=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 10 Aug 1997 11:45:24 -0700
Reply-To: runner <babu@ELECTRICITI.COM>
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From: runner <babu@ELECTRICITI.COM>
Subject: Re: Regarding Last Words...
In-Reply-To: <33EDF914.685F282F@cruzio.com>
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At
10:23 AM -0700 8/10/97, Leon Tabory wrote:
>
> http://www.bigtable.com/johnsons/
ah,
finally found my way to this great site!
Found
the Burroughs Memorial Service image
[http://www.bigtable.com/images/bill/prog1.gif],
and on it there was
"Ulysses"
by A.Tennyson (read by David Ohle). Can
someone please explain
why
this was read and it's significance?
This story of one man's journey
seems
to be everywhere....
>
leon
Douglas
http://www.electriciti.com/babu/ |
0 |
step
aside, and let the man go thru
| { - |
----> let the man go thru
| /\ |
super
bon-bon (soul coughing)
=========
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 10 Aug 1997 16:23:58 -0400
Reply-To: Alex Howard
<kh14586@ACS.APPSTATE.EDU>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
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From: Alex Howard
<kh14586@ACS.APPSTATE.EDU>
Subject: Re: Burroughs biographies
In-Reply-To:
<970810113307_886383406@emout15.mail.aol.com>
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Miles'
biography is okay as far as a decent read and scan over Burroughs'
life. Has a little too much literary analysis by
Miles for my taste. Go
for
Literary Outlaw if you've got the time (its a hefty read).
------------------
Alex
Howard (704)264-8259 Appalachian State
University
kh14586@acs.appstate.edu P.O. Box 12149
http://www.acs.appstate.edu/~kh14586 Boone, NC 28608
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 10 Aug 1997 23:08:24 +0200
Reply-To: Rinaldo Rasa <rinaldo@GPNET.IT>
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From: Rinaldo Rasa <rinaldo@GPNET.IT>
Subject:
Anthony Balch (1938-1980)
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Anthony
Balch (1938-1980) was one of the key figures in British film
distribution
in the 60s and 70s, especially because of his distribution of
European
art-house and exploitation films under new, captivating titles.
Famous
for having added a soundtrack to the classic silent-era documentary,
Benjamin
Christensen's Hdxen (Witchcraft Through the Ages), with comments
by his
friend William S Burroughs, he began his brief foray into directing
with
Burroughs himself (Towers Open Fire, The Cut-Ups), and was still
obviously
influenced by Burroughs in Secrets of Sex.
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 10 Aug 1997 18:16:19 -0400
Reply-To: SSASN@AOL.COM
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From: Arthur Nusbaum <SSASN@AOL.COM>
Subject: For Michael Stutz: Cutup Comments
Comments:
cc: DAVIDSROSEN@compuserve.com
Michael:
I
generally concur with your ideas and observations in your post to me from
97-08-06
17:23:51 EDT, & to Douglas Penn from 97-08-06 17:46:28 EDT.
You
suggest that "further experiments could be made with his work" by
computer
methods, etc. This should be done, WSB
has led the way and his
creations
are not necessarily "the last word" (not to get into another hot
subject
here lately), as I've mentioned in earlier (pre-shock) dispatches,
some of
the works, such as THE SOFT MACHINE, are arranged and composed
differently
in various printings. NAKED LUNCH, he
instructs us near the
end(?),
can be read in any order, pick a page, any page. WSB often left to
chance,
or to the organizational efforts of others, the order and arrangement
of his
works, NL accumulated on the floor of the Villa Muniria in Tangier for
3 years
until Kerouac got to work on (and had nightmares over) it. So, I am
certain
he would approve of your ideas, there is no beginning, middle or end
to his
theories or their applications, that's the point! One of the many,
many
realizations borne of grief that I've had over the last week is how WSB
recovers
the magic in the seemingly simplist "realities"- for example, his
ideas
about art. The shooting of a panel
opens onto a "Port of Entry" into a
further
dimension, there is a glimpse of the universe ("black insect lusts
open
out into vast, other-planet landscapes"-NL). In the film biography
BURROUGHS,
he states that "every particle of the universe contains the whole
of the
universe", and that by cutting-up something he has cut-up, and
therefore
subverted the pre-recorded inevitability of, the universe. I'm
surprised
that J. Edgar Hoover never caught up with WSB and arranged an
"accident",
he was and is a far greater threat to our "National Security"
than
those who "sell the ground from unborn feet forever" ever
realized. His
ideas
about art are also a classic example of another realization that my
intense
reflection on his life and work in the wake of his passing has
produced. It is so, so easy at so many points to
dismiss WSB altogether, he
has
built a road almost as perilous as that which he describes in THE WESTERN
LANDS,
with the odds set against most people making it far enough to
understand
and appreciate what he's getting at.
"Come on, all he did was
shoot a
door, all this supposed philosophy behind it is a joke he's played on
the
public....", etc., I can imagine most people I know saying, or far worse.
But he's completely right, completely in tune
with the realities behind the
smokescreen
of "realities" that keep us in line.
The same goes for the
cutups,
the fact that "anyone can cut up & reorder texts" does not
diminish
the
significance of disrupting the universal order, if he can fling a door
open,
why can't others? He has left us with
an idea to run with, and
precedents
for its application. The example you
gave of the variations on
the
letters that spell ALLEN GINSBERG are amazingly prescient and prove that
WSB
wasn't kidding us or himself.
"Genres nag bill" encapsulates much of
what's
discussed above and a key aspect of his life & work. He fought and
won
against established methods, categories and linear "realities". AG, WSB
&
JK all had "beginners gall", they were pioneers, it may be true as I
said
above
that anyone can fling the door open, but someone has to bravely do it
first
for people to follow. "Bells
enraging", they were driven by inner
voices
and demons, and their assimilations of roller coasters of experience,
away
from and toward the pursuit of "IT", leaving us their
testaments. As
for the
last 2 phrases you posted, they tell a lot about the personal
proclivities
of AG, don't they? It would be worth
slogging through millions
of
garbled, unintelligible variations (as you may have had to do to find
these,
like panning for gold) to extract these DNA-like phrases. As you point
out,
WSB and a few others in this waning century draw our attention to the
whole
PROCESS of which a shot-up door, a cut-up text or all the combinations
of the
letters of 1 name are a part.
In your
post to DP, you wrote that "advertising is a now-necessary
energy-gathering
tool for the Corporate Virus. It was
not always here, and
it will
not always be." I agree with the
first sentence, but not completely
with
the second. I have seen evidence of
early advertisements in the ruins
of
ancient cities such as Ephasis, once part of the Roman Empire in what is
now
Turkey. Advertising, the commerce that
it serves and war, which is
always
good for the winners' economy, have been with us since the beginning
of our
wondrous & appalling species. The
problem is that the ante has been
upped
to levels that now threaten our imminent destruction, or at least
thinning
out. Sticks & stones have evolved
into nuclear weapons that can
(still,
despite the "end" of the cold war) destroy our fragile, precious
planet
many times over. Advertising has indeed
become an "energy-gathering
tool
for the corporate virus", it has cowed, hypnotized and subliminally
seduced
our society into undergoing the mephistopholian metamorphoses from
citizens
to consumers, now about to be consumed themselves. To overlap with
another
of our favorite topics, think of the auto ads that flood the tv
screen. The newest model whatever is your
"reward" after "you did your job,
you did
it well....", the light at the end of the toilsome tunnel, parked
right
on the beach or in an idyllic field next to a ride in the hay, or
zooming
down an otherwise empty road amidst breathtaking natural scenery.
