Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting Much has been made of the imperiled state of the print publishing industry. Just this weekend I read a review of a large format art book entitled The Last Magazine. Everywhere you look there is an article on the future of the ebook…
Tag: William Burroughs
Electronic Revolution
[M&M A21] Cambridge: Blackmoor Head Press 1971, Limited signed / numbered edition of 50 copies printed on special paper and issued in a cardboard case. Drawings by Brion Gysin. Bilingual French and English text of a two-part 52-page essay on media and manipulation, about equal parts paranoia and genius, as much of Burroughs’ work tended…
The Wild Boys
[M&M A20] New York: Grove Press 1971, first printing and one of 5,619 copies, hardbound in dust jacket. Maynard & Miles A20a. The small number of copies printed indicates that the publisher felt demand for the book would be minimal. Burroughs’ first real novel after all the cut-ups and rearrangements of earlier works borrowing from…
Ali’s Smile
[M&M A19] Brighton, UK: Unicorn Books 1971, an edition of 99 numbered copies signed by Burroughs, hardbound without dust jacket, accompanied by a 12-inch vinyl recording of Burroughs reading a draft of the text. Maynard & Miles A19. It has always been difficult for collectors to find this title, and is probably the most sought-after…
The Last Words of Dutch Schultz
[M&M A17] London: Cape Goliard Press 1970, hardbound in dust jacket. A fiction written in the form of a screenplay, this work was inspired by Burroughs’ interest in reputed mobster Schultz. This limited edition of 100 copies was numbered and signed by Burroughs, and bound in grey green buckram. Issued in fragile tissue dust jacket….
The Job: Interviews with William Burroughs
[M&M A16] New York: Grove Press 1970, first printing and one of 5,000 copies, hardbound in dust jacket. Maynard & Miles A16a. First American edition (and the first edition in English), with a new Introduction by Burroughs. This collaboration with Daniel Odier is an excellent collection of interviews with Burroughs. First published as Entretiens Avec…
The Dead Star
[M&M A14] San Francisco: Nova Broadcast Press 1969, printed stapled wrappers which fold-out accordion fashion, one of 2,000 copies, first separate printing of this piece which originally appeared in a different form in Jeff Nuttall’s My Own Mag. Maynard & Miles A14. This bibliography of A-List publications by William S. Burroughs derives from Eric C….
So Who Owns Death TV?
[M&M A13] San Francisco: Beach Books 1967, small pamphlet in white wrappers stapled at top, this copy of the “first state” of issue with 50ยข price, one of 3,000 printed. Maynard & Miles A13a. A collaboration with Carl Weissner and Claude Pelieu. A variant printing of some 200 copies has black wraps with white lettering…
APO-33: A Metabolic Regulator
[M&M A12]
Time
[M&M A11] 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…
Nova Express
[M&M A10] New York: Grove Press 1964, first edition and one of 10,000 copies, hardbound in dust jacket. Maynard & Miles A10a. A new work, part of which was written in collaboration with Ian Sommerville, and part of which uses the “fold-in” method of rearranging text, a variation of Gysin’s cut-up method. New York: Black…
Roosevelt After Inauguration
[M&M A9] New York: Fuck You Press 1964, by “Willy Lee”, bound in stapled wraps. Maynard & Miles A9. Small and short (only 14 gathered leaves), this routine was originally intended for inclusion in The Yage Letters but was censored by the English printers. A version appeared in Floating Bear 9 (1961) before being co-opted…
The Yage Letters
[M&M A8] San Francisco: City Lights 1963, one of 3,000 copies in wraps. Maynard & Miles A8a. Consisting mostly of letters written to Allen Ginsberg by Burroughs on his trip to South America in 1953, but including letters by Ginsberg as well. _____ 1975, second edition in wraps, adds a new letter dated 10 July…
Dead Fingers Talk
[M&M A7] London: Calder/Olympia 1963, first printing and one of 4,000 copies. This is a somewhat rare Review Copy with slip laid in which was sent to a Canadian distributor, possibly the only such copy in existence. DFT includes some material from the Naked Lunch, Soft Machine, and Ticket That Exploded. Hardbound in dust jacket….
