Naked Lunch.

Ciardi would be associated with Naked Lunch years after his article. It should be noted that Ciardi’s Wikipedia page fails to mention Ciardi’s pivotal role in the reception of Naked Lunch. The section on Naked Lunch from Ciardi’s review appeared on the dust jacket flap to the Olympia Press version of Naked Lunch. The strange reference to Dante and vulgar language on the flap comes from the fact that Ciardi translated The Divine Comedy and was an expert on the Italian writer. Ciardi was asked to defend Naked Lunch at the Big Table trial. He declined at that time, but he did speak on behalf of the novel during the Boston trial that followed the book’s release by Grove Press. Norman Mailer and Allen Ginsberg also appeared on the stand to give their two cents. Burroughs stayed clear of the trial. No doubt it was determined that his reputation would precede him and would cloud the issues at hand with questions of murder, homosexuality and drug abuse.

Ciardi’s presence mirrored the presence of Mark Schorer on behalf of Howl nearly a decade earlier. Schorer was a noted academic at the University of California. He wrote the definitive biography on Sinclair Lewis a few years after the Howl trial. If Schorer represented the San Francisco literary establishment, Ciardi served the same purpose in Boston. He had been an esteemed member of the Cambridge poets. In fact, it is interesting that it was in Boston that Naked Lunch went on trial. The phrase “Banned in Boston” has become a cliché. The city’s Puritian tradition makes Boston ever watchful of any type of obscenity. In vulgarity, Naked Lunch would seem offensive to that tradition, but more interesting to me is the fact that Burroughs and Naked Lunch challenged the literary tradition that eminated out of Boston not just in the 1650s (Purtians) or 1850s (Trancendentalists), but in the 1950s.

I admire Ciardi for stepping to the plate and defending Burroughs and Naked Lunch. The book was an assault on the literary establishment he represented, but clearly Ciardi saw a greater danger in the obscenity trials surrounding the novel. That danger was censorship and the oppressive nature of entities like the post office that supposedly protected for the public good. The end of Ciardi’s review reads, “In matters of art, what is official is always inhuman. Neither the barbarians of the Book of Regulations nor the barbarians of sweet-sixteen have any business between the minds of a serious writer and a serious reader. Nor can they be tolerated there. All censorship is a disaster that begins in ignorance and seeks to culminate in demagoguery. No occasion in the turbulences of a complex but still hopefully democratic society calls for stronger language in rebuttal. A curse on all of them as faithless men. Or worse, as men who have subverted faith to expedience. There can be no compromise with the book burners. There is only the duty to hold them in disgust, and hope that they can be made to understand the scorn of freer and better men.”

In Ciardi’s distrust of the official, the then-recent McCarthy hearings come to mind. I can easily see his horror of the book burners. Heine wrote: “Wherever they burn books they will also, in the end, burn human beings.” The Holocaust was only a decade in the rear-view mirror. But I am particularly pleased with Ciardi’s distrust of the Sweet Sixteen mentality. The restriction of the freedom of adults in the name of protecting children infuriates me and this manuever has been used by forces of control as a means to extend their influence seemingly forever. It upset Ciardi as well and it makes me appreciate his book of children’s verse, Doodle Soup, all the more. Doodle Soup may be child’s play for Ciardi, but his appreciation for literature, including Naked Lunch, is not. It is serious play.

It is strange how a book and a poet on the surface so removed from Naked Lunch can relate to it with such force and complexity. As a result, Doodle Soup belongs on my shelf next to my Olympia Naked Lunch. This sense of paranoia that surrounds Burroughs is part of Burroughs’ charm for me. Maybe the entire post-WWII era is Burroughsian. Remember: just because he is invisible does not mean he is not there.

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 1962 Festival that in essence established Burroughs’ reputation as a writer on an international level. In that year, John Calder decided to add an International Writers’ Conference to the Festival’s many activities. Ted Morgan’s Literary Outlaw, the best of the Burroughs biographies, provides all the details. Barry Miles’ bio, which is strong on the cut-up and other multimedia aspects of Burroughs’ career, fails to mention the 1962 Conference. This might be because Morgan did such a thorough job of it. According to the Festival’s current website, “[t]he Festival began in 1947, with the aim of providing ‘a platform for the flowering of the human spirit.'” This platform continues to the present. In 2008, the Festival will run from August 8th to August 31.

I do not want to rehash the story of the 1962 Conference here, but I do want to provide readers of RealityStudio with some of the primary documents related to this event. According to the Maynard and Miles bibliography, a mimeograph transcript of the Conference exists. This publication documents the panel discussions that transpired over the five days of August 20th to 24th. The number of copies is unknown, and I have never seen one available for sale. Burroughs appears on pages 5-8, 18-19, 29, 32-33. These sections contain Burroughs’ statements at the panel on Censorship (Thursday August 23rd) and The Future of the Novel (Friday August 24th).

Given the rarity of this publication, I never considered the fact that other ephemera from the Festival and the Conference might exist. But as Chris Hughes’ scans show, such ephemera do in fact exist, and as I found out, they are available. These documents tell an interesting story. I think Hughes’ scans show the program for the entire Festival. He has been good enough to include John Calder’s essay on The Writer’s Conference as well as the schedule for Calder’s brainchild. Interestingly, in Calder’s essay, Burroughs is not listed as one of the delegates from the United States. This shows just how far off the radar screen Burroughs was before the Conference. In hindsight, Burroughs seems like the perfect choice for the panels on censorship and the future of the novel. The obscenity trials surrounding Big Table made Burroughs an expert on censorship. The development of the cut-up and the publication of Soft Machine and The Ticket That Exploded (not to mention Naked Lunch) made him an authority on the future of the novel. That said virtually nobody at the conference knew who he was. Not surprising really. For the most part, Burroughs was only published by Olympia Press. In all probability, nobody would have read Junkie to say nothing of the small press gems of Minutes to Go (Two Cities) and The Exterminator (Auerhahn Press). In August 1962, Barney Rosset of Grove Press stored copies of Naked Lunch in a warehouse. He was waiting to see how Grove Press’ other censorship battles played out. The book would not be available in the United States until November 1962. The publicity and discussion generated by the International Writer’s Conference in large part assured the book’s release. Naked Lunch would not be available in Great Britain until 1964.

In any case, Burroughs was something of an afterthought for inclusion at the Conference. Calder did not invite Burroughs until summer was already in full swing. Burroughs had to pay his own way, and he did not have a sponsor. In essence he tagged along with Maurice Girodias who attended the censorship panel. At the Conference, Burroughs spent most of his time with Alex Trocchi, the author of Cain’s Book. In fact, Burroughs stayed with Trocchi at Trocchi’s doctor, who no doubt filled scripts all week. This was the first meeting of the two partners in crime. Not surprisingly, Burroughs considered Cain’s Book a major work of drug literature. Calder was actively promoting Trocchi at the time. After the Conference, Calder would do the same for Burroughs.

The program for the Edinburgh Festival supplied by Chris Hughes got me thinking about what else is out there. I remembered John Calder’s autobiography that was sent to me by our correspondent Robert Bank. This book is an essential source on the Writers’ Conference. It includes a description of yet another bit of memorabilia, the Program and Notes for the International Writer’s Conference entitled “The Novel Today.” I never put two and two together. I failed to realize that this program might be available on the rare book market. I guess I got this publication confused with the impossible to find transcript. In addition the two programs available here on RealityStudio are not in the two main Burroughs bibliographies. Some quick searching located a copy of “The Novel Today” right in my backyard. Serendipity!!

