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48.
The Last Post Danger Ahead.
Original collage, 1965. Gelatin-silver print, paper, and typescript on paper. 31x24cm. SIGNED in ink below the title. Mounted and framed for the exhibition Ports of Entry: William S. Burroughs and the Arts, held at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art between July 18-October 6, 1996.
A three-column cut-up text, with rosette red seal and a photograph of a magazine experiment. Published in November 1965 in b/w facsimile in the sixth issue of Aram Saroyan’s mimeo magazine, Lines (item #49).
Robert A. Sobieszek describes the collage in his catalogue essay, “Who Is The Third Who Walks Always Beside You?” (p.55, illustrated): “The text reports a deadly battle, mentioning ‘enemy intercepted September 17, 1899’, ‘Klinker is dead… whistling Annie Laurie against the frayed stars laser guns,’ and ending with ‘You can watch our worn out film dim jerky far away shut a bureau drawer.’ Reference to the popular song ‘Annie Laurie’ is found on numerous pages of the Black Scrapbook, and the last passage is taken directly from The Soft Machine, first published in 1961.”
Burroughs’ experiments with the three-column technique began in Tangier in early February 1964 and continued for the next eighteen months, including the nine months he lived in New York. They were often given newspaper titles, such as “The Silent Sunday News”, “The Coldspring News”, or, as here, “The Last Post”.
Several of them appeared in small literary magazines, most notably My Own Mag, but also in Art & Literature, Mother, Ambit, Brown Paper, Lines, and the Chicago Review.
In the latter, he wrote: “When you read words in columns you are reading your future reading, that is, you are reading on a subliminal level other columns that you will later consciously experience you have already read. Also the presentation in columns enables the writer to present three or more streams of narrative running concurrently” (Chicago Review Vol. 17, no. 1, p.130).
Attractively presented in a silver metallic frame with acrylic glazing (43.8x36.1cm.); LACMA exhibition label to verso.
