Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting

#4: The Urgency Press Ripoff Edition of Time — Roy Pennington (1972). An Installment in Jed Birmingham’s series of the The Top 23 Most Interesting Burroughs Collectibles.

The Urgency Press Rip-Off bootleg of Time speaks for itself. Preach it, Roy!  

This edition of TIME MAGAZINE by W. S. Burroughs is bought for you courtesy of Ugency Press Rip-Off using anarchist duplicator (a machine wih x a mond of its own). 5 runs of 99 copies each wre printed of which at least 20 wrer cocked-up and given away the rest you gotta pay for. We would have put the staples in the usual way , but the original had wider pages . . . anyway it is quite appropriate . . . at the risk of giving the game away allow me to explain: the column headings are sequitors, but often in reverse. What goes up, can go down.

This work is a fine early example of the cut-up technique which burroughs has no disowned (see his recent interview in rolling stone) probably because it is too artificial. nevertheless we can find many familiar landmarks in the following pages. a medley of all his works. Even the inimitable Col. Sutton-Smith, a pre-echo of Burroughs in old-age retirement. (the arch exponent of the DO-EASY do it yourself get it together based on domestic rituals (see forthcoming rip-offs) . . . . . . 

finally a woed from out sponsors::: U P R O intend to bring out a further collection of low-availability burroughs artivles (e.g. the Mayfair articles not used to pad-out ‘The Job’) plus a phenomenological critique of language based on the dictum KILL THE WORD BEFORE THE WORD KILLS YOU and the writings of Korzibski (the great russian semanticist) Also a collection of the lyrics of the Soft Machine plus cartoons. All low quality runs as wre not in this for the money (i think). Remember, anyone could have done this, but we did. Remember anyone could sign [signature of William Burroughs]

p.s. this edition specially prepared in hurry for bickershaw festival as the sun was shining in sunny brighton hope it shines for you too. any enquiries to: roy pennington, c/o Arts B 9post-grad, Sussex University Falmer.

p.p.s ?this is a typographical error ?

Amen, brother! The Bickershaw Festival ran from May 5-7, 1972, with an incredible group of performers including: Hawkwind (with Lemmy, RIP you silver machine), Dr. John, The Incredible String Band, Donovan, Cheech and Chong, The Kinks, Flaming Groovies, Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band, New Riders of the Purple Sage, Country Joe McDonald and The Grateful Dead. The sets by Captain Beefheart and The Grateful Dead were allegedly legendary. The Festival may well have been one of the wettest on record, but Roy’s Rip-off, published for and distributed at the Festival, sure fucking shines. With this DIY blast, think of the day-glo Blast from back in the futurists, pounding over the loudspeakers, Roy takes center stage in Burroughs’ bibliography and defiantly drops the mic while the echo of his call to action hangs in the air.  

“All low quality runs as wre not in this for the money (i think). Remember, anyone could have done this, but we did.”  

Amateur: a person who engages in a pursuit, especially a sport, on an unpaid basis. Some may dismiss Roy’s publications as amateurish. It is easy to flip through the Rip-off Time and toss it off as unprofessional. But when did being an amateur become a negative? And why so? Nowadays everybody wants to get fucking paid. Everybody wants a job title and health insurance. Everybody wants an office and office hours. Everybody seeks to wear a business suit and go to work. If they do not exactly seek it out willingly, they are willing to settle for it. Why would you ever want to make academics, publishing, or art a J-O-B? All you need is love. Amor. Amateur: engaging or engaged in without payment; nonprofessional. Note: the key word here is nonprofessional , not unprofessional. Somehow being an amateur has become equated with conduct unbecoming to the team. It has become a personal foul. How about doing it for the love of the game? For sport. Publishing, art, and academics are not about job security, but living on the edge and working from the margins. Yet not being on the sidelines. It is not that amateurs are not in the game; they just make their own rules. Or more accurately they refuse to engage in point-shaving. Amateurs will not throw the game for a few bucks. Publishing, art and academics are not about getting paid or getting laid, but just about the joy of playing.  

