A Guide To The Labyrinth 2021

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

This is an extra special version of the less than great Collected Works.
Now almost impossible to get this very expensive special edition was a limited edition which included replicas of Jim's journals and poetry books.
at nearly £400 was it worth it. Hard to say as I don't have a copy and 'worth' is a construct that depends on the individual.

Even with the endless milking of fans it certainly looks pretty amazing.

[zaval80]

I'm not sure it ever was 800 GBP. The cheaper edition of which there were 1.650 copies and which was on sale up to the beginning of this year cost "just" 345 GBP and 15 more for p&p in the UK on the preorder, and then rose to 395 GBP. The pricier edition of which there were just 350 copies sold out within the first days of the preorder, and if I remember right, cost about 200 GBP more. The content was the same with the exception of two "art prints" or something. IMO "800" is something the people in America had to pay, in dollars.

A pity the earlier "standard" edition is not that good, but I've noticed it has some unique facsimiles. The poetic content is the same in both, but a couple of chapters are rearranged. As for the commentary in the pricey book, it's nice to have it but it's not like any new ground is broken, with the exception of what his sis & bro had to say.

All in all, this book is IMO the best one in the Genesis Publ. catalogue. Maybe there is something else on this level, an opening into the archives of somebody notorious & capable, just not on the level of Jim Morrison.

I can't believe the publishers of the standard edition thought us not worthy to enjoy the index like in the early books from 1988-1990 (these too have unique stuff, both text and visuals-wise). Did not like much how they decided to give just the partial transcript of the first poetry session - like, everything is there but "Letter to Soldier's Wife" is moved to the second session. And if they gave us the complete first session, it was wrong not to give us the complete second one. It's still not known which poems are on his birthday tape, and which may remain unread from his initial selections preserved on typewritten paper.

One worrying aspect is - one cannot be sure the editors (Frank L. and whoever) translated Jim's intentions correctly. Like, quite many things have titles which are not JM's titles (most of "Unpublished Songs"). Yes they can say there are numerous versions of some poems, but from certain cases it is seen they just had no clue where a poem started and where it ended, though yes it is JM who should be blamed first for this.

I did not like there was nothing from the "Green Songbook". Yes it's not in Jim's hand, so what? That was the single most important notebook of his. They could have printed just the text. (As an example, they've compiled "As I Look Back" mostly from JM's handwriting "as is", but some bits for some reason are in plain text.) 

Another thing I did not like that some notebooks are represented quite well. The record one is Notebook #11 with about 50 pages. While some are not represented with even a single page. Considering that the book has quite some duplicates with Notebook #15 which is enclosed as a replica, it could have been done a bit better.

Some illustrations could have been presented better. For instance, there's a beautiful reproduction of Jim's finely-detailed abstract painting made with a ball pen. It takes one page on the left, and the edge of it is given on the overleaf. Sheer idiocy if you ask me.

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

A friend of mine paid in the high 7s for her copy. She was one of the first to buy it.
I don't remember it being 350 as I may have been tempted by that.
Wasn't cheap by any means

[zaval80]

If that nice poster at the top is from the set of your friend, as I don't have it in mine, it looks like she paid for the whole caboodle including the art prints, and then yes, it couldn't have taken less than 600 GBP. But that set was sold out in less than a week. It could be she bought it second-hand for 700+. But the lesser set, which had everything bar two art prints, was just 345 GBP on the preorder. They promised to publish it by Christmas 2021, but the earliest the first batch of books was ready was, I think, April-May 2022. For my copy, I had to wait till August, even though I made my payment quite soon on the announcement, June 2021. And I did not pay attention to when they started to ask their set price, 395 GBP, but surely not sooner than Christmas 2021.

Now they have another one on offer, "Night Divides the Day". The only thing of value in this one is the booklet picturing the tape boxes, as I think they'll publish the cheap edition later. As expected now, the pricier set for proper collectors of 350 copies was sold out on the pre-order within days.