But what is the reality behind the
imagery? The exact opposite of what it
promises-
Orwell's prophecies fulfilled and then some.
Freedom is Slavery.
(Include by reference here my New Urbanist
diatribes with which you're
familiar). And what about the brand of beer that will
turn you into a
perfect
specimen and get you laid according to the commercial? Several
belches
and pisses later, you're the same as you were before only a little
flabbier,
depressed and resentful. WSB and the
other Greats (among which he
was the
Greatest) saw right through the bullshit, played with it, stayed a
step
ahead of it, fooled it. Sometimes I
think that his ideas about space,
that we
are HERE TO GO and that we must evolve physically & mentally into
space,
is partly an acknowledgement that we won't be able to overcome the
natures
that first manifested themselves in rock-throwing exchanges, ads
carved
into paving stones for brothels, etc.
We're not just ultimately here
to go,
we'd better get out of here ASAP, before it's too late.
I
should note, not necessarily in the right place, that in his complex
brilliance,
WSB also shows the often tawdry reality in "magic". Again, TWL
presents
a cumbersome, impractical afterlife, based on his study of ancient
Egyptian
concepts, arguably less fair even than the temporal life that
preceded
it.
Enough
for now. Have you left for your
adventure? Unfortunately, it won't
include
The Visit, but we who are left behind must continue the quest.
Regards,
Arthur
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 10 Aug 1997 18:19:06 -0400
Reply-To: Greg Elwell <elwellg@VOICENET.COM>
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From: Greg Elwell
<elwellg@VOICENET.COM>
Subject: Re: Burroughs biographies
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I've
read "With William Burroughs: A Report from the Bunker." It isn't a
biography, per se, but it really let's you
see Burroughs as a person. It's a
book full of conversations, conducted by
Burroughs with others, including Allen
Ginsberg.
I've never read the others, but I know that I like this one.
At
12:46 PM 8/10/97 -0400, Neil Hennessy wrote:
>On
Sun, 10 Aug 1997, Pamela Beach Plymell wrote:
>
>>
I prefer by far Literary Outlaw. I've known briefly both authors personally
>>
so my favoritism is probably based on it. I've not read Miles', but I felt
>>
that his biography of Ginsberg had to have been "authorized" . Morgan
has
>>
done a lot of other books, a biography of FDR, Somerset Maughan that are good
>>
reads. Of course Barry Miles ran off with one of my old girlfriends so my
>>
opinions are always skewed; although, some have said I can see right through
>>
people.
>
>Not
having had any significant others stolen by either authors involved,
>I'd
have to say that Morgan is more thorough, which is probably
>proportional
to the amount of bookshelf space it takes up, but Miles is
>more
entertaining. Morgan employs a unique narrative strategy for a
>biography
where he uses free indirect discourse to get you inside
>Burroughs'
mind (all reconstructed from copious interviews and Burroughs'
>writing).
You can tell when Burroughs' voice starts and Morgan's stops
>though;
like Gysin said, when you read a Burroughs' word, you know
>it's
his, because it eats through the page like acid. Miles is a better
>storyteller,
and I find the literary criticism portions of his book more
>enlightening,
especially when dealing with the influence of Jack Black
>and
Denton Welch on the last trilogy. Miles is also essential for an
>understanding
of the workings of the Ugly Spirit, whereas Joan's death is
>covered
extensively in Morgan's. My suggestion is read'em both, I did.
>
>Neil
>
>
<center>--------------------------------------------------
Greg
Elwell
elwellg@voicenet.com
|| elwellgr@juno.com
<<http://www.voicenet.com/~elwellg>
</center>
--------------------------------------------------
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 10 Aug 1997 19:10:15 -0400
Reply-To: CVEditions@AOL.COM
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: Pamela Beach Plymell
<CVEditions@AOL.COM>
Subject: Re: Regarding Last Words...
Comments:
To: babu@electriciti.com
As I
remember, David prefaced his reading by saying it was one of Bill's
favorite
poems.
cp
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 10 Aug 1997 18:13:14 -0500
Reply-To: RACE --- <race@MIDUSA.NET>
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From: RACE --- <race@MIDUSA.NET>
Subject: Re: Regarding Last Words...
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Pamela
Beach Plymell wrote:
>
> As
I remember, David prefaced his reading by saying it was one of Bill's
>
favorite poems.
> cp
as i
recall he told a story saying that he was over at WSB's and they
were
talking about "this and that" and WSB handed him the poem and asked
him to
read it to him.
i think
Charles is right that he said it was also one of WSB's
favourites.
david
rhaesa
salina,
Kansas
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 10 Aug 1997 16:31:29 -0700
Reply-To: runner <babu@ELECTRICITI.COM>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: runner <babu@ELECTRICITI.COM>
Subject: Re: Anthony Balch (1938-1980)
In-Reply-To: <3.0.1.32.19970810230824.0068c1f0@pop.gpnet.it>
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At 2:08
PM -0700 8/10/97, Rinaldo Rasa wrote:
>
with Burroughs himself (Towers Open Fire, The Cut-Ups), and was still
I love
that movie! Got a chance to see it during
the Burroughs art exhibit
at Los
Angeles County Museum of Art this last fall <?). The direction is
wonderful! The rest of the films were very good too,
but "towers open
fire'
was my favorite.
and I
gotta tell ya, my girlfriend is on the road, well, I kinda think
she's
AWOL, not OTR, but that's a different story.
So I got this letter in
the
mail today from her. Been sitting in my
mailbox for a couple of days
at
least. I'm all excited, hoping to
finally have some tidbits or news
regarding
her journey. And what does she send me
in one letter?
a:
"portland art museum northwest film center" film guide. On the 17th,
"the
life and times of allen ginsberg (1992)" and "pull my daisy
(1959)".
Then on
the 18th, 19th, we have "Kerouac (1984)" and "Burroughs
(1984)".
and
with all these pictures, there's this snippet from Ginsberg's "laughing
gas":
O waves of probable
and improbable
Universes---
Everybody's right
I'll finish this poem
in my next life.
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 10 Aug 1997 07:34:40 -0700
Reply-To: Diane Carter <dcarter@TOGETHER.NET>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
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From: Diane Carter
<dcarter@TOGETHER.NET>
Subject: Big Sur
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I
decided to get in one more Kerouac work, Big Sur, before we begin out
On the
Road/Naked Lunch/Howl discussion. I
think this is my favorite
Kerouac
book thus far. Even though he is in
despair and very much in the
tug of
alcoholism at this point, I think he is much more honest about
where
he is and what people are telling him about where he is. He
reveals
more about why he and Cody are so close and also, in his
conversations
with Billie, you get, for once, the idea that people are
trying
to help him and he simply says no because he doesn't feel worthy.
There's really a pretty deep-seated
self-hatred showing up at this point
and I
always wonder where it came from, because he always talks about
having
such a great childhood. Not being a
psychotherapist, however, my
own
stab at this is the fact that maybe he always felt that he should of
died
instead of Gerard because he and everyone seems to have felt that
his
brother was so good.
In his
conversations with Billie (btw does anyone know who Billie in Big
Sur
refers to in actual life? Also Ruth Erickson, Ruth Heaper, and Julien
in
Desolate Angels?) you actually get a sense of where his despair is in
terms
of relationships.
>From
Big Sur
"Jack:
Billie I dont wanta get married, I'm afraid...