The Ticket That Exploded
[M&M A6] Paris: Olympia Press 1962, softbound in stiff olive-green wraps, a copy lacking the dust jacket, one of 5,000 copies. Maynard & Miles A6a. The third of the Olympia Press originals. New York: Grove Press 1967, first US publication, hardbound in dust jacket, one of 10,000 copies. Maynard & Miles A6b. The text of…
The Soft Machine
[M&M A5] Paris: Olympia Press 1961, stiff olive-green wraps, with decorated dust jacket, one of 5,000 copies. Maynard & Miles A5a. The second publication of Burroughs’ work by Olympia Press. Dust jacket design by Brion Gysin. New York: Grove Press 1966, first US printing, one of 18,000 copies, hardbound in dust jacket. Maynard & Miles…
The Exterminator
[M&M A4] San Francisco: Auerhahn Press 1960, bound in wraps and one of 1,000 copies. Maynard & Miles A4a. A collaboration with Brion Gysin, not to be confused with Burroughs’ work Exterminator! published by Viking Press in 1973. Cover design by Gysin. A short piece with but 47 pages. San Francisco: Dave Haselwood Books 1967,…
Minutes to Go
[M&M A3] Paris: Two Cities Editions 1960, bound in wraps, one of 1,000 copies. Maynard & Miles A3a. A collaborative effort between Burroughs, Brion Gysin, Sinclair Beiles, and Gregory Corso, and the first of the “cut-up” publications. There was also a limited edition of 10 copies (only five of which were for sale) each signed…
The Evolution of the Cut-Up Technique in My Own Mag
Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting In late 1963, Jeff Nuttall sent William Burroughs the first issue of My Own Mag. In an editorial note on the cover, Nuttall writes tongue firmly in cheek, My Own Mag “will appear every now and then… will be devoted to creations of…
My Own Mag: A Bibliographic Nightmare
Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting My Own Mag is a bibliographic nightmare. There is no general consensus on the correct order of the first eight issues of the seventeen issue run. This might be by design. Nuttall, like Ed Sanders, possessed a devilish air and a flair for…
William S. Burroughs and Kurt Cobain: A Dossier
In honor of what would have been Kurt Cobain’s 40th birthday on 20 February 2007, RealityStudio offers this dossier documenting the relationship between Cobain and William S. Burroughs. Cobain greatly admired Burroughs, instigating their collaboration on The “Priest” They Called Him and visiting the Beat legend at his home in Lawrence, Kansas. And while Burroughs…
My Own Mag
Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting In the introduction to the bibliography of his work prepared by Joe Maynard and Barry Miles, William Burroughs spoke about how the “little mags” were a lifeline for him at a time when he had very few hopes for publishing his work. One…
Naked Lunch
[M&M A2] Paris: Olympia Press 1959, the first printing with the decorative border around the title page, one of 5,000 copies. Maynard & Miles A2a. Dust jacket with a design by Burroughs. The first printing showed the price of 1,500 Francs printed on the back cover. However, according to the Chronique de la France et…
Junky
aka Junkie [M&M A1] New York: Ace Double Books D-15, published 1953 and bound with Maurice Helbrant’s Narcotic Agent, attributed to William “Lee” as Burroughs used his mother’s maiden name so as not to discredit his family. Maynard & Miles A1a, in which they note that as many as 100,000 copies may have been printed….
