The grasp of the minimize and paste novel, homosexual, drug addict, spouse killer, essayist, quick story author, painter, spoken phrase artist, normal throughout self-obsessed jerk, and sensible sensible author William S. Burroughs was born on today, the fifth of February, in 1914. Were he nonetheless alive he’d be 100 and 9 years previous…
Not fairly that way back, however bunches and bunches of years in the past, I used to be working in Moe’s bookstore in Berkeley.
Moe instructed me that William Burroughs was going to do a studying on the retailer and he, Moe, wished me to make a flyer to submit across the space asserting it.
I wrote up the copy, you already know one thing alongside the traces of William Burroughs, writer of Junkie & Naked Lunch talking at Moe’s Books, tackle & time, then acquired some magazines and a newspaper and minimize out the letters and an occasional phrase after which cellophane taped them together with an image of Mr Burroughs onto a white sheet of paper, then took it to one of many native copying companies, who after I mentioned I wished the cellophane tape to be apparent within the flyer mentioned he’d do the job however provided that I instructed nobody which native copier had executed that crappy job. To today I’ve saved that enterprise’s identify a secret…
For my little undertaking I used to be invited to sit down with the good man and his assistant within the retailer’s makeshift inexperienced room forward of his studying.
He preferred the flyer and mentioned so.
Me, I discovered I didn’t actually have a lot to say to him on the time, aside from I used to be influenced by a few of his writing. But I do cherish the small encounter and the sitting round making smallest speak for a couple of minutes with a dwelling connection to a thread of American literature and the entire beat scene that definitely has been necessary to me.
Happy birthday, Bill!
Sorry about being useless and all…