About the program, Calder writes, “The conference program, which was really a lavishly produced literary magazine, partly produced on art paper, but with a central section on grey cartridge, gave two lists: a longer one with short biographies of participants and photographs of everyone who had accepted, which was prepared well in advance on white art and a last-minute list, very different, but still incomplete, on grey. The latter section apologized for the inconsistencies and changes, but also gave a longish description of each day’s topic and what was expected to happen, as well as listing the principal speakers for those days.” Burroughs appears in the “last-minute” list as befits his last-minute invitation by Calder. Burroughs is also listed as a participant in the censorship discussion. Not surprising given his publishing history up to that point. What is shocking is that Burroughs was not heavily promoted as a member of the future of the novel panel. Burroughs’ discussion of the cut-up at this panel would prove to be one of the highlights of the Conference and would cause a major stir.

So what did Burroughs say? Literary Outlaw provides some brief quotes, but the best source, besides the mimeographed transcript, is issue 11 of Transatlantic Review from the winter of 1962. Burroughs opens the magazine in its text and headlines on its cover. Clearly he was big news. Issue 11 prints the two statements Burroughs read at the Conference at the panels on censorship and the future of the novel. In addition, Burroughs wrote a cut-up based on the events that occurred at McEwan Hall (the location of the Conference). As is common with Burroughs’ cut-ups of this period, the piece included detailed notes regarding its composition. Parts of it have been collected in The Third Mind and Word Virus, but RealityStudio is putting it online as part of its collection of documents relating to the conference.

Unlike some of the anniversaries that have been celebrated surrounding the Beats in the last couple of years, the 45th Anniversary of the International Writer’s Conference in Edinburgh passed under the radar. This is somewhat ironic since it was after his appearance at McEwan Hall that Burroughs became headline fodder around the world. The Conference directly led to the release of Naked Lunch in the United States and to the publication of a Burroughs novel in Great Britain (Dead Fingers Talk in 1963). In addition, the discussion at the Conference helped legitimize Burroughs as a serious author and helped prove that Burroughs was more than a pornographer. It was in Edinburgh that Mary McCarthy and Norman Mailer stood firmly behind Naked Lunch and its author. This support would prove useful for the upcoming obscenity trial that engulfed Naked Lunch in Boston soon after its release in late 1962. For Burroughs lovers, this is certainly something to remember and to celebrate. Hopefully, the primary documents available here on RealityStudio provide a means to do just that.

1962 International Writers Conference Ticket

1962 International Writers Conference Ticket

1962 Edinburgh International Festival Souvenir Program

1962 Edinburgh International Festival Souvenir Program
Front

1962 Edinburgh International Festival Souvenir Program
“The Writers’ Conference” by John Calder

1962 Edinburgh International Festival Souvenir Program
McEwan Hall Agenda

1962 International Writers Conference Program (Excerpt)

1962 International Writers Conference Program
Front

1962 International Writers Conference Program
Day One: Contrasts of Approach

1962 International Writers Conference Program
Day Two: Scottish Writing Today

1962 International Writers Conference Program
Day Three: Commitment

1962 International Writers Conference Program
Day Four: Censorship

1962 International Writers Conference Program
Day Five: The Novel and the Future

1962 International Writers Conference Program
List of Delegates

1962 International Writers Conference Program
Back

1962 International Writers Conference News Clippings

Authors Fail to Arrive
21 August 1962

The Writers’ Conference by W.J. Weatherby
22 August 1962

A Letter from Alan Paton by W.J. Weatherby
23 August 1962

Writers’ Conference by W.J. Weatherby
24 August 1962

Sex and So On at Edinburgh

Writers’ Conference by W.J. Weatherby

Encounter Magazine

Stephen Spender
Letter from Edinburgh
Encounter Magazine
October 1962

Stephen Spender
Letter from Edinburgh
Encounter Magazine
October 1962

Stephen Spender
Letter from Edinburgh
Encounter Magazine
October 1962

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 men’s magazines to be glossy magazines with a mixture of nude pictorials, fiction, and lifestyle articles. Basically, they are skin or porno mags; be it girlie or gay.

The key element to this list is the glossy Time / Life magazine format mixed with the nude photos. As a result, the Mayfair Academy Rip-off of 1973 did not make the list although this publication would be a nice addition to a Beat / men’s magazine collection and is a simple way to get a hold of the many Mayfair articles in one place. I did not include Olympia Magazine or the later issues of Evergreen Review (especially the issues of the late 1960s) which flirt with the men’s magazine format but remain literary magazines at heart. I also listed gay magazines (a men’s magazine from a different bent if you will), most notably Playgirl, to show the changing ways Burroughs’ image and works could be utilized. In some cases, I just was not sure if the magazine was in fact a glossy men’s magazine at all. I listed Suck, National Screw, and Blueboy, for example. National Screw started as a newspaper tabloid format like an underground sex paper, but morphed into a glossy after a couple of issues. I know little about Suck and Blueboy but they clearly are sex-oriented magazines and they tell an interesting story about Burroughs so I included them. Any additions to this list would be greatly appreciated as well as a brief write up describing its contents both Burroughs related and otherwise.

William Burroughs in Wildcat Adventures

Excerpt from Junkie
Man’s Wildcat Adventures
(Front Cover)
Volume 1, No. 1, pp 23-25, 47, 55-72. New York: June 1959 (35 cents)

Excerpt from Junkie
Man’s Wildcat Adventures
(First Page of Burroughs Text)
Volume 1, No. 1, pp 23-25, 47, 55-72. New York: June 1959 (35 cents)

William Burroughs in Swank

“The Word”
Swank
(Front cover)
Vol. 8, no. 3: 51-55. New York: July 1961 (50 cents).

Download

“The Word”
Swank
(Introduction by John Fles)
Vol. 8, no. 3: 51-55. New York: July 1961 (50 cents).

“The Word”
Swank
(Burroughs text, page 1)
Vol. 8, no. 3: 51-55. New York: July 1961 (50 cents).

“The Word”
Swank
(Burroughs text, page 2)
Vol. 8, no. 3: 51-55. New York: July 1961 (50 cents).

William Burroughs in Mayfair

“Interview” and “The Future of Sex and Drugs”
(The Burroughs Academy Bulletin 1)
Mayfair
Vol. 2, No. 10, pp 11-15. London: October 1967

(Download PDF)

“The Engram Theory”
(The Burroughs Academy Bulletin 2)
Mayfair
Vol. 2, No. 11, pp 28-31. London: November 1967

(Download PDF)

“Where’s Our Killer Whistle?”
(The Burroughs Academy Bulletin 3)
Mayfair
Vol. 2, No. 12, pp 54-56. London: December 1967

(Download PDF)

“Scientology Revisited”
(The Burroughs Academy Bulletin 4)
Mayfair
Vol. 3, No. 1, pp 29-31. London: January 1968

(Download PDF)

“The Last Broadcast”
(The Burroughs Academy Bulletin 5)
Mayfair
Vol. 3, No. 2, pp 28-29. London: February 1968

(Download PDF)

“By Far The Most Efficient and Precise Language We Possess is the Common Cold”
(The Burroughs Academy Bulletin 6)
Mayfair
Vol. 3, No. 3, 54-56. London: March 1968

(Download PDF)

“The Fire Breaks Out”
(The Burroughs Academy Bulletin 7)
Mayfair
Vol. 3, No. 4, pp 32-34. London: April 1968

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“In That Year of 1969, Astonished Motorists Were Hustled at Random into the Death Cells for Parking Offenses”
(The Burroughs Academy Bulletin 8)
Mayfair
Vol. 3, No. 5, pp 54-55. London: May 1968

(Download PDF)

“Switch On and Be Your Own Hero”
(The Burroughs Academy Bulletin 9)
Mayfair
Vol. 3, No. 6, 52-54. London: June 1968

(Download PDF)

“The Academy’s Ultimate Offer — Immunity to Death”
(The Burroughs Academy Bulletin 10)
Mayfair
Vol. 3, No. 7, 52-54. London: July 1968

(Download PDF)

“Do You Remember Tomorrow?”
(The Burroughs Academy Bulletin 11)
Mayfair
Vol. 3, No. 8, pp. 28-29. London: August 1968

