Research Catalog

Title

A quick trip to Alamut: the celebrated castle of the hash-head assassins [autograph manuscript and two typescript drafts with autograph emendations and photocopy of portions of first and second draft with autograph emendations] : with The morning at Alamut, [autograph manuscript], 36 pages ; with fifteen original balck-and-white photographs of Gysin's expedition to Alamut, each one annotated by him on the verso ; and with the original mailing envelope for the returned typescript, sent by Gysin's agent, Peter Mateson, from New York to his Paris address (postmarked June 11th, 1974).

Author

Gysin, Brion.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Additional Authors

Lacina, Lawrence.

Description

129 leaves, + 15 photographic prints, 2 envelopes : ill.; 9x8.5 - 34x25 cm

Summary

• Typescripts comprise first working draft of “A Quick Trip to Alamut”; partially deleted is the original title, “The Knife,” and the subtitle, “Something about a knife found and left on a quick trip to Alamut, the celebrated castle of the hash-head assassins.”
• Autograph manuscript in red pen, chiefly on rectos of spiral-punched sheets, with initial, green leaf bearing title, “The Morning at Alamut,” comprising a ca. 3750-word extract from Gysin’s notebook, 32 leaves; notes made by the author over the course of one or two days while on the road to Alamut.
• First draft typed on rectos of 34 sheets of white onion skin stock; profusely emended throughout in Gysin’s hand, in black and red pen.
• Second draft typed on rectos of 22 sheets of white onion skin stock, lacking only final 4 pages (line spacing differs from first draft); profusely emended throughout in Gysin’s hand, in black pen.
• Third draft a photocopy of first 22 pages of the second draft and final 5 pages of first draft, with the Gysin’s autograph emendations in black pen, with some additions and some short sections altered, as well as typographic changes, 27 leaves; this version published in “Who Runs May Read” (Inkblot.Xochi, 2000).
• Manuscript records recollection of a conversation with Gysin’s companion, Lawrence Lacina, part of which appears in altered form in “A Quick Trip to Alamut”; detailed description of their eventually successful efforts, overseen by guide, Moamer.
• 15 original black-and-white photographic prints (9 x 9 cm.), almost certainly taken by Lawrence Lacina (with one exception); 11 feature Brion Gysin, either alone or with other members of the expedition party, visiting temples in Isfahan and Persepolis, resting at night beside the Jeep, striking a beefcake pose while bathing, and on Alamut Rock, including one of him alongside Lacina; 4 show views from Alamut Rock, including the Alamut Valley; each photograph captioned in Gysin’s hand on back.

Alternative Title

Morning at Alamut

Subjects

• Assassins (Ismailites)
• Lacina, Lawrence
• Alamūt Castle (Iran)

Note

• Gysin went to Alamut in August 1973. Since childhood, after reading about Marco Polo’s travels, Gysin had conceived a life-long fascination with Hassan-i-Sabbah, an Islamic missionary and founder of the Hashshashin, or “Assassins.” He yearned to make a pilgrimage to Sabbah’s mountain fortress, Alamut. At the Beat Hotel, in Paris, he and Burroughs talked of going there together. Instead, Gysin travelled with his “slightly campy American friend,” photographer Lawrence Lacina. When they made the final ascent and arrived at the summit, Lacina in high heels and Gysin in an orange silk shirt, black velvet trousers, and “pimps’ pumps,” Gysin was filled with ecstasy and terror. “A Quick Trip to Alamut” was intended for but not published in Rolling Stone. In the article, Gysin describes in some detail the effects of his recently-acquired asthma, but not the psychic fear he experienced there, only referring to it years later in an interview with Terry Wilson. Wilson has since stated in an interview with Ian MacFadyen, published online at Reality Studio, that “the myth of Hassan i Sabbah may […] have rebounded upon Gysin at Alamut […]The piece he wrote […] for Rolling Stone was rather lighthearted and deceptive […] He certainly didn’t deal with the psychic fear he’d experienced in that piece. Typical of Brion to keep it light and play it down in that way, and hide the psychic reality of that situation.”
• Hassan-i Sabbāh (Persian: حسن صباح Hasan-e Sabbāh) or Hassan al-Sabbāh (Arabic: حسن الصباح Ḥasan aṣ-Ṣabbāḥ) (1050s-1124) was a Nizārī Ismā‘īlī missionary who converted a community in the late 11th century in the heart of the Alborz Mountains of northern Persia. He later seized a mountain fortress called Alamut and used it as the headquarters for a decentralized Persian insurrection against the dominant Seljuk Turks. He founded a group of fedayeen whose members are often referred to as the Hashshashin, or "Assassins".—From Wikipedia.

Access (note)

• Restricted access

Call Number

Berg Coll m.b. Gysin Q85 1973

OCLC

920685749

Author

Gysin, Brion.

Title

A quick trip to Alamut: the celebrated castle of the hash-head assassins [autograph manuscript and two typescript drafts with autograph emendations and photocopy of portions of first and second draft with autograph emendations] : with The morning at Alamut, [autograph manuscript], 36 pages ; with fifteen original balck-and-white photographs of Gysin's expedition to Alamut, each one annotated by him on the verso ; and with the original mailing envelope for the returned typescript, sent by Gysin's agent, Peter Mateson, from New York to his Paris address (postmarked June 11th, 1974).

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Added Author

Lacina, Lawrence. pht​

Other Title

Morning at Alamut

Research Call Number

Berg Coll m.b. Gysin Q85 1973