OLYMPIAN ~

William S. Burroughs

Today we took a day off. In a northern town, sunny all throughout, books and hikes around the neighborhood

“I cannot endure to waste anything so precious as autumnal sunshine by staying in the house.”—Nathaniel Hawthorne



and we even get a peek into a William Burroughs tiny exhibit where we held two copies of Naked Lunch: the Olympia Press first edition

and the first edition Grove Press.




Sweetheart had to put her pocketbook and satchel into a locker before the books were permitted near her. She gave her driver's license to the authorities. I simply sat there waiting for the books, unarmed. Here came the softcover French edition and the familiar to us cloth edition. Both signed by Burroughs on the full title pages with a ball point pen. When we were done we took the books over to the authorities. They smiled. Two women. One gave back Sweetheart's property, the other asked to see the books. She seemed to be handling and peering into both volumes as if for the first time in her life. A book approximately a half century old. Still dangerous.

WB

blog.shankbone.org
www.tribe.net