(Download PDF)

“Oh God, Get Me Out of This!”
(The Burroughs Academy Bulletin 12)
Mayfair
Vol. 3, No. 9, pp. 32-34. London: September 1968

(Download PDF)

“Wind Die You Die We Die”
(The Burroughs Academy Bulletin 13)
Mayfair
Vol. 3, No. 10, pp 52-53, 62. London: October 1968

(Download PDF)

“Man, You Voted for a Goddam Ape”
(The Burroughs Academy Bulletin 14)
Mayfair
Vol. 3, No. 12, pp 52-54. London: December 1968

(Download PDF)

“Rally Around the Secrets, Boys”
(The Burroughs Academy Bulletin 15)
Mayfair
Vol. 4, No. 1, pp 52-54. London: January 1969

(Download PDF)

“Infiltration”
(The Burroughs Academy Bulletin 16)
Mayfair
Vol. 4, No. 2, pp 52-53. London: February 1969

(Download PDF)

“The Brain Grinders”
(The Burroughs Academy Bulletin 17)
Mayfair
Vol. 4, No. 4, pp 32-34. London: April 1969

(Download PDF)

“I’m Scared, I’m Scared, I’m Not”
(The Burroughs Academy Bulletin 18)
Mayfair
Vol. 4, No. 5, pp 52-54. London: May 1969

(Download PDF)

“The Final Crusade of the Veteran Warriors”
(The Burroughs Academy Bulletin 19)
Mayfair
Vol. 4, No. 6, pp 52-54, 56, 58. London: June 1969

(Download PDF)

“The Voracious Aliens”
(The Burroughs Academy Bulletin 20)
Mayfair
Vol. 4, No. 8, 32-34. London: August 1969

(Download PDF)

“Days of Great Luxury Are Coming Back”
(The Burroughs Academy Bulletin 21)
Mayfair
Vol. 4, No. 9, 54-56. London: September 1969

(Download PDF)

“My Challenge to Scientology”
Mayfair
Vol. 5, No. 1. London: January 1970

(Download PDF)

“The Transplant Apocalypse”
Mayfair
Vol. 5, No. 2, pp. 32-33. London: February 1970

(Download PDF)

“Without Your Name, Who Are You?”
Mayfair
Vol. 5, No. 3, pp. 52-54. London: March 1970

(Download PDF)

“And a Final Word From William Burroughs”
Mayfair
Vol. 5, No. 6, pp. 36. London: June 1970

(Download PDF)

“D.E. My Super Efficiency System”
Mayfair
Vol. 5, No. 7, pp. 52-54. London: July 1970

(Download PDF)

“Twilights Last Gleamings”
Mayfair
Vol. 5, No. 12, pp 61-62. London: December 1970

(Download PDF)

Mayfair Academy (More or Less)
Urgency Press Rip Off, 1973
Contains ten of the Burroughs “Academy Bulletins” from Mayfair

William Burroughs and Malcolm Mc Neill in National Screw

“Los Niños Locos”
National Screw
June 1977

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“Los Niños Locos”
National Screw
June 1977

“Day Is Done”
National Screw
August 1977

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“Day Is Done”
National Screw
August 1977

William Burroughs in Various Men’s Mags

“The Invisible Man” by Ann Morrissett
Rogue
September 1963

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“Prophet or Pornographer”
Jaguar
New York: January 1966. (Interview with Jaguar Staff)

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“Exterminator!”
King
pp 58-60. London: July 1966 (7s 6d)

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“Auf der Suche Nach Yage”
Privat Herrenmagazin
Zurich: November 1966

Not in M&M, Shoaf, or Schottlaender

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“O Say Can You See If Bently’s Who He Appears to Be?”
Cavalier
Vol 18, No. 12, pp 43, 57. New York: October 1968 (60 cents)

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“Discussion Playboy Panel: The Drug Revolution”
Playboy
17, No. 2, pp 53-74, 200-201. Chicago: February 1970 ($1.00)

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“William Burroughs: Mind Engineer”
Penthouse
6, No. 6, pp 37-40, 60. London: June 1971 (30p). (Interview with Graham Masterson and Andrew Rossabi)

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“The Penny Arcade Peep Show / The Wild Boys Smile”
Suck
5, pp 10, 15. Amsterdam: Summer 1971

“Blue Movie/Who Are These Boys?”
Suck
6, pp 15-16. Amsterdam: 1971

“William Burroughs Takes a Look at Sex Films”
Suck
6, p 15. Amsterdam: 1971

“William Burroughs ‘I’ve Noticed a Regrettable Vagueness in Accounts of Hallucinogenic Drugs. In Time I Think These Just Lead to a Sort of Dreamland State”
Penthouse
Vol. 3, No. 7, pp 44,46, 52. New York: March 1972. (reprint of June 1971 Interview)

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“Face to Face with the Goat God”
Oui
2, No. 8, pp 68, 92, 94. Chicago: August 1973

Download Burroughs Text

Download Burroughs Interview

“What’s Your Worst Nightmare?” (Response to a Questionnaire)
National Screw
December 1976.

Download

“California Men”
In Touch
Jan-Feb 1977.

Download

“First Meetings: One Dozen Memories from the Files of William Burroughs”
National Screw
April 1977. Taken from discussions with Victor Bockris

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“My Life in Orgone Boxes”
Oui
October 1977

“My Life in Orgone Boxes”
Oui
October 1977

“The Health Officer”
Club
October 1977

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“Women: A Biological Mistake?”
Playgirl Magazine
March 1978

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“Dear Allen…Love Bill”
Blueboy
April 1978

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“Dinner with Andy and Bill”
Blueboy
October 1980. Interview with Warhol and Burroughs

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Jack Kerouac in Escapade and Mayfair

Kerouac on our “bloody mad history”
Escapade
February 1960

Kerouac on the Berlin Question
Escapade
April 1960

Kerouac on Zen
Escapade
October 1960

Kerouac on Jazz
Escapade
December 1960

Kerouac on Cody and the Road
Escapade
April 1961

Kerouac “In the Ring”
Mayfair
November 1968

The Beats in Swank

Various Beats
Swank
March 1961

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William S. Burroughs in Men’s Magazines

• Burroughs and Beats in Men’s Magazines: Introduction
• Burroughs in Men’s Magazines
• William Burroughs Appearances in Adult Men’s Magazines
• William Burroughs’ Word in Swank

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 first appeared in a men’s magazine in June 1959. I have written about Man’s Wildcat Adventures elsewhere and I do not want repeat myself. I do want to make clear that I consider this to be a very important publication for Burroughs and one that deserves much closer consideration. As the recent auction on eBay proves, other collectors agree. On one level, the magazine represents an early and rare Burroughs appearance in a fascinating setting. On another level, the magazine is collectible as a nice example of drug and sex exploitation. The illustrations accompanying the Junkie selection are highly prized by collectors of drug images. Like the Ace and Digit Junkies, Man’s Wildcat Adventures ranks with Reefer Madness in the 1930s or the various LSD exploitation movies, books, and posters of the 1960s. It should be noted that in June 1959, before the publication of Naked Lunch by Olympia Press, Burroughs is marketed by the publishing industry as a sensationalistic, pulp, exploitation writer. Despite the fact that Junkie was a serious, objective look at drug culture, the book and its author were not treated that way.