Billie:
Afraid?
Jack: I
wanna go home and die with my cat. I
could be a handsome thin
young
president in a suit sitting in an old fashioned rocking chair, no
instead
I'm the Phantom of the Opera standing by a drape among dead fish
and
broken chairs--Can it be that no one cares who made me or why?
Billie:
Jack, what's the matter, what are you talking about...
Jack:
What have I done wrong?
Billie:
What you've done wrong is withhold your love from a woman like me
and
from previous women and future women like me--can you imagine all the
fun
we'd have being married, putting Elliott to bed, going out to hear
jazz or
even taking planes to Paris suddenly and all the things I have
to
teach you and you teach me--instead all you've been doing is wasting
your
life sitting around and wondering where to go and all time it's
right
here fore you to take--
Jack:
Suppose I don't want it...I'm a strange creepy guy you dont even
know."
He also
talks about Cody--"And finally in the book I wrote about us ('On
the
Road') I forgot to mention two important things, that we were both
devout
little Catholics in our childhood, which gave us something in
common
tho we never talk about it, it's just there in our natures, and
secondly,
and most important that strange business where we shared
another
girl...some kind of new thing in the world actually where men can
really
be angelic friends and not be homosexual and not fight over
girls--But
alas the only thing we ever fought about was money..."
I also
really liked this next section, even though it also is pretty much
made up
of despair. What frustrates me is the
fact that all the time he
is
saying, why live if you are only going to die eventually? instead of
saying
what more made up the beat philosophy, which is, live now because
you are
going to die.
>From
Big Sur, pgs. 182-183
"I
suddenly remembered James Joyce and stare at the waves realizing All
summer
you were sitting here writing the so called sound of the waves not
realizing
how deadly serious our life and doom is, you fool, you happy
kid
with a pencil, dont you realize you've been using words as a happy
game--all
those marvelous skeptical things you wrote about graves and sea
death
it's ALL TRUE YOU FOOLS! Joyce is dead! The sea took him! It will
take
YOU! and I look down the beach and there's Billie wading in the
treacherous
undertow, she's already groaned several times earlier (seeing
my
indifference and also of course the hopelessness at Cody's and the
hopelessness
of her wrecked apartment and wretched life) 'Someday I'm
going
to commit suicide.' I suddenly wonder if she's going to horrify the
heavens
and me too with a sudden suicide walk into those awful
undertows...Can
it be I'm withholding from her something sacred just like
she
says, or am I just a fool who'll never learn to have a decent
eternally
minded deepdown relation with a woman and keep throwing that
away
for a song at a bottle?--In which case my own life is over anyway
and
there are the Joycean waves with there blank mothers saying 'Yes,
that's
so,' and there are the leaves hurrying one by one down the sand
and
dumping in--....
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 10 Aug 1997 19:56:34 -0400
Reply-To: CVEditions@AOL.COM
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: Pamela Beach Plymell
<CVEditions@AOL.COM>
Subject: Re: For Michael Stutz: Cutup Comments
Comments:
To: SSASN@aol.com
The
tawdry magic is a magic of is own. It's part of his "Carnival". That
may
be,
perhaps his closest genre. I go to cheap local carnivals up and down the
Appalachia.
Pam can't stand it and wonders why I go. I go to visit Burroughs.
He has
sprinkled his magic on me, and I liked it. Mainly because I know he
can
back up my vision in that multi-faceted world of the pitch that bares the
elemental
self of old American weirdness that has roamed this land for many
years.
He is aslo a philosopher historian, an Herodotus, making sure to get
the
anectdotal essence needed to grow in the text. The tapes of NL and J laid
the
presence back on me, even in the hideous nightmare of the Interstate
landscapes
of prosperous hell.
A line
of Emerson keeps coming back. Many may think of it pertaining to
religion.
I see it everywhere I look: "There
is a crack in everything God
has
made."
Cp
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 10 Aug 1997 19:20:33 -0500
Reply-To: Patricia Elliott
<pelliott@SUNFLOWER.COM>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: Patricia Elliott
<pelliott@SUNFLOWER.COM>
Subject: (no subject)
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"I'll
be back"
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 10 Aug 1997 20:40:36 -0400
Reply-To: "R. Bentz Kirby"
<bocelts@SCSN.NET>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: "R. Bentz Kirby" <bocelts@SCSN.NET>
Organization:
Law Office of R. Bentz Kirby
Subject: Re: (no subject)
Comments:
To: Patricia Elliott <pelliott@SUNFLOWER.COM>
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Patricia
Elliott wrote:
>
>
"I'll be back"
When,
and as a "good gal" or a "bad gal"?
--
Bentz
bocelts@scsn.net
http://www.scsn.net/users/sclaw
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 10 Aug 1997 21:24:22 -0000
Reply-To: jgh3ring <jgh3ring@IX.NETCOM.COM>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: jgh3ring
<jgh3ring@IX.NETCOM.COM>
Subject: was it an open casket?
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I've
come not to attend funerals knowing there is an open casket...Was
this
the case with Burrough's funeral?
Jason
"donutman" Helfman
Three-Ring
Creations
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 10 Aug 1997 22:48:16 -0500
Reply-To: Patricia Elliott
<pelliott@SUNFLOWER.COM>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: Patricia Elliott
<pelliott@SUNFLOWER.COM>
Subject: Re: (no subject)
Comments:
To: CVEditions@aol.com
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CVEditions@aol.com
wrote:
>
>
Pat...Everything o.k.? Please post
> cp
Yes,I
am ok. I have to work, I am presenting a seminar on deconstruction
for a
EPA Brownsfield 97 Conference being held in KC, and i was tooooo
inegmatic
for words. the comments on the service thing for william was
the
last words written in his diary on the 1st.
and rumor has it that
"I'll
be back" was his last words leaving the house for the hospital, i
should
not have said anything because it is rumor and not from a horses
mouth.
It has been so emotional that i thought I should take a break
from
posting..I am really looking forward to your posts, of on the road
east
from lawrence. I love your posts you
know.
p
p
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 11 Aug 1997 02:30:09 -0400
Reply-To: CVEditions@AOL.COM
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: Pamela Beach Plymell
<CVEditions@AOL.COM>
Subject: Re: We'll miss you Bill
Comments:
To: jgh3ring@ix.netcom.com
In a
message dated 97-08-11 02:27:00 EDT, jgh3ring@ix.netcom.com (jgh3ring)
writes:
<<
Subj: Re: We'll miss you Bill
Date:
97-08-11 02:27:00 EDT
From:
jgh3ring@ix.netcom.com (jgh3ring)
To:
CVEditions@aol.com
laughing
Jason "donutman" Helfman
Three-Ring Creations
>>
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 11 Aug 1997 02:34:05 -0400
Reply-To: CVEditions@AOL.COM
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: Pamela Beach Plymell <CVEditions@AOL.COM>
Subject: Re: Jackal laughing
Comments:
To: jgh3ring@ix.netcom.com
In a
message dated 97-08-11 02:27:00 EDT, you write:
<<
Subj: Re: We'll miss you Bill
Date:
97-08-11 02:27:00 EDT
From:
jgh3ring@ix.netcom.com (jgh3ring)
To:
CVEditions@aol.com
laughing
Jason "donutman" Helfman
Three-Ring Creations
>>
Jump
through all three of 'em, asshole!
