William S. Burroughs shopping lists on eBay

Someone is selling writer William S. Burroughs's shopping lists on eBay. How odd. While the lists do contain cat-related items, reflecting Burroughs's fondness for felines, they'd be more interesting artifacts if they also included, say, shotgun shells, scissors, bug spray, and morphine syrettes. BuyItNow price is $495. From the auction description:

Page 1: Items written by Burroughs - 1. Cat Pans. 5. Limes & lemons. 6. Dry Cat Food. 7. Canned Cat Food - Mealtime, bits of beef - salmon dinner. There are 4 items written on the back and none are by Burroughs

Page 2: Items written by Burroughs - 1. Waffles (plain buttermilk). 2. Triscuits. 3. Cat Food Canned. 4. Vodka - last but not least 5. Marshmallow for toasting over stove (?) last word is a guess - hard to read. There are 4 items written on the back - Burroughs has written "Lysol."

Page 3: Items written by Burroughs - 1. Lemons and lime. 2. Milk. 3. Bottled water. 4. Honey (crossed out). 5. Lipton tea bags (the brisk tea). There are 4 items written on the back but none are written by Burroughs.

William S. Burroughs Authentic Grocery Shopping List

• [Brother Provisional]

  Mmmm… frozen swaffles, triscuts, vodka and marshmallows.

  At least his cats seemed to have eaten well.

• [prodpoke]

  what a cute list. n_____________________n he sounds like a cat lady. if anyone’s waited behind a cat lady in a store they have a small amount of commonplace groceries and cat food. Burroughs likes marshmallows, who would of known?

• [IWood]

  #8 posted by Pantograph:

  Let’s print this and take it to the store tomorrow. We’ll all eat like William Burroughs for a day.

  So, I finally get to see what’s on the end of my fork…and it’s waffles.

  Huh.

• [infikitsune]

  When I die, I hope my shopping lists sell for $495. Actually, screw dying, I want the $495 now – with that kinda money I could buy any groceries I like.

• [Halloween Jack]

  And people accuse Stephen King of publishing his laundry lists. *tch*

• [diluded000]

  Is it folded into a package and full of something?

• [jrtom]

  Pound pastrami
  Can kraut
  Six bagels
  Bring home for Emma.

  Now _there’s_ a shopping list for the ages.

• [Keeper of the Lantern]

  Well I’ve just placed a hunk of my poo for sale on ebay.

• [lo_fye]

  I think that last word is “oven”, not stove… but same difference.

• [Patrick Nielsen Hayden]

  One day in the early 1980s, in the Seattle neighborhood of Laurelhurst, I saw William S. Burroughs coming out of a Baskin-Robbins with an ice cream cone.

  Everyone always asks what flavor the ice cream was.

• [Baldhead]

  anyoen who buys this is a monumental idiot. Not everything a writer writes is worth reading. least of all their shopping lists.

• [EeyoreX]

  Soo… If the lists can indeed be verified as written by Burroughs, doesn’t it follow that whoever is selling them is infringing on the intellectual property of this writers estate?

  :-)

  Me, I think I’ll just wait for the audiobook edition.

• [Lord Xenu]

  Anyone else think these just may be fakes? It worked for Lee Siegel.

• [Anonymous]

  How did y’all miss the much more entertaining:
  “7 pumpkins & box of tampax (super)”

• [Anonymous]

  One of David Foster Wallace’s shopping lists will be published in a hardbound edition, as soon as someone locates the box of footnotes.

• [hassan-i-sabbah]

  Nooo! I just can’t belive that Old Bill is a vanilla Guy!

• [Anonymous]

  That is my handwriting on the “Dry Cat Food.” Cooked Saturday night dinners for him in 96-97. Have a bunch of these lists, though curiously, not this one. Yeah, he did like the Vanilla ice cream. Also some fancy Breyers ice cream thing called the venietta or venetian or something.

• [Anonymous]

  Now, someone just needs to cut it all up and rearrange the list. Then resale it on ebay.

  WSB would be snickering if not proud of said act.

  - Control.

• [Anonymous]

  You know, Woody Allen once wrote a farcical critique of a collection of shopping lists written by a famous author. The Metterling Lists:

  http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0812978110/ref=sib_dp_pop_toc?ie=UTF8&p=S009#reader-link

• [Pantograph]

  Let’s print this and take it to the store tomorrow.
  We’ll all eat like William Burroughs for a day.

• [Marco Raaphorst]

  6. buying a Burroughs’ shopping list @ ebay

• [thequickbrownfox]

  Would be worth more if writ double-spaced on the good old Remington.

• [minamisan]

  One day in the early 1980s, in the Seattle neighborhood of Laurelhurst, I saw William S. Burroughs coming out of a Baskin-Robbins with an ice cream cone.

  Everyone always asks what flavor the ice cream was.

  well don’t hold us in suspense. what was it?

• [Patrick Nielsen Hayden]

  Vanilla.

• [fxq]

  I have Bill Shakespeare’s dry cleaning receipt right here. But I’m never gonna give it up; never gonna put it down; never gonna run aground and revert grues.

• [StRevAlex]

  I totally support collecting the most ephemeral of ephemera related to artists, especially when they’re geniuses like WSB was.

• [Takuan]

  why IS touching the very same that someone touched so important to humans?