By 1961, Burroughs cut a much different figure in the publishing industry, including the men’s magazines. Burroughs’ breakout appearance occurred at the Edinburgh Writer’s Conference and the Grove Press Naked Lunch in 1962, but even before then, the little magazines and the small press had performed miracles. No longer perceived as a pulp writer, Burroughs was a member of the international avant garde. Burroughs’ appearance in Swank in July 1961 makes this clear. Like the little magazines, Swank ignores Junkie and publishes a piece from the Naked Lunch cycle of material. I do not own this issue of Swank, but I would guess that “The Word” represents a part of the just published Soft Machine. The myth surrounding Burroughs and Burroughs the experimental writer become the sensational and titillating commodity. Rumors abounded about Naked Lunch and Soft Machine then unavailable in the United States. The mere mention of his name suggested the forbidden, the criminal, the pornographic. Never mind that the fiction selected for publication in men’s mags rarely delivered the goods. Burroughs’ reputation as a drug addict, pornographer, murderer, trust-fund baby, avant garde writer provides the hook to the square reading public. The mystery surrounding Burroughs sold magazines even more than the writing. A 1966 interview in Jaguar entitled, “Prophet or Pornographer?,” underlines the hype that surrounded Burroughs.

Many people closely associated with Burroughs considered his cut-up experiments commercial suicide. Mainstream publishers did not know what to do with the writing and thought it unpublishable. Adult men’s magazines were no exception. When Burroughs returned to the United States in late 1964, Playboy commissioned him to write an article on his impressions of a return to his hometown. Burroughs wrote “St. Louis Return,” a piece full of nostalgia and the demented logic of cut-ups. Playboy rejected the piece. Paris Review published it in 1965 along with the first full-length interview with Burroughs in which he talks about the art of fiction. A selection of Burroughs’ manuscript was also printed. The publication in Paris Review testifies to the high literary quality of Burroughs’ work. Was it too much to consider Burroughs’ piece an early form of new journalism as practiced in the pages of Playboy by Norman Mailer, Terry Southern, Tom Wolfe and Hunter S. Thompson throughout the 1960s and 1970s? Playboy thought so. The content was tame and lacked sex appeal; not to mention that the form utilized the textual and visual cut-up. Burroughs’ reputation hurt him here: “St. Louis Return” presented neither prophet nor pornographer, merely a literary experimenter.

I did not mention homosexual in my rap sheet on Burroughs. I wonder how Burroughs could be marketed as a pornographic fictioneer to the straight public when so much of his sexually explicit writing is gay in nature. In addition, what was a misogynist like Burroughs who was disgusted by and wary of women as sexual beings and objects doing in men’s magazines? I suspect that Burroughs’ fiction in these magazines tended not to emphasize the pornographic nature of his writing. I can not comment on the content of “The Word” in Swank, but in the July 1966 issue of King, the short story “Exterminator!” presents Burroughs in his most accessible writing style (no cut-ups) concentrating on a bit of his mythologized past: his job as an exterminator in the late 1930s. Again this highlights the fact that Burroughs the mythic, pop culture figure (representative of vanguard literature in the newly emerging underground) was highlighted over actually presenting the pornographic and experimental nature of his fiction. Unlike Bukowski, Burroughs did not provide sex stories, and the underground little magazines, like My Own Mag, remained the outlet for the cut-up.

The sexual aspect of Burroughs’ fiction tended to appear outside of the heterosexual men’s mag market. From what I can tell, Suck (edited by Bill Levy who also edited Insect Trust Gazette which published Burroughs’ cut-up experiments in the mid 1960s) explored all aspects of the new sexual freedoms as well as taking advantage of Amsterdam’s freedom of the press. Selections from The Wild Boys, Burroughs fantastic smash-up of the sexual, gay and youth revolutions, appear in Suck‘s pages. Burroughs also reviews sex films in an issue. Only after Stonewall in 1969 would gay sex go glossy, like Playboy. Not surprisingly, Burroughs’ sex life became a topic for readers. Burroughs’ most misogynist statements from The Job appear in the 1978 issue of Playgirl. In addition, Burroughs’ love life is featured Blueboy (also in 1978) when the magazine published a selection of Burroughs’ letters to Allen Ginsberg revealing a more vulnerable and intimate side of his personality.

As demonstrated by the rejection by Playboy and the selection by King, men’s magazines presented a watered-down version of Burroughs’ fictional content and style. Like Kerouac, Burroughs was better represented in his monthly columns, occasional articles, and interviews that appeared side by side with nude pictorials. From 1967-1973, Mayfair featured more than twenty pieces by Burroughs, most of them in the form of the “Burroughs Academy Bulletin.” Mayfair was the British equivalent of Playboy. These appearances overlapped with Burroughs’ stay in London. The regular column provided Burroughs with some much needed money, since by 1966 Burroughs made his living only on his writing. He no longer received a stipend from his parents. Mayfair provided Burroughs with a sounding board for his various obsessions, of which Scientology was a major one. Several of Burroughs’ Mayfair pieces deal with his in-depth examination of L. Ron Hubbard’s religion. In Mayfair and other magazines, Burroughs wrote on the 1960s political scene, Moroccan music, and drug hysteria. In 1973, the Mayfair articles were bootlegged as the Mayfair Academy Series More or Less by Urgency Press Rip-Off in a run of 650. Burroughs also planned a book called Academy 23 which would have included The Wild Boys and Mayfair material.

The adult magazines’ changing attitude towards drugs as well as Burroughs’ thoughts on drugs are particularly interesting. In 1959, Burroughs’ drug narrative was treated as an Amazing Story and pulp fodder. By 1970, Burroughs sat on a panel discussion on drugs in the pages of Playboy. The magazine treated Burroughs as an authority on drugs and drug culture. In addition, drugs were treated as a serious topic for discussion and a part of the fabric of modern society, not a shadowy and sensationalistic underworld.

In fact the packaging of Burroughs in men’s magazines highlights the changing perception of Burroughs by the literary community and the public at large. In essays, articles, and interviews, Burroughs was presented as an authority on religion, politics, drugs, and sex. In Mayfair, Penthouse, and Playboy, Burroughs was interviewed in depth on all these topics. While he clearly presented an outsider’s view, his thoughts were not demonized or downplayed. Burroughs had something of value to say to the hip, intelligent reader and it was not just shock value. Cultural elements that were considered a deviant, degraded underworld in the 1950s were by the 1960s and 1970s elements of a flourishing counterculture that threatened to become mainstream. As Burroughs’ presence on a legendary album cover, as well as in men’s magazines, proves, he morphed from a sinister, mysterious figure into a counterculture icon and a revered talking head.

It sounds like a joke, but in the case of the Beats, men’s magazines are collectible for the articles. The magazines are desirable for a host of other reasons as well. Magazines, like Man’s Wildcat Adventures, are collectible for their exploitative images of sex and drugs. Like Reefer Madness of the 1930s, these depictions are important pieces of cultural history. The advertisements for liquor, cigarettes, cars, and the other accessories of the good life detail the consumer culture of the post World War II era. Many of these images are collectible. Men’s magazines provide a unique view of the world through the lens of sex. Again ads and even want ads demonstrate changing sexual images. The fiction, interviews, panels and articles of these magazines all document the changing popular culture of the Western world. For example, a review of the pictorials of Man’s Wildcat Adventures and Escapade provides a look into the sexualized and idealized image of women just before the Pill and the revolutions of the 1960s. These pictorials tap into what was considered beautiful, sexy, trashy, dangerous, or refined by the American male at a particular time. Body image, body shape, and body hair all change over time. In some cases, particular models, like Bettie Page or Marilyn Monroe, become icons. Photographers become associated with a particular look or style; and there develops a cult following around their images. A review of Escapade, Swank and Mayfair records the sweeping changes of the Sexual Revolution, but the effect of all the various revolutions of the post World War II era are in evidence.

The Beats helped create the atmosphere that made men’s magazines publishable and popular on a larger scale. It could be argued that the proliferation of pornography (gay and straight; good and bad), as well as the rise of profanity into everyday conversation or the changing definitions of obscenity, can all be traced back to the trailblazing candor of the Beats. As a recent book called Queer Beats makes clear, the Beats in large part turned America on to sex and pushed it out into the open. It makes perfect sense that the Beats appear in men’s magazines, since they were the leading figures in most of the major cultural changes after 1945. A comprehensive collection of men’s magazines with Beat appearances documents this influence in an unusual and rather inexpensive way.