Bickershaw was largely a hippie festival, but the Urgency Time is pure garage rock and proto-punk. It is defiantly DIY and lo-fi. For me, it is more beautiful than one of the lettered editions of Time, which are now on the market as art objects for more than $18,000. Roy does not mess with the fine press and that is fine with me. This ain’t no disco; this ain’t no fooling around. This is raw power, printed with a heart full of napalm. Pure passion, pure fun. The Time bootleg is a richer reading experience. That’s for sure. This is what publishing should be. The bootleg Time is a zine before the glory days of zines in the 1980s/1990s. Most of the copies of My Own Mag that I own were Roy’s personal copies and you can see the influence of Nuttall, such as in the manner of stapling, in Roy’s publications.

The only problem I have with Roy as a publisher is that he did not complete his list of projected works. His only other completed work (if there are others, somebody please fill me it ASAP), The Mayfair Acadamy More or Less, is another masterwork of the Mimeo Revolution. Roy infiltrated the British Library, ransacked its archives and shared his treasures with the world, a true pirate. The fear of piracy is not the danger of being plundered or walking the plank, but that the pirate offers an alternative society or economy. Pirates are not lawless, but they do play by their own rules. Roy is on a mission. He is Captain Mission. Burroughs understood the value of that, but does he condone it? You can talk about Nike ads and Viking book deals all you want, but where Burroughs stood (or whether he attempted to stomp them out) on publishers like Roy is the real measure of whether Burroughs sold out on his ideas and ideals or not.

Such acts by Roy are largely considered unprofessional. Roy is the amateur as agitator. Protest and rebellion have likewise become professional and commercialized. They do not make you throw up in disgust. They are meant to be consumed. Protest is an industry and a big business. Likewise rebellion should not be a charity. Raising hell has been replaced by the constant need to raise funds or the desire to make money. Pro vs amateur. DIY or die. I am not recommending that you take your ball and go home, but I would like to remind you of how fun it was way back when to play pick up with whoever happened to be in your local neighborhood park. Nobody plays pick up anymore for fear of being kidnapped. Or arrested. It is no longer legal to have your big brother watch over you in the park. All the activities of kids and adults, be it protesting or playing baseball, must be organized and supervised by professionals.  

Roy’s taste is impeccable. He rightly saw The Job as a con perpetrated on the public and the publishers. As for the charge of padding, Burroughs is guilty and not just in The Job. In addition, Roy was one of the few who understood that The Soft Machine was a work of poetry. (Roy may speak of the band not the book, but my list is full of what ifs. I will misread Roy in order to get to the book of my dreams.) If only he would have put the Olympia Press edition back before the eyes of readers, it would no doubt have made my top five Burroughs collectibles. I merely keep the Mayfair Acadamy off my list in order to give others a chance. Anything Roy did is a shot of pure joy and adrenalin.

You see, reading Burroughs and specifically Naked Lunch I never once felt that I could write like him. He did not inspire me to become a writer. It was a prophet/disciple relationship. I came to Burroughs to listen and to learn. To sit at his feet. The best Burroughs, the most inspiring were the cut-ups. That was possible and worth doing. The cut-ups are DIY. If the cut-up made writing seem within my grasp (I only need to grab hold of the scissors), Roy made publishing seem doable and more importantly he filled me with the desire and energy to try it myself. I wanted to stand side by side with Roy. I wanted to print with him in protest. I wanted to sit and talk with him in a pub. DIY, god knows, it is Time. The time is right. Hurry up, it’s time. Time to get moving. Time and technology changes but the urge to do it yourself and free the word from all control does not. Roy’s manifesto and his publications were the primary inspiration for the Bibliographic Bunker, Mimeo Mimeo, and Planned Obsolescence Press. DIY publications lead by example and Roy is one of my most important teachers. Roy seemed to be having such a good time, yet he seemed to be on an important mission. An undercover assignment. Roy’s rules of publishing: (1) it should be fun and (2) it should be dangerous. Publishing is serious play. On the other hand, corporate publishing (or institutional academics or the art market) is just a fucking business; it is a dead-end job. The Mimeo Revolution and Roy Pennington say take this job and shove it; I am going to take some Time for myself.  

Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting

#8: Time. C Press (1965). An Installment in Jed Birmingham’s series of the The Top 23 Most Interesting Burroughs Collectibles.