Books and Broadside Prints By William S. Burroughs
A Bibliography by Eric C. Shoaf Junky [1953] Naked Lunch [1959] Minutes to Go [1960] The Exterminator [1960] The Soft Machine [1961] The Ticket That Exploded [1962] Dead Fingers Talk [1963] The Yage Letters [1963] Roosevelt After Inauguration [1964] Nova Express [1964] Time [1965] APO-33: A Metabolic Regulator [1965] So Who Owns Death TV? [1967]…
A William S. Burroughs Bibliography
by Eric C. Shoaf Eric C. Shoaf’s Collector’s Guide is now available in an updated print edition produced by Inkblot Publications. The William S. Burroughs material listed in the A-items section are primary publications and these are arranged in chronological order based on date of first publication of the title. Later printings are noted only…
Kulchur 4
Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting Onward, as Robert Creeley would say. Let’s move to Kulchur 4. What strikes me about this issue is Burroughs and Kerouac’s picture on the cover. Gilbert Sorrentino guest-edited this issue. In his essay in The Little Magazine in America collection, Sorrentino writes, “Marian…
Interview with Gary Lee-Nova
Reading Burroughs Since the Beginning Gary Lee-Nova is a Vancouver-based artist known especially as an important figure in the “West Coast Scene” of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Sometimes working under the pseudonym Art Rat, Lee-Nova has produced a sizable body of work ranging from film to painting, from cut-ups to mail art. Alongside…
Kulchur 3
Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting I have not read all twenty issues of Kulchur cover to cover, but of the issues I have sampled, I enjoy Kulchur 3 the most. Issue 3 presents Kulchur at its most Beat. William Burroughs (“In Search of Yage”), Jack Kerouac (“Dave”), Gary…
Kulchur and “The Conspiracy”
Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting Yugen, Floating Bear, Kulchur. I always think of these three magazines together. One reason for this is the editorial and creative presence of the then Leroi Jones (Amiri Baraka). The other impetus behind these magazines is Donald Allen’s New American Poetry Anthology or,…
A Conversation With William S. Burroughs
By Simone Lazzeri Ellis (Originally Appeared in Contemporanea, 1990) To set the stage for this interview, which was originally published in 1990, Ms. Ellis kindly responded to some questions from RealityStudio. When I did this interview, I was the chief art critic for the Santa Fe New Mexican, which William knew because he’d been to…
Burroughs, Berrigan, and The Ticket That Exploded
Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting Like Skyline Books, Beat Books and a handful of others, Ken Lopez consistently offers show stopping material. I worked in a used and rare bookstore for a couple years, and few and far between were the days that high quality 20th century literature…
Burroughs and Beats in Men’s Magazines: William Burroughs Appearances in Adult Men’s Magazines
Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting This list is by no means comprehensive, although I attempted to make it as complete as possible. I combed through Maynard & Miles and Eric Shoaf’s Checklist marking down all the men’s magazines with William Burroughs fiction, essays, or interviews. I took adult…
Burroughs and Beats in Men’s Magazines: Burroughs
Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting Continued from Part 1, Introduction to Burroughs and Beats in Men’s Magazines. From the 1950s to the late 1970s, William Burroughs supplied men’s magazines with fiction, essays, and interviews. The sheer number of pieces Burroughs provided to the skin trade is amazing. Burroughs…
Burroughs and Beats in Men’s Magazines: Introduction
Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting In the last few weeks, eBay featured a couple of men’s magazines with William Burroughs appearances. A nice copy of Man’s Wildcat Adventures attracted several bidders and sold to a book dealer in California. Later, a copy of the little known British magazine…
Burroughs Ephemera 3: Naked Lunch Prospectus Letter
Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting See also Ephemera 1: Olympia Press Catalog and Ephemera 2: Naked Lunch Prospectus.” The recent columns on Burroughs ephemera generated a bit of interest in the Burroughs community. Forum member BigTable was kind enough to send RealityStudio scans of his copy of the…
Burroughs Ephemera 1: Olympia Press Catalog
Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. It seems everything I come across of late ties into the saga I’ve been documenting in the Bunker. The terminology involved in book collecting can be quite slippery. Even terms as basic as first edition…
Burroughs Ephemera 2: Naked Lunch Prospectus
Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting See also Ephemera 1: Olympia Press Catalog and the transcription of Terry Southern’s oft-quoted essay, “A Devastating Ridicule of All That Is False.” Just how high-minded Girodias’s attack on censorship and obscenity laws was is up for debate. Although he was far from…
Yugen
Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting Several years ago, I wrote on the potential joys of collecting Charles Olson. Olson loomed as a literal giant over the small press and little magazine scene from 1950 until his death in 1970. As a result, his work appeared in some of…
Yage Redux
Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting The first edition of Yage Letters published by City Lights in 1963 is a slim and seemingly unassuming book. The cover has become famous and the book sells well, but it remains largely undiscovered territory to scholars. Only 18,000 words long and struggling…
Time
Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker 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…
Collecting the Olympia Edition of Naked Lunch
Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting Also see Jed Birmingham’s “Top 23 Burroughs Collectibles #13: The Olympia Naked Lunch” and RealityStudio’s “Secrets of the Olympia Press Naked Lunch.” I received an email asking about advice in purchasing an Olympia Press Naked Lunch. It is pretty safe to say that…
Regrets
Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting Regrets. Every book collector has a few. Sometimes it is buyer’s remorse: a drop in the stomach when you realize you paid too much for an item. Often, the collector feels the persistent burn of desire when a highly prized book is passed…
Published High and Low: Men’s Magazines, the Pulps and Academic Journals
Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting According to Beat legend, the shooting death of Joan Vollmer gave birth to William Burroughs, the writer. Grief and guilt forced Burroughs to the typewriter. The work of recent Beat historians, like Oliver Harris’ William Burroughs and the Secret of Fascination, separates the…
Obscenity and the Post Office
Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting Several years ago, I had an argument with my step father regarding the Ginsberg obscenity trial. He thought the trial occurred in the 1960s in Pennsylvania. I was sure the trial took place in San Francisco in 1957. Turns out we were both…
Nothing Here Now But the Recordings
Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting A true Burroughs vinyl rarity just sold on eBay: a signed copy of Nothing Here Now But the Recordings issued by Industrial Records ($330/9 bids). This gets into territory I know little about, but it seems to me that signed Burroughs LPs are…
Burroughs Manuscripts at Auction
Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting The sale of Robert and Donna Jackson’s extensive William Burroughs collection to the New York Public Library made national headlines. The Edwin Blair Beat Literature Sale at Pacific Book Auction features some incredible items, including William Burroughs manuscript material. A recent catalog from…
Locus Solus
Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting The history and contents of the magazine Locus Solus provide insight into the type of progressive poetry circles and ideas Burroughs started tapping into with his small scale, textual cut-up works of the early 1960s. A testament to refined taste, Locus Solus was…
Kiss and Couch
Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting Rolling Stone magazine just celebrated its 1000th cover with a tribute to / touching up of the legendary Sgt. Pepper album cover. Reportedly, the new cover cost over $1 million to produce. It is fun and interesting, but I doubt it will reach…
At the Kerouac Fest
Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting The following powerpoint was presented on September 8, 2006 at the final Kerouac Fest in Windber, PA. For more on Kerouac Fest and the wonderful activities of host Blair Murphy see thecemetery.net. The presentation covers many of the topics that I have been…
Jan Herman and William S. Burroughs
Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting It was in 2006 that Jed Birmingham wrote the following text about the relationship between William S. Burroughs and Jan Herman, publisher, writer, artist, and connoisseur of the cut-up. It is with tremendous pleasure that RealityStudio now uses that text as the introduction…
James Frey and William S. Burroughs
Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting James Frey, author of A Million Little Pieces, has been dropped by Riverhead Books. (See the article on CNN.) The success and scandal surrounding the memoir immediately got me thinking about William Burroughs. Obviously, I am not alone. Erica Jong wrote an article…
Interpol
Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting By the late 1950s, literary magazines were much on Burroughs’ mind. He was no longer satisfied with publishing his numerous routines in letters to Allen Ginsberg. Naked Lunch began to take shape as a novel and Burroughs sought a larger audience. Mainstream publishing…
Insect Trust Gazette
Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting Little magazines tend to streak across the literary sky like a comet briefly full of passion, poetry and prose before disappearing out of view. Few little magazines last several issues and fewer make a lasting cultural or artistic impression. For every Paris Review…
Oliver Harris on Yage
Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting I received an email from Oliver Harris, author of William Burroughs: The Secret of Fascination and editor of The Letters of William Burroughs. According to his research and the research of others, much of the information on my web site concerning photographs of…
Fuck You Press Archive
Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting It was a good day when I finally got my hands on Fuck You Vol. 5/No. 7. Quite possibly the coolest, hippest magazine of the mimeo revolution (Fuck You epitomized the revolution as demonstrated by naming the Steve Clay book “A Secret Location…
Floating Bear 24
Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting Book collecting is full of regrets and missed opportunities as much as exciting acquisitions. Previously, I wrote about some of my regrets: the biggest involving a complete set of Black Mountain Review. I have also had my share of books and magazines slip…
The Edwin Blair Auction of Beat Literature
Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting The Edwin Blair sale is over and the results highlight issues raised in posts to RealityStudio. Manuscripts, the Olympia Press Naked Lunch, vinyl and even the Olympia Ticket That Exploded are all headline stories in the Burroughs items up for sale. Without a…
The Digit Junkie
Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting The Burroughs collector finds himself faced with several stoppers in his quest for a complete collection. Some items while not particularly rare are prohibitively expensive such as the Ace Junkie, Olympia Press Naked Lunch or the many beautifully constructed limited editions of Burroughs’…
Dead Fingers Talk
Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting There were a couple of interesting signed books for sale on eBay last week that gets to the heart of what makes a particular book collectible. A 1963 John Calder Dead Fingers Talk sold for about $160 (ebay, PDF) and a Grove Ticket…
William Burroughs on Cassette
Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting For the past several months, pieces from the estate of Allen DeLoach have been auctioned on eBay. These items, including photographs, small press chapbooks, little magazines, and manuscripts, chronicle the counterculture literary scene of the 1960s and 1970s. In my opinion, they rank…
Burroughs in Germany and Belgium
Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting Living in the Beat Hotel in Paris and traveling around Europe in the 1960s, William Burroughs possessed the opportunity to rub elbows with several avant-garde circles active at the time. Previously, I wrote about Burroughs and his relationship with Scottish literary magazines. In…
William S. Burroughs’ Cabin
Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting As mentioned in the forum, a cabin owned by William Burroughs ten minutes outside of Lawrence Kansas is on eBay for $159,950. (PDF) The property is on Lone Star Lake and includes 4500 square feet of land. Apparently Burroughs mentioned the cabin in…
The NYPL Acquisition of the Burroughs Archive
Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting For those of you chomping at the bit to sneak a peek at the Burroughs Archive in the Berg Collection, do not book your ticket to New York just yet. The archive is massive and could take awhile to organize and to catalog….
Burroughs and Scotland
Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting A recent post mentioned the Edinburgh Beat scene. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, William Burroughs appeared in several Scottish literary magazines and made a memorable appearance at the International Writers Conference in Edinburgh. I have often wondered why Scotland was a…
Burroughs in 1981
Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting The year 1981 was a watershed period for William Burroughs. In his personal life, he experienced much heartbreak and turmoil. In March, his long-suffering son (William Jr.) died of liver failure, after years of drug and alcohol abuse. Burroughs felt tremendous guilt about…
Broadsides
Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting Recently, I got into a conversation with a book collector friend of mine about collectible broadsides. This discussion forced me to realize that I did not really know what a broadside technically was. I knew one when I saw one. In bibliographic terms,…