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 11 Aug 1997 10:25:35 -0400
Reply-To: Richard Wallner
<rwallner@CAPACCESS.ORG>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: Richard Wallner
<rwallner@CAPACCESS.ORG>
Subject: Authorized Kerouac Bio
In-Reply-To: <970811023405_-119290238@emout07.mail.aol.com>
MIME-Version:
1.0
Content-Type:
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I heard
recently that Douglas Brinkley, editor of the recently published
letters
of Hunter S. Thompson, and author of "The Majic Bus" and a Carter
biography
among other things, is writing the new "authorized" biography of
Jack
Kerouac.
I guess
this means Doug has been given the authorization and cooperation
of
Jack's family (or his ex-wife's family to be more exact) I'm not
sure
there's anything new to be written about Kerouac at this point, the
bios
already out there seem to cover his life pretty well (hard to
imagine
Doug would be more thorough than Gerry Nicosia or the others
who've
done Kerouac bios)
But
since his Carter bio is going tobe like three volumes, its
conceivable
that he could turn out something even more exhaustive than
Nicosia's
"Memory Babe" Doug Brinkley's
a good writer who is passionate
about
Kerouac so whatever he puts out on the subject is bound to be
worthwhile
I s'pose.
RJW
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 11 Aug 1997 11:12:20 -0400
Reply-To: Tread37@AOL.COM
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: Jenn Fedor <Tread37@AOL.COM>
Subject: Re: next reading project
i am
definitely up for diane's suggestion! i
am just finishing On the Road
(for
the first time!) and would love to
discuss it! also, i intended to
make
Naked Lunch my next project, since i have to admit i have never read
burroughs
before and thought it would be a good place to start (being fairly
new at
the beat thing!) i have read Howl
several times, but would love to
discuss! i hope this idea passes!
jenn:)
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 11 Aug 1997 11:14:49 -0400
Reply-To: "R. Bentz Kirby"
<bocelts@SCSN.NET>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: "R. Bentz Kirby"
<bocelts@SCSN.NET>
Organization:
Law Office of R. Bentz Kirby
Subject: Re: Authorized Kerouac Bio
Comments:
To: Richard Wallner <rwallner@CAPACCESS.ORG>
MIME-Version:
1.0
Content-Type:
text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding:
7bit
Richard
Wallner wrote:
> I
heard recently that Douglas Brinkley, editor of the recently
>
published
>
letters of Hunter S. Thompson, and author of "The Majic Bus" and a
>
Carter
>
biography among other things, is writing the new "authorized"
>
biography of
>
Jack Kerouac.
>
> I
guess this means Doug has been given the authorization and
>
cooperation
> of
Jack's family (or his ex-wife's family to be more exact) I'm not
>
sure there's anything new to be written about Kerouac at this point,
>
the
>
bios already out there seem to cover his life pretty well (hard to
>
imagine Doug would be more thorough than Gerry Nicosia or the others
>
who've done Kerouac bios)
>
>
But since his Carter bio is going tobe like three volumes, its
>
conceivable that he could turn out something even more exhaustive than
>
>
Nicosia's "Memory Babe" Doug
Brinkley's a good writer who is
>
passionate
>
about Kerouac so whatever he puts out on the subject is bound to be
>
worthwhile I s'pose.
>
> RJW
Gerry has said that whoever can gain the
cooperation of the persons
who
control of Jack's papers could write a "better" biography, assuming
that
they could use the tapes that he recorded too.
But, with
revisionist
history seeming to be the rage these days, it might not be
possible
to tell the truth in an "authorized" biography. The Jimi
Hendrix
estate is hard at work trying to remake Jimi's life. They are
claiming
that he was "spiked" with LSD at Monterry Pop Festival and that
his
management set him up for the drug bust in Toronto. They also only
want
"happy" pictures of Jimi and at one time thought about trying to
air
brush some of his cigarettes out of pictures.
Well, I would
presume,
though I do not know, that the keepers of the Kerouac flame
might
have the same ideas in mind. Only time
and a published work will
tell. Personally, I would love to see an
authorized biography that used
Jack's
notebooks and was done properly. I do
not think it would be
redundant.
--
Peace,
Bentz
bocelts@scsn.net
http://www.scsn.net/users/sclaw
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 11 Aug 1997 09:33:11 -0600
Reply-To: "Derek A. Beaulieu"
<dabeauli@FREENET.CALGARY.AB.CA>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: "Derek A. Beaulieu"
<dabeauli@FREENET.CALGARY.AB.CA>
Organization:
Calgary Free-Net
Subject: Re: Authorized Kerouac Bio
Comments:
To: "R. Bentz Kirby" <bocelts@SCSN.NET>
In-Reply-To: <33EF2C69.217FB6C4@scsn.net>
Mime-Version:
1.0
Content-Type:
TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
from
what i understand from r.whitehead, d.brinkley in fact has been
picked
to edit 2 volumes of jack kerouac's selected journals, and NOT a
new
biography.
yrs
derek
On Mon,
11 Aug 1997, R. Bentz Kirby wrote:
>
>
Richard Wallner wrote:
>
>
> I heard recently that Douglas Brinkley, editor of the recently
>
> published
>
> letters of Hunter S. Thompson, and author of "The Majic Bus" and
a
>
> Carter
>
> biography among other things, is writing the new "authorized"
>
> biography of
>
> Jack Kerouac.
>
>
>
> I guess this means Doug has been given the authorization and
>
> cooperation
>
> of Jack's family (or his ex-wife's family to be more exact) I'm not
>
> sure there's anything new to be written about Kerouac at this point,
>
> the
>
> bios already out there seem to cover his life pretty well (hard to
>
> imagine Doug would be more thorough than Gerry Nicosia or the others
>
> who've done Kerouac bios)
>
>
>
> But since his Carter bio is going tobe like three volumes, its
>
> conceivable that he could turn out something even more exhaustive than
>
>
>
> Nicosia's "Memory Babe"
Doug Brinkley's a good writer who is
>
> passionate
>
> about Kerouac so whatever he puts out on the subject is bound to be
>
> worthwhile I s'pose.
>
>
>
> RJW
>
> Gerry has said that whoever can gain the
cooperation of the persons
>
who control of Jack's papers could write a "better" biography,
assuming
>
that they could use the tapes that he recorded too. But, with
>
revisionist history seeming to be the rage these days, it might not be
>
possible to tell the truth in an "authorized" biography. The Jimi
>
Hendrix estate is hard at work trying to remake Jimi's life. They are
>
claiming that he was "spiked" with LSD at Monterry Pop Festival and
that
>
his management set him up for the drug bust in Toronto. They also only
>
want "happy" pictures of Jimi and at one time thought about trying to
>
air brush some of his cigarettes out of pictures. Well, I would
>
presume, though I do not know, that the keepers of the Kerouac flame
>
might have the same ideas in mind. Only
time and a published work will
>
tell. Personally, I would love to see
an authorized biography that used
>
Jack's notebooks and was done properly.
I do not think it would be
>
redundant.
>
>
>
> --
>
>
Peace,
>
>
Bentz
>
bocelts@scsn.net
>
http://www.scsn.net/users/sclaw
>
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 11 Aug 1997 12:11:28 -0400
Reply-To: "Ted W. Nagy"
<tnagy@PASS.WAYNE.EDU>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: "Ted W. Nagy" <tnagy@PASS.WAYNE.EDU>
Subject: Re: Dangerous Writing
Comments:
To: Eric Blanco <Chimera@WEBTV.NET>
In-Reply-To:
<199708072341.QAA28873@mailtod-101.bryant.webtv.net>
MIME-Version:
1.0
Content-Type:
TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
The
term "dangerous writing" immediately evokes, in my mind, the great
interpreter
of politics, Hunter S. Thompson. Is
this the kind of work you
speak
of? He views the world from a distorted
eye, and yet accomplishes
so much
opinion. He takes reality and makes it
fiction, but who's to say
that
reality isn't really an attempt at fiction anyway? Let me know what
you
think...