Book collectors are consumed with envy. Covet not thy neighbor’s books. Try as we might, even the most saintly of collectors amongst us cannot help themselves. For true bibliophiles, the temptations of print are legion. These objects often appear in the bibliographies of authors one does not primarily focus on. For example, I revealed my personal sins in a piece on Charles Bukowski and Black Sparrow Press. To some extent that essay is flavored by sour grapes. Quite simply, I am jealous of Bukowski collectors. They strike me as a vibrant, close-knit community and, particularly with Buk’s bibliography in the 1960s, they have tons of fun and interesting items to collect. Books and magazines, many of them prime examples of the Mimeo Revolution at its best, which I want all for myself. In addition, I should admit that this rabid, enthusiastic Bukowski community is probably a by-product of the very Black Sparrow model I so despise. The horror! The horror! I happen to think that Martin’s model is more hype than hip, but there is no denying the energy of the Bukowski collectible market.  

So with that in mind, it is way past time to get real and get something off my chest. In expressing my dissatisfaction that Bukowski collectors did not smoke the same “Unfinished Cigarette” as me, I failed to mention that I am, in some respects, a hypocrite who smokes two packs a day. As did Burroughs. bibliographically speaking, he was a scenester and a player. And to a certain extent, the Mimeo Revolution, my idea of a publishing utopia, was built on a con. Heads bowed and all quiet while the Priest confesses:

Letter from WSB to Gysin (Feb. 4, 1964)

I think the format here illustrated with examples enclosed is the best for the book we have under preparation. That is three columns of text newspaper format of a small town newspaper or of a number of such papers fitting into each other. I have a number of titles that could be used The Nova Police Gazette The Bad News The Silent Times The Present Times The Past Times The Last News The Last Post etcetera. For our purposes perhaps we should simply follow through with the three columns and not change titles. Now we could for example file The Silent Sunday Post with drawing or have all the drawings on the other side of the text which would be a simpler and more inexpensive format.

It occurs to me that we might sell these newspaper issues like the enclosed to the rare book trade properly printed and illustrated. Perhaps J. Roman [a rare book dealer] would do the publishing.

Letter from WSB to Gysin (June 22, 1964)

However, things are looking up. The Esquire article will be out in September, I have enough material now for my Time format magazine. I am sure it will sell. The success of My Magazine has been amazing. There is a gallery open here.

Letter from WSB to Ian Sommerville (November 6, 1964)

Following this mark up I have been cutting out bits of text old letters etcetera pasting photos and blocks of text in copies of my books (Nova Express now out) a photo for every page of diary always using when possible original material rather than retyped matter and so finding a use for all the old texts and photos. I hope the two pages enclosed will give you an idea. The scrapbooks of which I now have three and the copies of my books with photos and text inserted should be saleable for good prices to rare book collectors and dealers.

And I believed the cut-up was Burroughs’ true religion and his quest to rub out the word was pure. Burroughs as avant-garde saint. But no, the Burroughs I love most, the most experimental Burroughs, the Burroughs of the cut-up was on one level merely Burroughs on the make. With the scrapbooks, the three-column formats, and the grids, he is in part following up on the marks. Burroughs realized the rare book world was a con, a carny underworld of dealers, barkers, addicts, marks, and johns. Like any system run by the Algebra of Need, it is corrupt. With money in the offing, there are naturally fakes and forgeries. RealityStudio has come across and exposed a few of those. And then there is a whole industry of manufactured collectibles; holy relics fashioned for the foolishly devout, like, oh, how I hate to say it, the C Press Time, published by Ted Berrigan and edited by Ron Padgett.

Time could have been a Black Sparrow publication, as it follows Martin’s model. First, there is a trade edition of 886 copies, with a smaller edition of 100 numbered copies signed by Burroughs and Gysin. Then an additional 10 lettered copies hardbound in special floral cloth with a manuscript page by Burroughs and an original drawing by Gysin. The remaining four copies were hors commerce. Supposedly, some copies were issued in a case. The trade edition sold for $1.50, the signed paper edition was $10. The hardcover edition was $25. With Time, Burroughs and Ted Berrigan demonstrated to Black Sparrow how the game was played. A copy of one of the ten lettered copies is currently available on Abebooks for over $18,000.