Burroughs Bibliographies
Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting With all the discussion concerning bibliographies, I should mention a few other print bibliographies besides Maynard & Miles and Shoaf’s Checklist. In 1975, Michael B. Goodman published William S. Burroughs: An Annotated Bibliography of his Works and Criticism. This guide usually gets lost…
Bebop Burroughs
Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting Burroughs appeared twice in the jazz magazine Metronome. In May 1961, Metronome published “No Bueno” from Soft Machine. In August 1961, “This is the Time of the Assassins” appeared. These appearances are quite unusual as this is quite early for a mainstream magazine…
Beatnik Vinyl at Auction
Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting EBay is a fantastic place isn’t it, if place is the right word for it. For example, the vinyl fanatic or budding fanatic can supplement or create an entire collection of some note in just a click of the mouse. Just Kids Nostalgia…
Beat Vinyl
Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting Did you know that Neil Young and Rick James were in a band together? I had no idea. I stopped in a local record store to take a look at a beautiful copy of Timothy Leary’s first LP, The Psychedelic Experience, on Broadside,…
Association Copies
Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting Throughout my columns in the Bunker, particularly in the Floating Bear pieces, I have touched on the collectible and downright fun nature of association copies. In the world of rare books, association copies are “books once belonging to the author, signed or annotated…
APO-33
Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting I spent some more time on Dave Moore’s page of Burroughs covers the other night. An interesting piece could be written on the cover art and external packaging of Burroughs’ work over the past five decades similar to the essays that have been…
Burroughs Blurbs
A Compilation of Book-Jacket Blurbs by William S. Burroughs It’s always hard to know exactly what to make of the blurbs that authors contribute to the jackets of books written by other authors. Are they sincere endorsements of the quality of a book? Are they fragments of sham praise extorted from friends? Are they recommendations…
Burroughs / Balch Video Experiment
Video Experiment with William S. Burroughs and Antony Balch by Jan Herman Introduction by RealityStudio In December 1971 Jan Herman visited William S. Burroughs at his Duke Street flat in London. He brought along a video camera — still a novel item at the time — and put it to good use. He made three…
Transitional Period vs Gongs of Violence
Two Burroughs Cut-Ups Compared A few months ago Professor Oliver Harris was kind enough to share with RealityStudio one of his working documents for Yage Redux. It is an incredible Microsoft Word palimpsest comparing Burroughs’ various yage publications and manuscripts. RealityStudio couldn’t publish it (for obvious copyright reasons), but we did add a few images…
Yage Letters Redux
RealityStudio Reviews the New Edition Prepared by Oliver Harris It is an acknowledged paradox at the heart of William S. Burroughs’ work that his greatest books called into question how much they were even his. Whereas Samuel Beckett tried to eviscerate the novel from within — to “naughten” it, to borrow a term from Heidegger…
The Lost Years of William S. Burroughs
RealityStudio Reviews the New Book by Rob Johnson Rob Johnson, The Lost Years of William S. Burroughs: Beats in South Texas, published by Texas A&M University Press, May 2006. Available now from Amazon. “‘SHOOT THE BITCH AND WRITE A BOOK! THAT’S WHAT I DID,’ William Burroughs suddenly shouted, standing up fast.” The bitch was Joan…
Terry Southern on Naked Lunch
“…A Devastating Ridicule of All That Is False…” In life there is that which is funny, and there is that which is politely supposed to be funny. Literature, out of a misguided appeal to an imaginary popular taste and the caution of self-distrust, generally follows the latter course, so that the humor found in books…
Notes on Burroughs (1964)
By Marshall McLuhan 1. Today men’s nerves surround us; they have gone outside as electrical environment. The human nervous system itself can be reprogrammed biologically as readily as any radio network can alter its fare. Burroughs has dedicated Naked Lunch to the first proposition, and Nova Express (both Grove Press) to the second. Naked Lunch…
Wired for Shock Treatments
A Review of The Soft Machine By Joan Didion There sometimes seems a peculiar irrelevance about what is claimed for William S. Burroughs, both by those who admire him and those who do not; the insistent amorphousness of his books encourages the reader to take from them pretty much exactly what he brought to them….