William S. Burroughs in Men’s Magazines

• Burroughs and Beats in Men’s Magazines: Introduction
• Burroughs in Men’s Magazines
• William Burroughs Appearances in Adult Men’s Magazines
• William Burroughs’ Word in Swank

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 King appeared on the market. On a whim, I picked up it for around $40 with shipping. Having never noticed the magazine before, I have no idea if this is a good price or not. But these two items reinforced an idea gestating for quite some time: men’s magazines with a Beat appearance would make an unusual and interesting collection.

By men’s magazines, I mean adult men’s magazines: the glossies fashioned in the style of Time / Life magazines featuring nude pictorials, lifestyle articles, essays, interviews, and fiction. Playboy remains the epitome of this genre; not GQ or Esquire. I will discuss adult periodicals all across the exploitative / explanatory spectrum. A handful of Beat and Beat-related authors graced the pages of these mags. The authors that immediately come to mind are Jack Kerouac, Charles Bukowski, and William Burroughs.

After the publication of On the Road thrust Kerouac in the spotlight, he became a heavily sought after and well-paid writer for hire. Not surprisingly given the sex, drugs and jazz elements of On the Road, men’s magazines, like Playboy, asked Kerouac to define the Beat Generation within their pages. Kerouac’s good looks did not hurt either. It was like James Dean and Marlon Brando could write. For the most part, Kerouac wrote non-fiction presenting his world view. Kerouac’s most sustained work in this area was with Escapade. Escapade was a high circulation competitor of Playboy that featured major authors like Nelson Algren and Ray Bradbury as well as articles on Hemingway and Salinger. From June 1959 to April 1960, Kerouac wrote a monthly column called “The Last Word” on a variety of topics like jazz, baseball, Zen, and the literary scene. Readers might expect Kerouac to chronicle the hot, racy underground culture he depicted in On the Road. He writes on the underground but not the world of the sexually hip. Instead, Kerouac’s jazz articles show him to be knowledgeable about the avant garde music scene. In a column on the literary scene, he champions the yet unpublished Naked Lunch as well as Allen Ginsberg and Gregory Corso. Kerouac ends that piece calling for a revamping of the publishing industry and urging the growth of independent publishing. His writings on Zen are groundbreaking in addressing Eastern religion before it swept across the American consciousness. Yet, his eleven pieces (thirteen if you count an earlier piece in April 1959 and a much later rewrite of his first “Last Word” column in January 1967) also reveal the rather nostalgic and conservative side of Kerouac that fully emerged in the late 1960s. This side becomes most clear in his columns on baseball, world history, and politics. The Escapade pieces have been published in their entirety in the Good Blonde collection. The material collected in Good Blonde, of which Escapade plays a major part, is essential reading for anybody wanting to get a fuller understanding of the real nature of Jack Kerouac and not just the mythic figure. Tom Clark, author of a biography on Kerouac, wrote an essay entitled: “Kerouac’s Last Word: Jack Kerouac in Escapade.” It was printed in a small run of 500 copies by Water Row Press in 1986. I have not read Clark’s piece, but clearly, Kerouac’s essays and articles merit such treatment.

Charles Bukowski also enjoyed a long relationship with the adult publishing industry. I do not think Bukowski ever wrote a column for a men’s magazine, like his cult classic “Notes of a Dirty Old Man” for Open City or his openly sexual column for The LA Free Press. Bukowski flourished in the underground papers in Los Angeles. In addition, I do not remember him often being interviewed or consulted on issues concerning the hip and oversexed, although he may have been interviewed by Hustler on the topic of sex. When I think of Bukowski and the men’s mags, I think of Buk’s short stories of the 1970s. Buk on the make both financially and sexually. Buk just about to make it big in the writing game. The Buk of Women, reading engagements, Love Is a Dog from Hell, and Linda King. As Bukowski’s cult fame grew, so did the line of women eager to get in between his dingy sheets. One product of this period was a steady stream of explicit short stories depicting his sexual fantasies and exploits. Buk had sex on the brain and the men’s magazines, like Adam, Fling, Hustler, and Screw, ate it up. For Bukowski, such writing was profitable (it helped supplement the checks from Black Sparrow Press), but generally it was not fun or easy. Like the porno writers for Olympia Press, this material was not Bukowski’s best work, and the work was in some cases poor and forced. Unlike Burroughs and Kerouac, Bukowski wrote for the harder porno mags of the time. And his material is of the type one would expect to see in a very explicit men’s mag. Howard Sounes in Locked in the Arms of a Crazy Life writes of this period, “Bukowski commonly used extreme language to shock: women were ‘whores’ and intercourse was ‘rape’, pandering to his reader’s basest expectations.” In some cases, Bukowski’s work proved even too strange for the likes of Hustler. Like Kerouac, Bukowski’s writing for pornographic magazines has been overlooked. A closer look at these works provides interesting insights into role of sex, pornography and women in his fiction. If Women and Love Is a Dog from Hell are considered classics and enjoy critical scrutiny, then the underside of that coin deserves attention as well. Bukowski’s pornographic stories (both well and poorly written) bear re-reading by both critics and laymen.

William S. Burroughs in Men’s Magazines

• Burroughs and Beats in Men’s Magazines: Introduction
• Burroughs in Men’s Magazines
• William Burroughs Appearances in Adult Men’s Magazines
• William Burroughs’ Word in Swank

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 1959 Olympia Press Catalog. Comparing the two catalogs proves very interesting. Clearly the publication of Naked Lunch generated tons of publicity for Olympia and Burroughs became something of an avant-garde superstar. Olympia Press’ marketing strategy grows more sophisticated from 1959-1960. Like Grove in the United States and Calder in Great Britain, Olympia Press portrayed itself as an alternative press championing outlaw literature by the likes of Beckett, Sade, Burroughs, and Miller. Rosset called them “Anglo-American sex radicals.” “Dirty Books,” like Sin for Breakfast, might have been the press’s bread and butter, but all the publicity from the mainstream was being created by Burroughs, Nabokov, Maxwell Kenton (Southern and Hoffenberg), and Donleavy.

I also received an email from Eric Shoaf, compiler of Collecting William Burroughs in Print: A Checklist published by Ratishna Books (an imprint of Rock and Roll Research Press) in 2000.

Eric writes, “My only concern about your article on the NL prospectus is that you neglect to mention the letter that accompanied it when it was sent to booksellers in 1962. Perhaps you are not aware of the letter, which is on Grove Press letterhead and dated October 30, 1962 (further bolstering my contention, put forth in my own book, that NL was not published March 21, 1962 as asserted in M&M) and which begins ‘Dear Bookseller,’ and continues for two pages. It includes this: ‘…we have prepared the enclosed brochure which includes a section from the book, together with critical appraisals…'”

“I have a copy of the letter, and while there can be little doubt that some of the copies of the prospectus would have been distributed without it, it is also true that the purpose of the letter was to help convince booksellers that they could legitimately sell the work without fear of arrest. As such, the letter is an integral part of the prospectus, in my opinion.”

He adds, “I put forth the idea in my book that Rosset had about 10K copies (several printings) of NL printed and ready to go and was waiting for the proper time to release it. This may account for why M&M listed the publication date in March. No doubt Rosset had the books in March, but all indications (reviews, publicity) point to an October 1962 date.”

Let me say first get in contact with Eric and buy his checklist if it is still available. It turns up on Abebooks and eBay from time to time. It is a valuable resource and a must for the Burroughs collector. Word on the street is that there may be some more work like the Checklist coming from Eric in the near future. (For a brief review of William Burroughs in Print, see “The Latest Burroughs Bibliography.”)