-t
On Thu,
7 Aug 1997, Eric Blanco wrote:
> Hello everyone:
> A while back someone posted
> a
description of a work as "dangerous
>
writing"-a great phrase and a high
>
compliment, I'm sure.
>
> My questions to the list are:
what
>
qualities does a writers' work have to have
> in
order for it to be dangerous? What was
>
dangerous about the beats' writings, and
> is
it enough just to upset the status quo or
>
does something else have to be present?
>
Are there any dangerous writers today?
>
Finally, is it possible to be mainstream
>
(Anne Rice? Eric Lustbader?) and still be
>
dangerous?
>
> I look forward to your
>
feedback, either to the list or in private.
> I
hope you've all had a great week and
>
are looking forward to the weekend.
>
> My best,
>
> Chimera
>
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 11 Aug 1997 12:22:37 EDT
Reply-To: Bill Gargan <WXGBC@CUNYVM.BITNET>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: Bill Gargan
<WXGBC@CUNYVM.BITNET>
Subject: Village Voice obit.
This
week's issue of the Voice carried a full page obit on Burroughs
with
articles by David Ulin and C. (I assume Lucien's son Caleb) Carr.
The last
paragraph of Ulin's article addresses the question of
Burroughs'
attitude towards death and God:
"In
an interview last year, Burroughs addressed the subject of his own
death,
noting that he was frightened at the prospect because 'we don't
know
it. We can't.' At the same time, he took a philosophical
view of
mortality.
'I believe in God,' he said, 'and always have. I don't know
how
anyone could read my books and think otherwise. In the magical
universie,
nothing happens unless some power or something wills it to
happen. It's as simple as that. It comes down to the Big Bang Theory.
Somebody
triggered the Big Bang.'"
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 11 Aug 1997 12:18:52 -0400
Reply-To: "Ted W. Nagy"
<tnagy@PASS.WAYNE.EDU>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: "Ted W. Nagy"
<tnagy@PASS.WAYNE.EDU>
Subject: Re: Last Words
Comments:
To: Michael Stutz <stutz@DSL.ORG>
In-Reply-To:
<Pine.LNX.3.95.970807200043.11613D-100000@devel.nacs.net>
MIME-Version:
1.0
Content-Type:
TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
I'm
interested as well on last words. Did
you read the last poem (can't
remember
the title...) Ginsberg put out that was published in the New
Yorker. Very eery... The words of a man who knows
that he's going to die.
I saw
Ed Sanders read in Detroit and he was relating a story about
Ginsberg's
last words to him. Ed stood back,
choked up, and told the
audience
of how he had been summoned to Italy at this time. He heard of
Ginsberg's
death abroad and when he returned, heard his voice on the
answering
machine. I guess Ginsberg was making
phone calls on his
deathbed
saying goodbye. like he was going away for just a short while,
and
returning. Anyway, Ed said that he was
all chipper and sincere-like
on the
machine. I can't remember the way that
sanders said it(among the
tears
caught in his throat), but he said goodbye, and laughed and said
that
he'd see him later. The words of a dead
man inspire new life to us
all...
-t
On Thu,
7 Aug 1997, Michael Stutz wrote:
> On
Thu, 7 Aug 1997, Neil Hennessy wrote:
>
>
> Someone even wrote an essay about 10 years ago called "The Last Words
of
>
> William S. Burroughs", so I figure it's as valid an enquiry as any.
>
>
Does anyone have a copy of this, or know where one exists? As many of you
>
undoubtedly are, I'm interested in what William's parting shot was -- as
>
well as Ginsberg's. I'd first heard it was "toodle-oo," but then I
recall
>
reading something else somewhere, so I ain't got no clue.
>
>
bye,
>
> m
>
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 11 Aug 1997 12:50:40 -0400
Reply-To: Michael Stutz <stutz@DSL.ORG>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: Michael Stutz <stutz@DSL.ORG>
Subject: Re: Last Words
Comments:
To: "Ted W. Nagy" <tnagy@pass.wayne.edu>
In-Reply-To: <Pine.SOL.3.93.970811121330.11181B-100000@pass.wayne.edu>
MIME-Version:
1.0
Content-Type:
TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
On Mon,
11 Aug 1997, Ted W. Nagy wrote:
>
I'm interested as well on last words.
Did you read the last poem (can't
>
remember the title...) Ginsberg put out that was published in the New
>
Yorker. Very eery... The words of a man
who knows that he's going to die.
Not
only that, but those last few poems were sharp as hell, Ginsberg in top
form. A
good way for a poet to go out.
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 11 Aug 1997 13:56:02 -0400
Reply-To: Richard Wallner
<rwallner@CAPACCESS.ORG>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: Richard Wallner
<rwallner@CAPACCESS.ORG>
Subject: Re: Authorized Kerouac Bio
Comments:
To: "Derek A. Beaulieu" <dabeauli@FREENET.CALGARY.AB.CA>
In-Reply-To:
<Pine.A32.3.93.970811093157.37708F-100000@srv1.freenet.calgary.ab.ca>
MIME-Version:
1.0
Content-Type:
TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
On Mon,
11 Aug 1997, Derek A. Beaulieu wrote:
>
from what i understand from r.whitehead, d.brinkley in fact has been
>
picked to edit 2 volumes of jack kerouac's selected journals, and NOT a
>
new biography.
> yrs
>
derek
>
One of
the Burroughs obits I read quoted Brinkley and referred to him as
"who
is writing the authorized Kerouac biography"
Maybe
he'sdoing the bio and the journals?
RJW
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 11 Aug 1997 14:18:05 EDT
Reply-To: Fred Bogin <FDBBC@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: Fred Bogin
<FDBBC@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
Organization:
Brooklyn College Library
Subject: Burroughs Obit
Attached
is a Burroughs obit from this week's German magazine, Der
Spiegel.
(http://www.spiegel.de) I replaced the
umlauted letters by
ae, oe,
ue, etc. to make it readable.
Fred
NACHRUF
William
S. Burroughs
1914
bis 1997
Natuerlich
konnte man mit Bill Burroughs auch ueber Literatur
reden
oder ueber Moebelpolitur oder Popmusik, denn er war ein
hoeflicher
Mensch. Seine schleppende, monotone Stimme verriet
kultiviertes
Desinteresse. Doch wenn das Gespraech auf Waffen
kam,
gewann sie an Farbe.
Dann
wurde klar: Nicht Doyen des amerikanischen Underground oder
Pate
des Punks oder respektiertes Akademie-Mitglied, sondern
Marshall
in Dodge City - das waere wohl seine Lieblingsrolle
gewesen.
Das oder der Schurke am anderen Strassenende. Die
Grenzen
zwischen Gut und Boese haben ihn ohnehin nie sonderlich
interessiert.
Geistesgegenwart, darauf kam es ihm an.
William
S. Burroughs wusste die eigenen Qualitaeten illusionslos
einzuschaetzen.
"Mit Doc Holliday koennte ich es noch allemal
aufnehmen",
sagte er bei einer Probeschiesserei auf seiner Ranch
in
Kansas.