Burroughs Literary Archive
Catalogue Excerpt by Ken Lopez In March 2006 the New York Public Library purchased the William S. Burroughs Literary Archive from collectors Robert and Donna Jackson. This sale was brokered by Ken Lopez Bookseller, who put together an extremely nice catalogue describing the archive and situating its importance in the Burroughs corpus. For those who…
William S. Burroughs Memorial Service – Eulogy
Remarks on Behalf of the Community by Tim Miller We gather here today as a community of men and women who admired and loved William S. Burroughs and were transformed by his extraordinary life. We are here to mourn William’s death, but that is a secondary matter. William’s family members, meaning the dozens or even…
William S. Burroughs Memorial Service
Images and Recollections from the Memorial Service and Funeral These images from the program offered at William S. Burroughs’ memorial service were originally reproduced online at the now defunct site BigTable.com. Luke Kelly, the proprietor of that site, has kindly agreed to let RealityStudio reproduce them here. The images were originally provided by Dave Hull…
Burroughs Landmarks
Burroughs on the Map Where Is Burroughs Buried? A reader wrote to ask where William S. Burroughs is buried. The short answer: Bellefontaine Cemetery, which is located at 4947 W Florissant Avenue in Saint Louis, Missouri. In the “Epilogue” to Word Virus, James Grauerholz wrote: “According to Burroughs’ express wishes, he was laid to rest…
Dead Aim: The Unseen Art of William S. Burroughs
Major Exhibit of Burroughs’ Artwork to Open in London A major exhibit of William S. Burroughs’ artwork will open September 14th, 2005, in London at the Riflemaker gallery. “Dead Aim: The Unseen Art of William S. Burroughs” is the first installment of a three-part exhibition organized in collaboration with the Burroughs Estate. The exhibit is…
Interview with Lakefront Carol
Owner Selling Burroughs’ Former Cabin “Lakefront Carol” is the current owner of a lakefront bungalow formerly belonging to William S. Burroughs. She and her husband are selling the cabin on ebay (PDF) and are planning on passing it along to a friend if the cabin doesn’t sell by May, 2006. Jed Birmingham had some thoughts…
Interview with Rob Johnson
Author of The Lost Years of William S. Burroughs: Beats in South Texas Rob Johnson is a professor of English and American literature at the University of Texas Pan-American — which, it turns out, is just down the road a bit from Pharr, Texas, where William S. Burroughs lived in the late 1940s. (Google map)…
Interview with John Geiger
Author of Books on Brion Gysin and the Dream Machine John Geiger is the author of four books. His first two concerned Arctic exploration. His next two, Chapel of Extreme Experience: A Short History of Stroboscopic Light and The Dream Machine and Nothing Is True – Everything Is Permitted: The Life of Brion Gysin, concerned…
Interview with Hank O’Neal
Photographer Speaks about Burroughs Hank O’Neal is a photographer well known for his jazz and portrait photography. He collaborated with Berenice Abbott for many years, and also befriended many of the writers of the Beat generation. His portraits of William S. Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, and others can be seen on his web site. Abrams/Image will…
Interview with Professor Oliver Harris
Burroughs Scholar Speaks of Past and Forthcoming Publications Aside from James Grauerholz, executor of the Burroughs Estate, Oliver Harris may well be the most eminent living scholar of William Burroughs and his works. Senior Lecturer in the Department of American Studies at Keele University in England, Harris first made himself known to admirers of Burroughs…
Which Is the Fly and Which Is the Human?
