[looking glass spectacle]

Originally Posted by knox

I don't fail to see how one COULD see it that way but...

Art is not disturbing, reality is.

The candid way Burroughs could describe these taboo things people in general tend to try so hard to ignore strikes me as more exciting than disturbing. I personally find more disturbing and counter productive the way people in general would prefer to shelter themselves from facts. But I am not talking about you or anyone in specific.

Personally, I would find it way more disturbing NOT to read about such things.

yes, i see your point... maybe disturbing is not the right word... but at times it can be emotionally draining to face burroughs' fictionalized fascist america... and it is certainly disturbing to contemplate the real fascist america....

[knox]

emotionally draining is my thing.

[kierkegaarden]

Quite a book in the way of Artaud's Theater of Cruelty, but the writing itself is second rate, which can't be overlooked. I hazard a comparison to Elfriede Jelenik, specifically Lust; form over content.

[knox]

someone find that bit about the anus that starts speaking and takes over the guy.

[Derek]

http://www.scariens.org/wsb2.htm

[knox]

I have to bookmark it, now I am all happy, thank you.

[atsonicpark]

Here is BURROUGHS

http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...9969200913970#

easily the best documentary about buroughs ever

Even though most people already have read these a bilion times, I uploaded junky

http://megaupload.com/?d=N4IM116V

and naked lunch


http://megaupload.com/?d=NH4DPA5D

also, here's the bizarro starter kit book if you're into the burroughs inspired bizarro book movement, you know the one that got really big a few years ago with ooks like blood electric and baby jesus butt plug, and seems to have waned in popularity a bit

http://www.sendspace.com/file/pd797g

enjoy

[RanaldoNecro]

Anyone seen that A Man Within Movie?

[ni'k]

i hear the "style over substance" argument applied to burroughs a lot. and it is redundant. i think when people say that they mean "i can't decipher any of this and don't understand it." which is itself understandable. but if you are not prepared to let the text work on you and eventually come to be able to read it then that's your loss. his cultural position and all the cool attached to him as a figure are what bring people to his writing and what cause many to dismiss it. but it isn't just nonsense. there is a reasonably clear form of narrative in naked lunch which is probably the most difficult and disjointed of his works. it may be a narrative which jumps around seemingly at random but there is reason to the madness if take the time to let it sink into your mind.

i bought naked lunch when i was probably 15 and i couldn't make much of it at all and i dragged it around with me as i moved about until one day when i was utterly broke and had nothing else to do i picked it up and read the whole thing in one glorious sitting.

most people pick up naked lunch and think "ive heard this is supposed to be such genius, but its hard so ill just either leave it there and think its cool or i'll complain that its style over substance." this could not be further from the truth. you should really start with cities of the red night.

excerpts from nova express

“All that they [the Nova Mob] offer is a screen to cover retreat from the colony they have so disgracefully mismanaged. To cover travel arrangements so they will never have to pay the constituents they have betrayed and sold out. Once these arrangements are complete they will blow the place up behind them.
“And what does my program of total austerity and total resistance offer you? I offer you nothing. I am not a politician. These are conditions of total emergency. And these are my instructions for total emergency if carried out now could avert the total disaster now on tracks: “Peoples of the earth, you have all been poisoned. [all italics in original] Convert all available stocks of morphine to apomorphine. Chemists, work round the clock on variation and synthesis of the apomorphine formulae. Apomorphine is the only agent that can disintoxicate you and cut the enemy beam off your line. Apomorphine and silence. I order total resistance directed against this conspiracy to pay off peoples of the earth in ersatz bullshit. I order total resistance directed against The Nova Conspiracy and all those engaged in it.“The purpose of my writing is to expose and arrest Nova Criminals. In Naked Lunch, Soft Machine and Nova Express I show who they are and what they are doing and what they will do if they are not arrested. Minutes to go. Souls rotten from their orgasm drugs, flesh shuddering from their nova ovens, prisoners of the earth to come out. With your help we can occupy The Reality Studio and retake their universe of Fear Death and Monopoly (Signed) INSPECTOR J. LEE, NOVA POLICE2