Bill
Burroughs, die aeusserste Avantgarde, die sich die
amerikanische
Literatur in diesem Jahrhundert leistete, war
gleichzeitig
so amerikanisch wie Cornflakes. Er war Mitglied der
erzreaktionaeren
"National Rifle Association" und fuehlte sich
wohl
unter den Rednecks in Kansas, wo er vorvergangene Woche
83jaehrig
an Herzversagen starb.
Er
kannte die Mythen und Legenden um den O. K. Corral in- und
auswendig,
und bevor er in die Tempel und Seminarraeume der
Literaturwissenschaftler
einzog, bewohnte er den Kosmos der
Groschenhefte.
Er war der Harvard-Zoegling mit Leidenschaft fuer
das
Triviale. Der Kronprinz einer Industriellenfamilie, der in
den
Fixerszenen von New Orleans, London und Tanger zu Hause war.
Er war
ein merkwuerdig zugeknoepfter Reisender mit der Vorliebe
fuer
Schmutz und Schund aller Art. Zudem war er schwul. Im Grunde
war
Burroughs der Alptraum der amerikanischen Gesellschaft - weil
er aus
ihrer innersten Mitte stammte.
In den
Beatnik-Zirkeln um Ginsberg und Kerouac, die er Mitte der
vierziger
Jahre kennenlernte, wirkte er wie ein Fremder. Es gibt
selbst
in diesen fruehen Jahren kaum ein Foto, auf dem er
laechelt
- und so blieb sein Gesicht eine unerschuetterliche
Buster-Keaton-Miene
zum boesen Spiel des Jahrhunderts. Er
heiratete
zweimal. Die erste Frau war eine deutsche Juedin, der
er mit
der Ehe die Einwanderung ermoeglichte. Die zweite Frau
erschoss
er waehrend einer drogenberauschten Party. Restlos
konnte
nie geklaert werden, ob der Unfall tatsaechlich ein Unfall
war.
Burroughs gab kurz nach der Tat ein Gestaendnis ab, das er
spaeter
widerrief.
Der
Skandal jedoch verlieh ihm jenen duesteren Glanz, der ihn
spaeter
zur schwarzromantischen Pop-Ikone machte: Er war der
schriftstellernde
Outlaw, der Revolverheld mit der
Schreibmaschine,
der sich um die Gesetze nicht sonderlich
kuemmerte,
weder um die des Lebens noch um die der Literatur.
Schon
als Junge hatte Burroughs von einer literarischen Karriere
aus
absolut ausserliterarischen Gruenden getraeumt. Er wollte
schreiben,
"weil Schriftsteller reich und beruehmt waren, in
Singapur
und Rangun herumhingen, gelbe Seidenanzuege trugen und
Opium
rauchten oder Haschisch in den Vierteln der Einheimischen
von
Tanger und dabei eine zahme Gazelle streichelten".
Er hat
es gehabt, das Rauschgift und die Gazellen und spaeter den
Ruhm
und den Reichtum, doch es war ein langer Weg dahin, und zu
den
erstaunlichsten Leistungen Burroughs' gehoert wohl seine
schiere
Langlebigkeit. Jahrzehntelang hing er an der Nadel, er
stieg
aus und wieder ein und wieder aus und stieg um auf andere
Drogen
und strapazierte seinen Koerper bis an die Grenze. Doch
als er
starb, hatte er die meisten seiner Weggefaehrten
ueberlebt,
Ginsberg und Neal Cassady und Timothy Leary und
Kerouac
sowieso.
Sein
Debuet-Roman "Junkie" erschien 1953 als billiges Paperback,
ein
Hoellenbuch ueber die Logistik der Drogenbeschaffung, den
Horror
der kalten Entzuege, wohl sein lesbarstes Buch. Beruehmt
wurde
er jedoch durch die Phantasmagorien aus "Naked Lunch"
(1959),
diesem obszoenen, halluzinogenen Groschenroman um Dr.
"Fingers"
Schafer, "Lobotomy Kid" und William Lee, der zugleich
eine
ueberbordende Gesellschaftssatire ist.
Ueber
die Erfindung der darin zum ersten Male angewandten
beruehmten
Cut-up-Methode sind verschiedene Versionen im Umlauf,
und
eine davon, nicht die unwahrscheinlichste, ist banal. Im
Drogendaemmer,
inmitten zerfledderter Manuskriptseiten, soll er
in
einem Hotelzimmer auf seine Fuesse gestarrt haben, als
Ginsberg
ihn aufstoeberte und die Texte wahllos zusammenstapelte.
Spaeter
fand Burroughs die Zufallsreihung hoechst interessant.
Daraufhin
zerschnitt er die Seiten und puzzelte sie neu zusammen.
"Naked
Lunch" wurde wegen seiner pornographischen Passagen zum
Skandalerfolg
und wegen seiner Neologismen und
Hieronymus-Bosch-Visionen
zum Steinbruch fuer Popgruppen, die aus
ihm und
den Folgeromanen ihre Namen entliehen, "Steely Dan" oder
"Soft
Machine", und andere Gruppen nannten ihre Musik "Heavy
Metal".
Doch
Burroughs interessierte sich kaum fuer das ganze
Rocktheater.
Er war kein Weltverbesserer wie Ginsberg, kein
dionysischer
Schwaermer wie Kerouac. Tief im Innersten hielt er
die
Beatnik-Pose und das nachfolgende Pop-Getue wohl fuer
Kinderkram.
Seine
letzten Jahre lebte er diszipliniert. Er stand frueh auf,
fuetterte
die Katzen, schrieb. Den ersten Wodka genehmigte er
sich
nie vor vier Uhr nachmittags. Ab und zu besuchte er seinen
alten
Waffenbruder Fred, um zu schiessen.
Er war
der Deputy-Marshall, und er hat sich lang gehalten, bis es
ihn
endlich doch noch erwischte.
DER
SPIEGEL 33/1997
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 11 Aug 1997 20:45:59 +0200
Reply-To: paul caspers
<caspers@WORLDONLINE.NL>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: paul caspers <caspers@WORLDONLINE.NL>
Subject: kerouac letters
Mime-Version:
1.0
Content-Type:
text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Hello
you,
does
anyone know if another volume of kerouac's letters will be published ??
also,
was -my education- wsb' last book or not ??
3) how
many pages does wsb' penguin paperback edition of the selected
letters
run ??
it's
hard to get in holland...
please
reply personally also, since i'm off the beat list !!
thanks,
p a u l
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 11 Aug 1997 15:49:15 -0400
Reply-To: Michael Stutz <stutz@DSL.ORG>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: Michael Stutz <stutz@DSL.ORG>
Subject: Re: (no subject)
Comments:
To: Patricia Elliott <pelliott@SUNFLOWER.COM>
In-Reply-To: <33EE8B80.2818@sunflower.com>
MIME-Version:
1.0
Content-Type:
TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
On Sun,
10 Aug 1997, Patricia Elliott wrote:
>
the comments on the service thing for william was
>
the last words written in his diary on the 1st.
i take
it his diary was where the "he wrote most every day" work all went
into,
where most of his recent writings (past several years? decade? more?)
went. i
may be asking a little early but has anyone heard if this will be
published
any time soon?