[zaval80]

BTW, Alex, when you visit your friend the next time, could you please make the picture of the top left corner of the poster. That pic shows the master box of the first poetry session. It is in the book, but the size isn't big, so the marks made in pencil which show track timings are about invisible. I've played with brightness and contrast to make the most out of that picture, but it's just not good, and I see the poster has it proper.

(At the center of the poster is the setlist describing the very same session. It is too in the book. Strange how they've reproduced it twice in the poster, but the book is made with the same care, sometimes they reproduced the same pics twice.)

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

I got the poster pic from the web mate.
My mate bought it brand new when it first came out.

I'm sure I have seen that master tape on the web.
If I find it again I will let you know.

NDTD looks like another money grab although it does look interesting.
I will get some info and make a thread.

[zaval80]

That pic is on the Genesis site, but only some of track timings are seen as they put another pic on top. Well, I've reconstructed them anyway. I was interested in "Ghost Song", not the Doors' creation for AAP, but the one as denoted in the descriptive materials for the 1st session tape. It looks like this is "Earth Air Fire Water" aka "Science of Night"; curiously it is denoted as a song, but Jim does not sing here unlike in other works denoted as songs.

And there is one unique pic on the case of the book, not in any edition. I've made a pic, will post.

NDTD is another reason for them to tell the same old stories we all know, only with pictures. Genesis published a Beach Boys book like this, and it was republished recently at a normal price, so I bet NDTD will do the same, but without the precious booklet showing the tape boxes.

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

John Densmore unboxing












The Box

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

A selection of Jim's early notebooks several of which have threads here.
Are the numbers an attempt to chronologize them or just numbers.

[zaval80]

It's not possible to chronologize most of these. I think these numbers are just some inventory numbers. Also, there are numbers on the labels of the earlier ones in the sequence; for several of them, it's "35", strangely.

N2 has a rune on the label, and the same rune is written across the pages. This rune can be Googled («Kaun»).

Of N1 to N5, we don't have a single page from N1 - they presented "Tape Noon" to us from a ledger-type xeroxed notebook, of the same type as N16 shown here - also from N3. Not a single bloody page! N4 has "I Am Troubled" and "Queen Of The Magazines", just title of it, and this is all they gave us from that "Song Cycle". But N2 is shared to a very good degree, and N5, not bad. As for the rest, some are well-represented, some so-so, and some are not.

Some additional pages from notebooks can be found elsewhere. In the standard edition, in W, TAN, Scrapbook. On the Web. I found a couple in Rainer's book.

And of course then there are notebooks shared on the Web, in your esteemed forum in that number, and the loose pages.

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

Limited to 2,000 copies included with Genesis Publications book A Guide To The Labyrinth

The record features five poetry readings lifted from a 1969 recording session at Elektra Studios

Recording Date: February 9th - 1969
Studio: Elektra Sound Studios
Location: 962 N. La Cienega Blvd. - Los Angeles, CA
Sound Engineer: John Haeny



A1 Why Does My Mind Circle Around You
A2 Thank You, O Lord
B1 Moonshine Night
B2 Indian Indian
B3 Science of Night

Originally scheduled as a demo session for an intended poetry album by Jim Morrison, the recording of this session is later used to make up the raw materials for the posthumous release An American Prayer, featuring The Doors for musical backing.
Along with the poetry, Jim recites vocals for various lyrical verses in his notebook songs that would also receive modern musical backing from various artists.

Details on this session are known from original Sound Engineer John Haeny's diaries, indicating that the session was in fact recorded at Elektra Sound Studios, and that while John had retained the master tapes for many years in a secure private archive, a copy was made for Jim Morrison shortly before leaving for Paris. This was request made by Jim over the phone on March 11th, 1971 in which John was also asked to return a handful of notebooks loaned out for the project. This tape was taken to Paris, later to turn up and become the source of the legendary bootleg 'The Lost Paris Tapes'.