"Last Words.Listen to my last words anywhere. Listen to my last words any world.Listen all you boards syndicates and governments of the earth.And you powers behind what filth deals consummated in what lavatory to take what is not yours. To sell the ground from unborn feet forever -"Don't let them see us. Don't tell them what we are doing -"Are these the words of the all powerful boards and syndicates of the earth?"For God's sake don't let that coca-cola thing out -""Not the cancer deal with the Venusians -""Not the green deal - Don't show them that -""Not the orgasm death -""Not the ovens -"Listen: I call you all. Show your cards all players.Pay it all pay it all pay it all back.Play it all play it all play it all back.For all to see. In Times Square. In Picadilly."Premature.Premature. Give us a little more time."Time for what? More lies? Premature? Premature for who? I say to all these words are not premature. These words may be too late.Minutes to go. Minutes to foe goal -"Top secret -Classified -For the Board - The Elite -The Initiates -"Are these the words of the all-powerful boards and syndicates of the earth? These are the words of cowards and collaborators traitors.Liars who want more time for more lies. Cowards who cannot face your "dogs" your "gooks" your "errand boys" your "human animals" with the truth. Collaborators with insect people with vegetable people. With any people anywhere who offer you a body forever. To shit forever. For this you have sold out your sons. Sold the ground from unborn feet forever. Traitors to all souls everywhere. You want the name of Hassan i Sabbah on your filth deeds to sell out the unborn?What scared you all into time? Into body? Into shit? I will tell you: "the word." Alien Word "the". "The" word of Alien Enemy imprisons "thee" in time. In body. In shit. Prisoner, come out. The great skies are open. I Hassan i Sabbah rub out the word forever.If you I cancel all your words forever. And the words of Hassan i Sabbah as also cancel. Cross all your skies see the silent writing of Brion Gysin Hassan i Sabbah: drew September 17, 1899 over New York."

[atsonicpark]

so, knox, I ebooked junky, if you want it, it's a few posts back

[ni'k]

one other thing i will say about burroughs, which i think is often totally missed by people - is that when he wrote these graphic depictions of sex and violence this isn't simply a kind of gross out pyschedelica.

as he says here:

.“The purpose of my writing is to expose and arrest Nova Criminals. In Naked Lunch, Soft Machine and Nova Express I show who they are and what they are doing and what they will do if they are not arrested. Minutes to go. Souls rotten from their orgasm drugs, flesh shuddering from their nova ovens, prisoners of the earth to come out. With your help we can occupy The Reality Studio and retake their universe of Fear Death and Monopoly (Signed) INSPECTOR J. LEE, NOVA POLICE2


burroughs was concerned with the way sex and drugs and reality itself was used to imprison and control the organism. unlike all these "pyschonaut" mongtards of today he was concerned with pushing the limits of drugs and sex as a kind of occult research instead of a transgressive hedonism. of course, there obviously is a massively hedonistic aspect to it all. what seperates burroughs from millions of other junkies is that he could actually write and he did write, in spite of the degradation, poverty and chaos of his life at many points. he is if anything seeking ways to get OUT of the organism instead of trying to show off his debauchery to his hipster friends. i know there is an element of that in it aswell, but that isn't when he is at his best.

just because bill took a lot of drugs and lived like an asshole doesn't mean this is somehow "artistically noble"! it's also relevant to look at how he ended up in his later years and the type of writing he was producing then, which is often not of any kind of quality at all. frankly, some of it is just piss poor. you have to look at the relationship he had with his son for example, which was quite sad. you have to look at how a thousand others from those scenes ended up with their drug use. a lot of bad choices and even worse poetry.

really, to associate burroughs with a kind of esoteric drug nonsense and mysticism and think this is just great is to miss the point of him going down all those dead roads in the first place. the point is to learn from the investigations he already partook in, many of them turning out to be disasterous. some turned out to be bullshit but bullshit that is at least fascinating to hear about. like the time he sat in a new york hotel doing occult rituals trying to contact the american astronauts that were heading off to space that day as their craft exited the earths atmosphere.

sadly, i think part of burrough and the beat legacy is the kind of "so esoteric it must mean something" writing. you can't just churn out absolute nonsense and call it art or think you are a beat poet because you've misread burroughs. it may mean, well, something to you but it's never exactly enthralling for anyone else to read.

people of this generation ought to start reading thomas ligotti.