Eric was kind enough to pdf the letter. The letter highlights what I suggested in my column on the Grove Press Promotional pamphlet and added in the Burroughs forum. Rosset clearly manipulated the courts and the media in an effort to defend his books and defeat literary censorship. Like Ferlinghetti with Howl (just on the racks of your local bookstore Howl on Trial by Bill Morgan, get it), Rosset knew what he was doing and had a detailed plan of action.

Rosset states, “We decided the best thing to do was send the book [Lady Chatterley’s Lover] through the mail so it would be seized by the Post Office. The Post Office is a federal government agency, and if they arrest you, you go to federal court. That way you dont have to defend the book in some small town, and you only have one case.

“The Post Office has its own special court, where the judge and the prosecutor are the same man. We brought in all these famous writers and that’s how we did all the important work in this case. The judge, if you can call him that, ruled against us. Even so I felt a great wave of sympathy coming from this guy. The fact that he let us put all this evidence into the record says a lot for him. Getting things into the record was important, because the judge who ruled on the appeal only looked at what’s in the record. They tried to ban Lady Chatterley, because they said it ‘appeals to the prurient interests’ which meant it caused ‘itching’ as far as we could tell. Finally we won the appeal on the basis that the book had literary merit”

I reproduce Rosset’s comments on the role of the Post Office in his battle against censorship again, because like the Grove Press letter, it shows just how savvy Rosset was in fighting the legal system as well as hammering home the point that Naked Lunch‘s critical reception (and other vanguard novels like Ulysses, Lady Chatterley’s Lover, and Tropic of Cancer) was dominated by legal issues. Only recently has the focus of critics shifted to a more complete look at Burroughs’ masterpiece.

I am very excited by BigTable’s and Eric Shoaf’s response to the Bunker. Hopefully, these images of the Olympia Catalog and Grove Letter provide as much food for thought for reader in cyberspace as they do for me. In any case, please feel free to respond to any of my columns with corrections, feedback, and of course more information like images, commentary and personal accounts.

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 the typical under-the-counter smut peddler, his battle for freedom of the press and speech was the complex and conflicted result of being a shrewd businessman and a natural born troublemaker. The United States equivalent was Barney Rosset, owner and publisher of Grove Press. In 1962, Grove Press issued a promotional booklet to accompany the November 20, 1962 American publication of Naked Lunch. This is another excellent and highly desirable piece of ephemera. Clearly, Rosset printed the prospectus with an obscenity trial in mind. The entire document reads like a legal argument to establish Naked Lunch‘s literary merit before a courtroom.

The pamphlet opens with a short essay by Terry Southern. Southern was uniquely qualified to comment on Burroughs and Naked Lunch. Legend has it that he and Mason Hoffenberg were instrumental in getting Naked Lunch published by Olympia Press. Southern and Hoffenberg under the name Maxwell Kenton wrote the enormously successful Candy that was published by Girodias in 1958. I was surprised that Candy did not receive more attention in the Olympia Press Catalog, but like the equally popular Ginger Man by JP Donleavy, Candy engendered a hornet’s nest of legal troubles. Candy appears in a listing of Olympia titles at the end of the catalog under the name Lollipop. To anybody interested in the fascinating stories of Candy and The Ginger Man read The Candy Men by Niles Southern as well as The History of the Ginger Man by Donleavy. These books provide in-depth accounts of the creation of the novels as well as an extremely readable history of Paris in the 1950s and Olympia Press.

In any case, Southern possessed a relationship with Naked Lunch‘s publication but more importantly he knew where it was coming from and how to spin it to an American critical audience. In 1958 and 1960, Southern wrote Flash and Filigree and The Magic Christian. He fathered new journalism in 1962 with the “Twirling at Ole Miss” piece for Esquire. The screenplay for Dr. Strangelove would follow soon in 1964. Like Kerouac, Southern played Naked Lunch as satire. Southern’s short essay played up Burroughs’s humor and his remarkable ear for voices and language (Southern’s strengths as well), thereby helping to establish these elements as a major weapons in defending Burroughs from obscenity. As we have seen, Joan Didion would utilize a similar argument in an attempt to explain the value and power of Soft Machine in 1966.

Southern and Burroughs continued to be friendly throughout the 1960s and 1970s. They both wrote for Esquire in 1968 reporting on the Democratic Convention, and they teamed up in a drug-fueled effort to create a screenplay for Naked Lunch with Dennis Hopper and Jacques Stern. Southern and Hopper’s success with Easy Rider revolutionized Hollywood (see Easy Riders, Raging Bulls), thus making even the thought of filming a movie version of Naked Lunch possible.

E.S. Seldon wrote the second critical piece in the pamphlet. Seldon’s piece on Naked Lunch first appeared in Evergreen Review No. 22 in January / February 1962 along with sizable cuts of Naked Lunch, Soft Machine and the then-titled Novia Express. Seldon wrote a similar article on Lolita and Justine for Evergreen No. 6. In that issue, he is described as follows: “completing his re-evaluation of Sade’s contribution to modern thought.” Unlike Ciardi, Alan Ansen, Southern, or Mary McCarthy (some other early commentators on Naked Lunch), I see Seldon as a professor or graduate student first, not primarily a writer of poetry or fiction. Any more information on Seldon would be appreciated. I am reminded of the early critical reception of Charles Bukowski by professors like John William Corrington of Louisiana State University who wrote the introduction to It Catches My Heart in Its Hands. Corrington also published “Charles Bukowski and the Savage Surfaces” in Northwest Review in the fall of 1963. The title of Seldon’s piece, “A Desperate Cry from the Madhouse,” sounds similar to Corrington’s assessment.

Seldon provides a reasoned, critical investigation of Naked Lunch stressing the sanity of its vision of an insane, out-of-control society. The article attempts to find literary ancestors, like Henry Miller, but Seldon relies most heavily on the French literary and philosophical tradition, such as Rimbaud, Artaud and Sade. Their ideas of the derangement of the senses, the dominant society’s use of the mental institution, the man suicided by society, and the philosophy of the obscene greatly informs Seldon’s reading. Other literary powerhouses providing comments to the Grove Press promotion were the aforementioned Ciardi, Norman Mailer, Jack Kerouac, and Robert Lowell.

The promotional pamphlet includes an eight page selection of Naked Lunch. Not surprisingly, Rosset chose sections that support the critical readings of the novel. The “Meeting of International Conference of Technological Society” and “The County Clerk” section highlight the satirical nature of Naked Lunch to the fullest. Rosset also featured these pieces (along with a section entitled “Interzone”) in Evergreen Review No. 16 of January / February 1961. They present Burroughs’ humor, language and voice at their most obvious. The “County Clerk” section seems tailor-made for Terry Southern’s commentary, and Seldon’s reading is supported to the letter by the “International Conference” selection. Interestingly, Southern’s critique, as well as several others like Jack Kerouac’s and Burroughs’ own “Deposition,” drew upon the scenes of extreme sexual violence in the “A.J.’s Annual Party” routine, seeing this section as a satire on capital punishment. None of the early little magazines dared touch this section. The “Talking Asshole” episode was also too hot to handle.

In any case, the above-mentioned pieces of ephemera are essential to understanding the early publication history of Naked Lunch, the establishment of the book’s critical reception, and the novel’s many court battles over the years. These writings demonstrate how completely the legal battles informed the early literary criticism of Naked Lunch. I am unaware that the Olympia Press blurbs, as well as the Southern and Seldon essays, are available in any other format. Jennie Skerl and Robin Lydenberg do not include these early essays in William Burroughs At the Front: Critical Reception, 1959-1989. A gathering of reviews and essays on Naked Lunch would make for an interesting collecting enterprise as such work appeared in the entire range of printed material from books to magazines to newspapers to ephemera.