My copy, number 62, was additionally inscribed by Berrigan to book dealer Roger Richards. This is an interesting association especially in light of the book-collecting con, because it highlights the relationship between hipster writers, like Burroughs, Berrigan and Corso, and the rare book trade. Berrigan was always looking to make a buck. After all, speed and Pepsi are not free. On one level, C Press was like an ATM machine. Let’s take the C Press Sonnets. Of course this is a major work of post-WWII poetry, and an important example of self-publishing in the spirit of Walt Whitman and Leaves of Grass, but it was also a cash cow for Berrigan. Almost immediately The Sonnets (as did issues of Berrigan’s C: A Journal of Poetry) went out of print in its tiny initial printing of 300 numbered copies. If you notice on Abebooks, there are several copies for sale but all of them are unnumbered. I cannot remember the last numbered copy I actually came into contact with. Clearly, Berrigan had an arrangement with book dealers, like Roger Richards or Bob Wilson of Phoenix Bookshop, to run off a copy if there was a collector out there feeling the jones. It was a form of print on demand. This must have been common practice for starving poets and writers. For example, it is common knowledge that Corso generated holograph poem manuscripts for Roger Richards whenever Corso needed a quick buck.  

The Mimeo Revolution developed because corporate publishers would not touch New American Writing with a ten-foot pole. As a result, writers had to self-publish. The audience was in many cases other writers and artists. As such the publications circulated within that creative community. Often for free. Semina and Floating Bear are two good examples of such distribution. But Time shows the presence of another important community: book collectors. Collecting the Mimeo Revolution did not begin with the Secret Location exhibition in 1996 and the accompanying book/checklist published by Granary Books. No, as with rock posters and handbills, mimeographed little mags were instantly collectible. Ed Sanders’s Peace Eye Books and his catalogues for the store highlight this fact. These catalogues are crucial in documenting the collecting culture surrounding the underground. They show what was in demand and what was considered rare. And they do it with humor by wonderfully satirizing the world of book collecting. Sanders was not alone. Gerard Malanga, while he was an assistant at Warhol’s Factory, brokered archive deals with libraries and institutions. Little mag editors commonly sold their archives to institutions to finance further issues or a much needed sabbatical for a creative project.

The C Press Time would be a top ten Burroughs collectible merely because it lays bare some open secrets about the Mimeo Revolution, but it also helps that it is the finest example of a Burroughs scrapbook ever published. Time, APO-33, and little magazines, like My Own Mag, have captured the attention of collectors, of Burroughs and otherwise, for decades. It is time scholars and academics got on board. Critical attention on these works is lacking. Yet such a study would have to take into account that Burroughs’ cut-ups were as much as a manipulation of the rare book and art markets as a purely intellectual experimentation with text and image. The cut-up must be considered not just in terms of the three-column format but also as a form of three-card monte. Personally, I do not care if I am being played. My unabashed love of Time as a literary work and as an art object proves more than any other Burroughs publication that I am a mark for his con on all levels.  

New York: “C” Press 1965, Maynard & Miles A11a. A signed hardcover issue lettered A-J each accompanied by a manuscript page from Burroughs and a drawing by Brion Gysin. Illustrated with four calligrams by Gysin. The top half of the cover appears to be an issue of Time magazine and features portraits of Nehru and Mao, reproduced as a part of a collage by WSB. Indeed, the November 30, 1962 issue of Time magazine, with the title “India’s Lost Illusions,” was apparently chosen by Burroughs for parody because that issue includes a savage review of Naked Lunch, as well as Burroughs’ other Olympia Press works, in which Burroughs and other Beat writers are put down as frauds.

_____ limited edition of 100 numbered copies signed by Burroughs and Brion Gysin, in wraps as issued.

_____ trade edition of 886 copies, bound in wraps.

Sussex, England: Urgency Press Rip-Off 1972, a piracy of the “C” Press edition by Roy Pennington, limited to 495 copies and scarce. Pennington estimates that only about 100 copies were actually distributed, legal-size mimeographed sheets stapled together. Maynard & Miles A11b.

Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting

Recently, I received an email asking me about a copy of Time, a limited edition collage piece published by C Press. According to its copyright page, Time was published in 1965 in 1000 copies. 886 copies comprised the trade edition. These copies were unnumbered and unsigned. 100 copies were signed by Burroughs and Gysin. 10 copies numbered A-J were hard bound and contained a manuscript page of Burroughs and an original colored drawing by Gysin. 4 more were hors commerce. (This French term literally translates as “before business.”) An hors commerce print was used as the color key and printing guide that the printer would use to insure consistency of the print run. These pieces are usually printer’s proofs that are not for sale and are often used for promotional purposes. Ports of Entry: William Burroughs and the Arts provides images from the Joseph Zinnato collection which included an extensive archive of Time. Stephen J. Gertz wrote a great article detailing his experience with the Zinnato collection including a description of the Time archive. I have encountered several descriptions of copies of Time, signed and unsigned.

Burroughs and Gysin signed the book together, as called for in the limited edition of 100 numbered copies. In isolated cases, Ted Berrigan, the editor, signed as well. My copy is signed by Burroughs, Gysin, and Berrigan. Berrigan inscribed the copy to Roger Richards, a Beat friend and patron. He was particularly close with Gregory Corso, who lived with Richards during his later years. I have never seen one of the 10 lettered copies. UCLA possesses a copy (D) in its rare book room.

According to Ports of Entry, “Burroughs created his own version of Time magazine, including a Time cover of November 30, 1962, collaged over by Burroughs with a reproduction of a drawing, four drawings by Gysin, and twenty-six pages of typescript comprised of cut up texts and various photographs serving as news items. One of the pages is from an article on Red China from Time of September 13, 1963, and is collaged with a columnal typescript and an irrelevant illustration from the ‘Modern Living’ section of the magazine. A full-page advertisement for Johns-Manville products is casually inserted amid all these text; its title: Filtering.” The “Fliday Newsmagazine,” “Proclaim Present Time Over,” “File Flicker Tape” are some of the texts. The November 30, 1962 issue of Time was chosen, because the magazine reviewed the Grove Press edition of Naked Lunch in an article entitled “King of the YADS” (Young American Disaffiliates). The looming face of Mao symbolizing the threat of Red China adds an aura of nuclear disaster.

Time, along with Burroughs’ contributions to My Own Mag, is a stellar example of Burroughs’ attempts to merge the collage technique of art with the cut up technique of literature. Time is the fullest expression of Burroughs’ experimentation with the newspaper and magazine format that is part parody and part critique as well as an expression of a new format and form capable of expressing a greater truth than fiction or journalism separately. Time goes to the heart of Burroughs’ distrust of the mass media manipulation of image and news. Many think of Burroughs the visual artist as a flowering of his later years, but as his scrapbooks and pieces like Time attest, Burroughs delved into the visual arts early in his creative life. Elements of surrealism, the collage and assemblage art of Rauschenberg or Wallace Berman and his circle, Pop Art, and Mail Art are all present in Time.

All this is an introduction to the question I received. Basically, the collector wanted to know if he possessed one of the 100 signed copies of Time. He sent me an image of his copyright page with the Burroughs signature in pencil. Attached is his scan. The issue number is written incorrectly and is not stamped. In addition, only Burroughs signed the copy and not Gysin. Both Burroughs and Gysin signed the 100 copies. See my copy. What I think happened is that the collector received one of the unsigned, unnumbered 886 copies that somebody, not Burroughs, then numbered and signed with Burroughs’ name. The signature looks suspect especially the William. See my webpage for examples of Burroughs signature over time. I have never seen Burroughs sign in pencil, particularly Time. The numbering of the signature is flat out wrong. Why would Burroughs number his signature if he happened to sign this copy at a later date? The person who signed it obviously saw Burroughs’ signature before but could not reproduce the numbering of one of the true 100 copies.

Time was bootlegged in 1972 by Roy Pennington as an Urgency Press Rip Off. According to Maynard & Miles, Pennington published the bootleg for the Bickershaw Festival. The bootleg was not staple-bound like this forged copy, but stapled at the top. I have never seen the bootleg, so if anybody has a copy please send an image and description.

Time Archive

William S. Burroughs
Time
1965
C Press

Download a pdf of Time

C Press
Advertisement for William Burroughs’ Time
1965

Ron Padgett
1965 Letter from Ron Padgett about the publication of Time
26 April 1965

Time Bootleg

William S. Burroughs
Time (BOOTLEG by Ripoff Urgency Press)
1972

William S. Burroughs
Time (BOOTLEG by Ripoff Urgency Press)
1972