Various (Marcuson, Alan (Editor); Burroughs, William S. et al.)

Friends No. 9 (July 10, 1970)

London, England, UK: The T.F. Much Company Ltd., 1970. First Printing. Folded Sheets. "In The Invisible Generation, first published in IT and The Los Angeles Free Press in 1966 and reprinted in The Job, I point out the use of pre-recorded cut up tapes played back in the streets as a revolutionary weapon...In The Invisible Generation I consider the potential of thousands of people with recorders messages passed along like signal drums parody of the President's speech up and down tenement balconies, in and out open windows, through walls over court yards, taken up by barking dogs, muttering bums, music, traffic down windy streets across parks and soccer fields. Illusion is a revolutionary weapon." (William S. Burroughs, "Storm the Reality Studios," first & final paragraphs, pg. 7) This extraordinarily scarce number of the underground UK tabloid edited by Alan Marcuson features "Storm the Reality Studios" by William S. Burroughs, Founding Father of the Beat Generation-&-Beyond, among the foremost literary & cultural figures of all time, indeed the very Icon-Patron of our Third Mind enterprise. This key essay in the WSB oeuvre sets forth, in the most expanded & (relatively) lucid form, his doctrine of cut-up media (printed, audio, visual) as an effective subversion of the "pre-recorded universe" & state-corporate-sponsored party-line propaganda. This journal has a famous & interesting cult-history: Begun in 1969 to fill the void left from the temporary closure of Jan Wenner's Rolling Stone UK edition as Friends of Rolling Stone, then morphing into Friends as here & finally Frendz until it ceased publication in August of 1972 (see our item No. 8467). Underground comix, radical-political & occult-related articles, musical, movie & book reviews, & wonderful contemporary ads (including for the "New/ Jimi Hendrix/ L.P./ Now Available/ "Band of Gypsys," pg. 32) fill the rest of this issue, but for us Burroughsians "Storm the Reality Studios" is by far its most significant contribution. Maynard & Miles, C287, pg. 166; Schottlaender (5.0 edition), C278, pg. 62. From the collection of our good friend & colleague Brian E.C. Schottlaender, the most-distinguished American librarian-academician who is the author of "Anything But Routine: A Selectively Annotated Bibliography of William S. Burroughs," now in its fifth edition- an indispensable Burroughsian resource which we always consult for our WSB curations, as above. A Most-Important WSB collectible in its rarest & most emphatic contemporary form, with the very highest & most relevant provenance. Unfortunately, this item is even relatively overall in only poor-to-fair condition with an entire leaf (pgs. 17-18) altogether missing & another (pgs. 23-24) significantly torn at left margin/edge. But the rest of the issue, most significantly the WSB piece, is intact, & so, taking also into account its extreme rarity (we found no available comparables) & very special provenance, we offer this at a steep discount with all its faults: Mild-to-moderate age-toning, light rubbing throughout; mild-to-significant bumps, creases, chips & partially closed tears at edges & corners of most sheets incl. covers; missing & damaged leaves per above. Poor-Fair. [Item #8712]

Price: $30.00