Letter from Brion Gysin to Roger Knoebber, 17 March, 1966






Tangier, Morocco: Brion Gysin (letter), 1966.
letter: 10.625" x 8.25", single sheet, both sides.
envelope: 4.5" x 6.375".
RK19660317_LBG1_1

A letter from Brion Gysin in Tangier, Morocco to Roger Knoebber in San Francisco, California.

This reads:

American Express
Tanger, Morocco
17 iii 66

Dear Roger

Glad to get yr letter as I love thought of you hustling through Tanger in yr black travelling suit.

Wm. & I lammed out of NY on a charter flight proposed by Grove [Press]. He stayed a while in London, came here & is now back in England where “Nova Express” just came out. Our joint book: “The Third Mind” has been sold to Grove & is in Great Britain & I am living on the advance money trying to write a mad tale of the Sahara. Both Wm. & Paul Bowles think little of the venture & they may well be right but I am determined to give it a last try.

I have the perfect little flat in the same building as P.B. out by the new U.S. Consulate, here. It is not really like living in Tanger but then, neither is living in Tanger any more. The place is very dead, cool & quiet. Beatniks ebb & flow through but now that Ira Cohen is back in N.Y., I see none of them. A friend is here from N.Y. John Giorno who is the sleeper in Andy Warhol’s film “Sleep” in which he sleeps for eight hours. He sleeps here right now but he has a work-room in the Hotel Ourida in the Medina walls. It is sort of wind-swept at this season but we love a fireplace here.

My plan will be to go back to N.Y. when our book comes out but as that is still a little vague as there are some production problems owing to the expense of this part of picture book we are putting out. We hope the kids will like it but it may turn out to be a sleeper, too. No news of the Dreamachine spinning either although it is in the best hands back in N.Y. Too bad I don’t have a phone here. It would be nice to have a long chat.

Do write.

Love
Brion


Notes:

"Wm.": William S. Burroughs

"lammed out": American slang for “running away”

"mad tale of the Sahara": This “mad tale” was titled The Process.

"P.B.": Paul Bowles

"picture book we are putting out": The publishing of The Third Mind, which this refers to, fell through with Grove Press. The printing costs were deemed prohibitive, and Brion and William held to artistic integrity. The book first was released in France by Flammarion in 1976, and in an edited form by Viking in the U.S. in 1978. At the time of the editing of these letters, a full, uncut version of The Third Mind in English has still not been achieved as envisioned.

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