(Interview with William Burroughs and David Cronenberg, reprinted from Esquire, February 1992, pp 112-116.) by Lynn Snowden Deep in Kansas, darkly dressed, William S. Burroughs, a man who shot his wife in the head and waged war against a lifetime of guilt, who has sucked up every drug imaginable and survived, and who has made…
Fragment of an Interview with Allen Ginsberg
(Originally appeared in the Berkeley Barb, 1974) Interviewer: I’d like to return to Burroughs’ theory of evil. What would you say is its source? Ginsberg: Well, originally it was analyzed by William Lee the factualist (perhaps representative of a trust of giant insects from another galaxy) in Naked Lunch. But since then in Nova Express…
Interview with William S. Burroughs
(Originally appeared in Journal For the Protection of All Beings, 1961) By Gregory Corso and Allen Ginsberg Gregory Corso: What is your department? William Burroughs: Kunst und Wissenschaft. Gregory Corso: What say you about political conflicts? William Burroughs: Political conflicts are merely surface manifestations. If conflicts arise you may be sure that certain powers intend…
Your Education
Dreams about William S. Burroughs Burroughs spoke frequently about the importance of dreams to the creative process. “There couldn’t be a society of people who didn’t dream,” he told Victor Bockris. “They’d be dead in two weeks.” He collaborated with Brion Gysin on the “dream machine,” and he frequently used dreams in his fiction as…
Mind Parasites by Colin Wilson
Reviewed by William S. Burroughs “The human race is being attacked by a sort of mind cancer. Something is sucking the human mind dry and has been sucking it for the past two hundred years.” That is the shattering discovery made by Professor Gilbert Austin. Who or what is responsible? Mind parasites, malignant beings who…
Thanksgiving Day, Nov. 28, 1986
William S. Burroughs For John Dillinger In hope he is still alive Thanks for the wild turkey and the Passenger Pigeons, destined to be shit out through wholesome American guts — thanks for a Continent to despoil and poison — thanks for Indians to provide a modicum of challenge and danger — thanks for vast…
William S. Burroughs On Scientology
(Los Angeles Free Press, 06 Mar 1970) William S. Burroughs In view of the fact that my articles and statements on Scientology may have influenced young people to associate themselves with the so called Church of Scientology, I feel an obligation to make my present views on the subject quite clear. Some of the techniques…
Electronic Revolution
William S. Burroughs (Expanded Media Editions, 1971) FEEDBACK FROM WATERGATE TO THE GARDEN OF EDEN In the beginning was the word and the word was god and has remained one of the mysteries ever since. The word was God and the word was flesh we are told. In the beginning of what exactly was this…
The Mayan Caper
(Excerpt from The Soft Machine) William S. Burroughs Joe Brundige brings you the shocking story of the Mayan Caper exclusive to The Evening News — A Russian scientist has said: “We will travel not only in space but in time as well” — I have just returned from a thousand-year time trip and I am…
The Death Dwarf in the Street
(Excerpt from Nova Express) William S. Burroughs Biologic Agent K9 called for his check and picked up supersonic imitation blasts of The Death Dwarfs — “L’addition — Laddition — Laddittion — Garcon — Garcon — Garcon” — American tourist accent to the Nth power — He ordered another coffee and monitored the café — A…
Crab Nebula
(Excerpt from Nova Express) William S. Burroughs They do not have what they call “emotion’s oxygen” in the atmosphere. The medium in which animal life breathes is not in that soulless place — Yellow plains under white hot blue sky — Metal cities controlled by The Elders who are heads in bottles — Fastest brains…
The Man Who Taught His Asshole to Talk
(aka “The Talking Asshole Routine” from Naked Lunch) William S. Burroughs Did I ever tell you about the man who taught his asshole to talk? His whole abdomen would move up and down you dig farting out the words. It was unlike anything I ever heard. This ass talk had sort of a gut frequency….
Dr. Benway Operates
(Excerpt from Naked Lunch) William S. Burroughs The lavatory has been locked for three hours solid…. I think they are using it for an operating room…. NURSE: “I can’t find her pulse, doctor.” DR. BENWAY: “Maybe she got it up her snatch in a finger stall.” NURSE: “Adrenalin, doctor?” DR. BENWAY: “The night porter shot…
The Boston Trial of Naked Lunch
Boston, Mass., once the scene of such famous censorship trials as those involving Forever Amber, God’s Little Acre, and, more recently, Tropic of Cancer, again attracted a distinguished gathering of literary luminaries on January 12, 1965, when “A Book Named Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs” found itself the defendant in Boston Superior Court before…
Introduction from Queer
William S. Burroughs When I lived in Mexico City at the end of the 1940s, it was a city of one million people, with clear sparkling air and the sky that special shade of blue that goes so well with circling vultures, blood and sand–the raw menacing pitiless Mexican blue. I liked Mexico City from…