In closing, another cool thing about ephemera is that it can be relatively cheap provided you create your own niche. In addition, the market is not as competitive. Yet as with vinyl, there are always exceptions as you search deep into Burroughs’ literary history. The 1960 Olympia Catalog and the Grove Press Naked Lunch Prospectus both fetch over $100. The program from the 1965 St. Valentine’s Reading recently sold at the Edwin Blair Auction and immediately found itself on the rare book market. As mentioned before, broadsides are often tailored to the collectible market thus making them instantly desirable to collectors and thus expensive. The key Burroughs posters can be very expensive. Yet there are countless other items just waiting for a motivated Burroughs collector to make use of them. For example, a collection of ephemera built around Burroughs’ readings and signings (programs, posters, advertisements, tickets, not to mention the accompanying collection of vinyl and cassettes relating to various readings) would tell a valuable story about Burroughs and his entire career as a writer. Another possibility would be a collection of the material connected to Burroughs’s art openings and exhibitions. I am sure these collections already exist. Maybe we have the makings of few another columns.

Naked Lunch Prospectus Archive

Front Cover
Naked Lunch Prospectus

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Press Release

Press Release

Press Release
Naked Lunch Declared Not Obscene

Press Release
Naked Lunch Declared Not Obscene

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 truth from the fiction concerning this issue. As early as the summer of 1950, Burroughs worked on drafts of Junkie. Yet without a doubt, the writing bug caught Burroughs in full force in the two years after Joan’s death in 1951. Burroughs finished Junkie, began work on Queer, and wrote the letters that would become The Yage Letters. By 1952-1953, Burroughs completed Junkie and Allen Ginsberg scoured his address book and New York for a publisher.

From 1953 to 1957, Burroughs’ published output, meager as it was, hovered between high and low culture. The only publisher willing to put out the shocking drug material of Junkie was the pulp fiction house of A.A. Wyn, Ace Publishing. Junkie with its matter-of-fact, non-judgmental and possibly even celebratory treatment of the drug culture and drug addiction, was almost too hot for Wyn to handle. He published it as a favor to his cousin, Carl Solomon, Allen Ginsberg’s friend from their joint stay in a mental hospital, and only with the book paired with a staunchly anti-drug, pro-law enforcement title, Maurice Helbrant’s Narcotics Agent. By 1957, Junky appeared solo in Great Britain but was again marketed as a pulp fiction. This time the book appeared as a paperback from Digit. Burroughs acts as the square’s Virgil in the Hell of the United States drug underworld.

An early magazine appearance, not mentioned in the well researched William S. Burroughs: A Bibliography 1953-1973 compiled by Joe Maynard and Barry Miles, highlights Burroughs’ early roots in men’s magazines. The first issue of Man’s Wildcat Adventures from June 1959 featured excerpts from Junkie alongside sensationalistic material such as “I Saw the Djiek Women Eat Their Mates” and “I Raided the Bored Wives Bordello.” The magazine also ran racy photo pieces of scantily clad women. While Junkie contains little to no sexual material, the honest portrayal of the drug underworld was salacious enough to appeal to the baser appetites of male readers prowling the drugstores and magazine racks for cheap thrills. In the 1950’s, Burroughs’ drug narrative was viewed as part horror story, part pornography.

Although he left the pulps behind, throughout his literary career, Burroughs would periodically find himself in men’s magazines, such as Swank, Cavilier, Jaguar, Penthouse and Playboy. In magazines such as these, the high quality of Burroughs’ writing would add literary weight while still delivering a good bang for the buck to more low-minded readers. This is especially noticeable in magazines like Olympia Magazine or the later issues of Evergreen Review which dealt in controversial literature struggling with the censors as well as tasteful nude pictorials. Burroughs’s relationship with Mayfair, a British men’s magazine, deserves special mention. In the late sixties, Burroughs wrote “The Burroughs Academy Bulletin” column for several issues. This forum allowed Burroughs to speak out on current issues important to him. More on this aspect of Burroughs’ literary career later. Jack Kerouac wrote a similar column, “The Last Word,” for the men’s magazine Escapade in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s.

Burroughs’ only published effort from the 1953-early 1957 period beside the pulp publication of Junkie lies at the other end of the literary spectrum. In January 1957, Burroughs appeared in Volume 53, No 2 of the British Journal of Addiction. The journal printed Burroughs’ “Letter from a Master Addict to Dangerous Drugs,” written in August 1956. The letter resulted from Burroughs’ relationship with Dr. John Yerbury Dent as Burroughs attempted to kick his drug habit which completely debilitated him. By 1956, Burroughs’ life reached a standstill. He shot heroin several times a day and spent his remaining hours staring at his shoes watching life pass him by. Dr. Dent’s Apomorphine cure allowed Burroughs to kick opiates and begin in earnest the next stage of his writing career.

In the Journal, Burroughs’ no-nonsense, man-on-the-street approach to drugs found a more academic audience. Burroughs tells the same story he told in Junkie, but in an even more authoritative and academic manner. In 1944 in a New York apartment, Herbert Huncke initiated Burroughs into a whole new world. The student became the teacher/writer. Burroughs presented himself as an expert on a little known section of the United States that captured the public’s imagination. Huncke taught class at Bickford’s or under streetlights on 103rd Street; Burroughs talked hip in the pulps and men’s magazines or lectured in academic journals.

Junkie appeared under the name William Lee in order to protect his family from the embarrassment of their son’s drug addiction and lifestyle. Yet Burroughs published his letter in the British Journal under his own name. Carol Loranger argues that “Letter from a Master Addict” is “one of Burroughs’s most subversive pieces of comic writing.” The “Letter” is full of comic asides and odd anecdotes that disrupt the academic tone of the article. Burroughs can be seen as parodying the academic article in much the same way he will later utilize parody in Naked Lunch. The solemn reporter of Junkie transforms into the sardonic hipster with the deadpan delivery of Naked Lunch. In a doctor’s journal, Dr. Benway is born.

Clearly, the British Journal was more prestigious than a pulp paperback. The name change shows not so much shame in his past experiences but the extent of his literary ambition. Burroughs felt he was a master writer as well as a master addict. His writing deserved mainstream publication and recognition. Teenagers in drugstores could not appreciate the complexities of great drug literature. By 1957, Burroughs’ creative output would begin to appear in a more literary arena: the little magazine. William Lee had become William Burroughs. William Burroughs was ready to unleash his word horde.

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 right. There were two obscenity trials dealing with two different Ginsberg / Ginzburgs. The Howl trial is the better known of the two. Ralph Ginzburg edited Eros magazine which ran afoul of the government. After a brief trial in June, 1963, Ginzburg was convicted in Philadelphia by the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit affirmed the conviction in 1964, and two years later the U.S Supreme Court announced its decision, also affirming the conviction, in Ginzburg v. United States, 383 U.S. 463 (March 21, 1966). Interestingly, Allen Ginsberg supported Ralph Ginzburg in his legal battles by picketing the Supreme Court. (For more on Ginzburg see Wikipedia.)

Recently, I returned to the issue of Ralph Ginzburg and Philadelphia in an attempt to get information on the little magazine scene in Pennsylvania in the mid-1960s. I found no relationship, but I turned up some other information relating to literary magazines and William Burroughs. My searches led me to the United States Postal Service website and the judicial branch of that service. I rediscovered the role the Post Office has in censorship. I was more aware of the role played by the US Customs Department as evidenced in the case of Howl and Ulysses, but the Post Office for over a hundred years has been just as active on this front. See this link for a detailed account of the role of the Post Office in censorship for over 100 years.

I found Postal Service Decisions concerning the availability of second class mailing privileges for three literary magazines: Eros, Big Table and Aspen. According to the Postal Service, second class mail (now called Periodicals) is “a class of mail consisting of magazines, newspapers, or other publications formed of printed sheets that are issued at least four times a year at regular, specified intervals (frequency) from a known office of publication.” Periodicals usually must have a legitimate list of subscribers and requesters. (See this PDF.) Periodical status grants special privileges such as reduced rates and various delivery services. As a result, periodicals are subject to the most complex regulations of all mail, including regulations concerning obscenity. These Postal Service Decisions provided an interesting springboard to a number of issues related to the little magazine and Naked Lunch.