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 11 Aug 1997 15:09:53 -0500
Reply-To: Patricia Elliott
<pelliott@SUNFLOWER.COM>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: Patricia Elliott
<pelliott@SUNFLOWER.COM>
Subject: Re: (no subject)
Comments:
To: Michael Stutz <stutz@dsl.org>
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Michael
Stutz wrote:
>
> On
Sun, 10 Aug 1997, Patricia Elliott wrote:
>
>
> the comments on the service thing for william was
>
> the last words written in his diary on the 1st.
>
> i
take it his diary was where the "he wrote most every day" work all
went
>
into, where most of his recent writings (past several years? decade? more?)
>
went. i may be asking a little early but has anyone heard if this will be
>
published any time soon?
I have
no idea,
p
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 11 Aug 1997 19:17:38 -0400
Reply-To: "R. Bentz Kirby"
<bocelts@SCSN.NET>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: "R. Bentz Kirby"
<bocelts@SCSN.NET>
Organization:
Law Office of R. Bentz Kirby
Subject: Re: Authorized Kerouac Bio
Comments:
To: "Derek A. Beaulieu" <dabeauli@FREENET.CALGARY.AB.CA>
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Derek
A. Beaulieu wrote:
>
from what i understand from r.whitehead, d.brinkley in fact has been
>
picked to edit 2 volumes of jack kerouac's selected journals, and NOT
> a
>
new biography.
>
yrs
>
derek
I'll
take that. In fact it might even be a
better project than another
biography.
>
<snip>
--
Peace,
Bentz
bocelts@scsn.net
http://www.scsn.net/users/sclaw
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 11 Aug 1997 16:25:11 -0700
Reply-To: "Timothy K. Gallaher"
<gallaher@HSC.USC.EDU>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: "Timothy K. Gallaher"
<gallaher@HSC.USC.EDU>
Subject: Black Rider (The Freeshooter)
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I guess
Burroughs wrote a musical called the Black Rider. I'm wondering
what
Jolson numbers are in it.
I saw
this article in the South China Morning Post
________
Friday August 8
1997
Arts
The rider in the storm
VICTORIA FINLAY
When William Burroughs died
earlier this week at
the age of 83, the question
many people asked was
not why he died, but why he lived so long.
Burroughs, born in St Louis in
1914, was a
non-conformist who said
"yes" to drugs, and was
known for a reckless,
dangerous anarchism that
was as much a part of his life as of his writing.
Perhaps his most publicised,
and certainly his most
tragic, stunt, was his fatal
attempt to re-enact the
legend of William Tell at a
party above a bar in
Mexico City in 1951. The
writer, drunk, pulled out
a gun and a glass. Placing the
latter on the head of
his wife, Joan, he asked
fellow partiers to imagine it
was an apple, and fired. He
missed the glass and
killed Joan.
The Mexican police did not
press charges. It was
rumoured money was paid.
Four decades on, with the
collaboration of director
Robert Wilson and
singer-composer Tom Waits,
Burroughs wrote a musical.
It was based partly on Weber's
Der Freischutz
("the free shooter")
about a man who made a pact
with the devil to become the
marksman his girlfriend
dreamed of. But it was based
mainly on his own
experience above that Mexican
bar.
The Black Rider will be one of
the highlights of the
Hong Kong Arts Festival next
February.
This is not, we can be sure, a
musical after the
tradition of Andrew Lloyd
Webber and Cameron
Mackintosh. And it is
certainly not of the pastel
school of The Sound of Music
which played to
mixed reactions at the Academy
for Performing
Arts this summer.
The Black Rider, with its
illuminated rifle that floats
and flies, its avant-garde
lighting effects (a Wilson
trademark), and its black
humour, has instead been
given many labels, including
"hallucinatory", "almost
unclassifiable" and
"a masterpiece".
Plenty of bloody cadavers,
black boxes, and
rousing Al Jolson numbers at
the tragic turns of the
plot.
While, with Los Angeles
Opera's Salome the Arts
Festival has gone for a more
classical operatic
choice next year, they can
already be commended
for continuing in a series of
daring musical theatre
that began in 1996 with Robert
Lepage's
Bluebeard's Castle, and
continued this year with
Tan Dun's Marco Polo.
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 11 Aug 1997 19:04:17 -0700
Reply-To: runner <babu@ELECTRICITI.COM>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: runner <babu@ELECTRICITI.COM>
Subject: We've had the builders in...
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Here's
another forward from Gerald Houghton.
Seems to be an intelligent
man
with lots in the know department.
Anybody know about the U2 video and
Burroughs??
Douglas
<<
start of forwarded material >>
Date:
Mon, 11 Aug 1997 23:22:11 +0100
To:
runner <babu@electriciti.com>
From:
houghtong@globalnet.co.uk (Gerald Houghton)
Subject:
We've had the builders in...
I shall
look around there and see what I shall see. It's irritating the way
that
the death is annouced and then...nothing. It's like you don't get the
sense
of closure to the story. Only when the great Derek Jarman died did we
get the
end we needed.
One of
the things that irritated me most in the obits for WSB was the
singular
lack of any acknowledgement that his work was at all FUNNY. Lots of
reverence
about cut-up techniques (often mis-credited, as per usual) and the
rest,
but nothing about how funny a book like 'Naked Lunch' is, or something
like
'Just Say No To Drug Hysteria'. His contributions to spoken word were
equally
ignored. You can't say it all maybe, but...
Here's
a question - it was heavily reported that WSB appeared in the latest
U2
video. I saw a picture of him on the set with them in a magazine. But
every
time the videos on TV it's cut-off before, I assume, he appears. Any
idea if
he really is in there?
>
>>
>>
>>
Gerald Houghton
>>
e-mail: houghtong@globalnet.co.uk
>>
The Edge magazine homepage:
>>
http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~houghtong/edge1.htm
<<
end of forwarded material >>
http://www.electriciti.com/babu/ |
0 |
step
aside, and let the man go thru | { -
|
----> let the man go thru
| /\ |
super
bon-bon (soul coughing)
=========
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 11 Aug 1997 19:08:20 -0700
Reply-To: runner <babu@ELECTRICITI.COM>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: runner <babu@ELECTRICITI.COM>
Subject: I'm not paranoid but...
Comments:
cc: houghtong@globalnet.co.uk
Mime-Version:
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Another
snip of a message from Gerald Houghton of the JG Ballard list.
Sorry
to have inundated you folx with messages from other lists, but I find
it
fascinating to hear the round-all concerning WSB. I'd be interested in
hearing/reading
about the Ralph Steadman collaboration too.
Anybody have
any
news?
Douglas
<<
start of forwarded material >>
Date:
Sun, 10 Aug 1997 23:12:14 +0100
To:
runner <babu@electriciti.com>
From:
houghtong@globalnet.co.uk (Gerald Houghton)
Subject:
I'm not paranoid but...
<snip>
WSB's
death came as a real shock last Sunday dinnertime when it was annouced
on
Radio 4 over here. One of those deaths you just never expected - like
when
film-maker K. Kieslowski died last year.
They
spoke to artist Ralph Steadman about his collaboration with WSB.
Steadman
also wrote an excellent piece in 'The Guardian' this past week
about
meeting/working with Burroughs.
There
have also been two cartoons about his death too. One in - yup, 'The
Guardian'
- about arresting suspected drug addicts for waring suits and a
trilby.
And another about him being buried, um, up the butt of a giant
centipede...
I
collected all the obits for the man I could find - odd how they
contridicted
each other over Joan's death and how not one mentioned the book
of
letters published the other year that I (and I believe author Will Self)
think
of as his true masterpiece. All the obits were at least sympathetic
except
for 'The Times' which seemed to grudgingly admit he merited coverage
but
thought he was essentially crap. Noticeably no one put their name to the
piece.