[demonrail666]

Burroughs remains interesting inspite of his beat associations which, as N'ik says, have sort of acted as a kind of red herring in trying to get to grips with a lot of what he wrote. He's certainly far less reducible to that movement than say Ginsberg or Kerouac. I see little now that can relate to something like Howl or On the Road whereas the ideas at play in books like Place of Dead Roads are arguable more pertinant now than when he first wrote them. Current interests in ideas such as psychogeography, as well as the emergence of writers like Iain Sinclair, Alan Moore and Will Self (I've not read Ligotti but will check him out) and the lyrics of someone like Mark E. Smith have a strong link with Burroughs but can in no way be seen as continuing in the tradition of the Beats. The only contemporary writer who I'd say is remotely interesting and has any connection with the Beats is Irvine Welsh - albeit a more experimental, European strain of the movement, more associated with someone like Trocchi (who I love) than either Ginsberg or Kerouac (who I couldn't care less about).

[atsonicpark]

He's just my favorite author ever, he has a way with words that perplexes, hypnotizes, inspires, occasionally confuses -- always blows with my mind.

[ni'k]

i think it's for the best that most people are past that gonzo beat stuff. there is a really nasty superficiality to it. In the 60's you could maybe get away with it now, but trying to write that kind of high intensity ultra personal drug rampage prose nowadays will just burn you out and give you liver damage ha. in the era of the internet and the kind of media blitz and amped up hedonism writing like that just seems idioitic. i couldn't bear to read kerouac at this point, the last time i did it was just far too boring. i hear kirsten stewart is making an on the road film, which tells you all you need to know. and there was a ginsburg film released this year about the obscenity court battle over howl which according to the review i read is excruciatingly boring in that all american freedom of speech kind of way. i guess ginsberg and kerouac could be thought of as "establishment" writers at this point. certainly harmless and past their sell by date. thompson as well who can be best summed up in the words of some posh student i met as a "buffoon who wrote one clownish yet exciting book and then just partied any sliver of talent out of himself."

i think if you haven't faced the fact that the beats and what they did is just archaic in 2010 then you've got no hope anyway. i mean, scouring the wierder realms of literature in the 60's in your crappy new york apartment like burroughs did was pretty cool but now with the internet there's little that seems so tantalisingly remote.

ligotti is a horror writer btw but don't let that put you off. his stuff has the same unsettling slimy tone of burroughs but he pulls it off with prose that is at times almost old fashioned and classical

the place to start is probably the short story collection teatro grottesco.

you were mentioning welsh - i know he gets some flack but a lot of his stuff really is quite quality. the acid house for example, and filth which is the one of his that noone seems to ever talk about. apparently he is working on another trainspotting sequel, but he seems to be taking his time. probably because he's gone all aristocratic and gentleman like now and doesn't like the idea of writing about the depressing later years of the characters that we can all imagine them having.

[Derek]

N'ik, you have incredibly high standards on everything ever.

[ni'k]

get over it.

[Derek]

I enjoy Ginsberg and Kerouac, it's just all entertainment to me. If I enjoy something I don't ponder on it's relevance.

[ni'k]

good for you.

[Derek]

Oh no, I value your opinion and enjoy how much thought you put into it, I just can't really see your point of view personally.

[atsonicpark]

Originally Posted by ni'k

but trying to write that kind of high intensity ultra personal drug rampage prose nowadays will just burn you out and give you liver damage ha.

That stuff actually was highly inspirational to the bizarro movement -- which, granted, is a LOT more weird than any of the beat stuff; it kinda takes the most extreme elements of Ballard and Burroughs -- and hell, de Sade -- and ratchets it up times a thousand.