On July 9, 1959, the Hearing Examiner handed down its initial decision concerning the suitability of second class privileges for Big Table. The Examiner found Big Table nonmailable under 18 US Code 1461 due to obscenity. Big Table (which included the suppressed contents of the Winter issue of Chicago Review) contained episodes of Naked Lunch, Kerouac’s Old Angel Midnight, a piece by Edward Dahlberg and poetry by Gregory Corso. Maurice Girodias, owner of the Olympia Press, hearing of this decision agreed to publish Naked Lunch. The book hit French bookstores and was available for mail order by the end of that same month. For a comprehensive article on the Chicago Review / Big Table controversy and the role of the Post Office in its censorship, see bigmagic.com.

What interests me in the Post Office decision is the fact that questions of obscenity and censorship dictated the academic and public reception of Naked Lunch even before it was published in book form. I generally viewed the legal defense of Naked Lunch as centering on the Grove Press edition. In that light, the “Deposition: Testimony Concerning a Sickness” and the “Letter from a Master Addict” were added to the Grove edition as ammunition for the inevitable obscenity trial. Yet from its very first publication, most critical discussion revolved around the legal defense of the novel. Thus discussions of the novel were couched around morality, artistic integrity, satire, and literary tradition. Every effort was made to prove that the novel possesses a positive moral center and contained a valid social message. Much later criticism of Naked Lunch stems from the ideas Burroughs attached to the novel in the “Deposition.” I am thinking of Eric Mottram’s Algebra of Need and similar studies. Many of these arguments were presented before the Postal Service Examiner in June 1959. Today, most readers do not view the novel as obscene and in fact view it as a protest against governmental control, bureaucracy, drug addiction, or a host of other societal ills.

I think this was and is unfortunate. In “Welcoming Howl into the Canon,” David Gates writes of what is lost due to the mainstream acceptance of Howl and due to the view of the poem as “the straightforward work of social protest that its defenders presented in court.” These arguments are on one level true and necessary in a legal sense, but Gates writes, “Ginsberg meant the poem to be obscene: not merely offensive in its forbidden words describing forbidden acts but offensive to the intellect, to common sense, to all our consensual realities, to all the boundaries we believe necessary to civilized life. This is not, at bottom, a poem holding up liberal, or libertarian, pieties against conservative pieties… It’s a radically offensive poem, or used to be — offensive even to received notions of what poetry is, and it needs offended readers whose fear and outrage bring it most fully to life.”

These thoughts hold true for Naked Lunch as well. The wild, exuberant offensiveness of the novel fades in the face of all the legal arguments and the process of canonization. I think much of the Keystone Kops insanity, silliness, carnival aspects, physical humor, physicality and sloppiness of Naked Lunch get pigeonholed into social satire, literary tradition and black humor. The experience of reading Naked Lunch for me is still like no other novel. The book spills out in all directions threatening to schlupp you like Bradley the Buyer. While the four letter words and sexual description are less shocking than when I first read it, the shocking beauty of its dark poetry remains. Even after Gravity’s Rainbow and other postmodern classics, the novel’s narrative structure (or lack thereof) creates a profound derangement of the senses. The directness of the first line and the nostalgia and loss of the last lines maintain their power and even grow. For me, Naked Lunch reads like it was written tomorrow. It is still fresh, and if not truly offensive, it still surprises me with every reading. I wonder if the book holds the same allure for most of today’s new readers.

The book seems much more ambivalent about drugs and drug addiction that commonly read. Naked Lunch‘s dark poetry and air of nostalgia for a lost drug underworld may not fully glamorize drugs but they do cast a seductive aura over them. The book never provides a simple approach to drugs like “Just Say No.” The image of Capital Punishment in Naked Lunch (the spurting hanged man) is also portrayed with ambivalence. For Burroughs, the image was one of tremendous fascination, obsession and fantasy. The manner in which he depicts it (with humor; with monotonous repetition; with frenzied prose-poetry) highlights Burroughs playing with as well as downplaying its power on him. In addition, there are no simple solutions or utopian alternatives to the bleak view of the capitalist system the novel presents.

The postal decision surrounding Aspen Magazine shows another way in which the Post Office censored literary production. In August 1971, the Post Office revoked the second class privileges of Aspen Magazine, not for obscenity, but because Aspen was not a periodical as defined by 39 US Code 4354. The Post Office found that Aspen could not receive government benefits, in part because it was not “formed of printed sheets.” The magazine in some cases was packaged in a box and contained film and audio tape as well as broadsides and postcards. See for a complete collection of Aspen, ubu.com.

One of the goals of Aspen was to challenge the definition of a magazine. Aspen expanded what a magazine contained and how it was packaged. Such experiments do not receive the special privileges of the government. This fact demonstrates how the government restricts artistic expression and experimentation through means other than obscenity. Financially strapped publishers are encouraged to conform the formats of their magazines in order to obtain the cheaper mailing rates necessary for distribution. This might explain why the little magazine boom of the post World War II era did not explore the limitations of the magazine format more aggressively. With its large print run and reliance on the postal system, Evergreen Review could not afford to experiment with its format if it wanted second class mailing benefits. Magazines with small print runs and no commercial interests, like Semina, could explore the boundaries of the magazine more fully.

The relationship between the eligibility for mailing privileges and the restriction of literary and artistic expression in the little magazine is even more direct in 39 US Code 4354(b). This section of the law reads, “the word ‘printed’ does not include reproduction by the stencil, mimeograph, or hectograph processes or reproduction in imitation of typewriting.” Interestingly, the definition of the periodical for mailing purposes was revised in 1960. I have been unable to determine if the language discriminating against mimeo and other similar processes was on the books before then. It would be very telling if this section on mimeo was enacted in 1960 proving that the mimeo revolution was making a large impact on the hearts and minds of the American public despite its small print runs. In any case, the law demonstrates how much of the little magazine revolution operated outside of not only the academy and publishing industry but also the sponsorship of the government. Poor writers who had access to new publishing technologies were restricted in the dissemination of their product by having to pay full mailing rates, while mainstream magazines, often with a mainstream message, received those benefits. Again as with Aspen, the law restricted the means of magazine production encouraging conformity in presentation and thus content. The laws discriminating against mimeo may explain why artists and writers, such as Leroi Jones who dabbled in mimeo in Floating Bear, chose to publish their magazines, like Kulchur or Yugen, using offset printing technology instead of other accessible technologies. For radical, counterculture magazines like Fuck You, the very act of printing in mimeo becomes an act of rebellion and a casting off of the government’s sponsorship.

In the case of Eros, the Hearing Examiner denied second class privileges due to the fact that the magazine was discontinued. Ralph Ginsburg was forced to halt production of the magazine as he conceived it. On March 21, 1966, the Supreme Court affirmed the lower courts’ rulings that Eros violated the Federal obscenity statute 18 U.S. Code 1461: “Every obscene, lewd, lascivious, indecent, filthy, or vile article, matter, thing, device, or substance;*** Is declared to be nonmailable matter and shall not be conveyed in the mails or delivered from any post office or by any letter carrier***” It should be noted that Eros published erotic art, including poetry and painting, and was far from pornography. Evergreen Review in its later issues published material of this type. As a result of the Supreme Court decision, Ginzburg ceased publication of Eros and spent time in jail. I have been able to see a full run of Eros and it is truly shocking that this publication was considered pornographic and obscene in the mid-1960s. During the height of the Summer of Love, sex and the human body were still considered filthy and immoral to a large segment of the population and the government. As Lori Klatt Maurice points out in her article on censorship and the post office, those sentiments are alive and well today.