Go figure.
Gerald
Houghton
e-mail:
houghtong@globalnet.co.uk
The
Edge magazine homepage:
http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~houghtong/edge1.htm
<<
end of forwarded material >>
http://www.electriciti.com/babu/ |
0 |
step
aside, and let the man go thru
| { - |
----> let the man go thru
| /\ |
super
bon-bon (soul coughing)
=========
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 11 Aug 1997 19:29:11 -0700
Reply-To: stauffer@pacbell.net
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: James Stauffer
<stauffer@PACBELL.NET>
Subject: Re: Harry Anslinger Rides Again
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Beat-L
folks.
This is
not directly related to Beat topics, but those of you who have
been
arguing drug and freedom of chemical choice issues may want to
watch
the way in which Att. Gen. Reno and the Clinton troops are doing
their
best imitation of the great marijuana-phobe Harry Anslinger with
regard
to GHB. This substance, which is
present in every cell of your
body,
and which used to be sold in health food stores in the US and is
still
available over the counter in most of Europe is being demonized as
a
"date rape" drug and great pressure is being exerted to schedule it
as
a Class
1 or Class 2 substance. Since the FDA
could not win in court
they
have turned the battle to the media and state legislatures. The
great
"date rape" drug has historically been booze. But the drug
haters
and the drug companies have a terrible problem with any compound
that
some people find fun, which tends to relax a person and is helpful
for
inducing sleep. Legal sanctions help
keep law enforcement
entertained
and the jails full.
For
more info those interested might check this site from the Cognitive
Enhancement
Research Institute.
J.
Stauffer
http://www.ceri.com/feature.htm
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 11 Aug 1997 23:16:40 -0700
Reply-To: mike@buchenroth.com
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: "Michael L. Buchenroth"
<mike@BUCHENROTH.COM>
Organization:
Buchenroth Publishing Company
Subject: Wall Street Journal 'n Fruity Pebbles
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Last
Saturday morning (Friday night) I read an article / bio / slam /
insulting
and frightening propaganda bullshit narrowly filtered opinion
in the
"Wall Street Journal" about Burroughs and the Beats, etc.
***
This
Roger Kimball guy has eaten Fruity Pebbles everyday of his life
since
his 4th birthday when his great grandmother, A. Puritan, gave him
his
first box as a gift. He measures precisely 1/2 cup of 2% each day.
And all
this time, he has used the same licked-worn spoon too. He likes
to lick
the tarnish from that clad silver plated zink, lead, and steel
alloy
spoon. Ole Roger seems just a few licks short of bacon and eggs.
Roger
so loves his Fruity Pebbles...
-Mike
***
This
piece appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Friday August 8, 1997 .
. .
Read it
and weep!
The
Dark Ages Lurk, yet!
The
Death of Decency
By
ROGER KIMBALL
It has
been a bad year for famous drugabusing literary charlatans. In
April,
the Beat poet Allen Ginsberg-author of "Howl" (1956) and
innumerable
other paeans to pharmacological and sexual excess-died of
liver
cancer at the age of 70. On Aug. 2, the Beat novelist William S.
Burroughs
succumbed to a heart attack at the age of 83. Considering the
way
they abused themselves - especially Burroughs, who was addicted to
heroin
for some 15 years-it is hard not to admire their robust
constitutions.
It is even harder, though, to admire
anything else about the life or
work of
either. Both specialized in pretentious, proselytizing
pornography:
Ginsberg of an incense-burning, pseudo-Whitmanesque sort,
Burroughs
of a much grittier, sadomasochistic variety. There are few
poems
by Ginsberg that could be quoted whole in this newspaper; I doubt
whether
any page of "Naked Lunch," Burroughs's celebrated 1959 fantasy
about a
violent, drugridden sexual underworld, could be. A generous
person
might be tempted to describe the accumulated literary value of
both
writers as null. But that would be grossly unfair to nullity. The
poet
Edith Sitwell came closer to the truth when she described "Naked
Lunch"
as "psychopathological filth."
How, then, can we explain the extent
to which Ginsberg and Burroughs
have
been lionized by the media and the academic literary establishment?
Anyone
who read the obituaries these men received-especially Ginsberg,
who got
lavish, front-page treatment almost everywhere-might be tricked
into
thinking that they were important literary figures. In the early
1990s,
Stanford University paid $1 million for Ginsberg's papers. His
works
are published by prestigious houses and are studied in classrooms
across
the country. Ditto for Burroughs. The word "genius" is routinely
applied
to both. So is "transgressive"--a term that, tellingly, has
emerged
as a favorite word of praise among addicts of the "cutting
edge."
I agree that Ginsberg and Burroughs
were "transgressive." But is that a
good
thing? After all, Saddam Hussein is "transgressire" too. The
obituary
of Burroroughs in The New York Times informed readers that "he
spent
years experimenting with drugs as well as with sex, which he
engaged
in with men, women, and children." Note the word
"experimenting,"
as if Burroughs were engaged in some sort of of
scientific
inquiry rather than straight-foraward abuse of hard drugs and
sordid
sexual debauchery.
Burroughs committed his most clearly
transgressive act in Mexico in
1951.
Although predominantly homosexual, he had married and fathered a
son.
Drunk at a party, he took out a handgun and announced to his wife
that it
was time for their William Tell act. When he tried to shoot a
glass
off her head, he missed and killed her. As one obituary put it,
"the
circumstances of the killing were never fully investigated, and
Burroughs
fled Mexico City for South America rather than stand trial."
Burroughs is often praised for his
"humor." But as far as I can tell,
there
is only one genuinely funny sentence in "Naked Lunch," and its
humor
is inadvertent. "Certain passages in the book that have been
called
pornographic," Burroughs wrote in a preface, "were written as a
tract
against Capital Punishment in the manner of Jonathan Swift's
'Modest
Proposal.'"
Burroughs wasn't alone in invoking the
author of "Gulliver's Travels."
Burroughs's
fellow Beat writer Jack Kerouac wrote that his friend was
"the
greatest satirical writer since Jonathan Swift." In 1963, the
critic
and novelist Mary McCarthy solemnly said there were "many points
of
comparison" between the two, and concluded that, "like a classical
satirist,
Burroughs is dead serious--a reformer."
But McCarthy was wrong. Burroughs was
not a reformer. Unlike Swift, he
had no
ideal to oppose to the degradation his books depicted. On William
Burroughs
the contrary, he was a cynical opportunist who realized that
calling
his work "satire" could help exempt it from legal action. An
obituary
in The Village Voice described Burroughs as "utterly paranoid
and
utterly moral." That is exactly half right.
It is significant that the careers of
both Ginsberg and Burroughs began
with an
obscenity trial, Ginsberg with "'Howl" in 1957, Burroughs with
"Naked
Lunch" in 1962. Ira Silverberg, a publicist for Burroughs, is
quoted
as saying that "William Burroughs opened the door for supporters
of
freedom of expression." In fact, Burroughs helped open the door on
the
public acceptance and academic adulation of violent, dehumanizing
pornography
as a protected form of free speech.
As Rochelle Gurstein pointed out in
"The Repeal of Reticence," her
astute
book about free speech and obscenity, "it is a sign of our time
that
this ready-made plea for freedom of choice, and the dismissal of
standards
as a form of cultural imperialism, is automatically offered
not
only on behalf of commercial entertainment but also for obscene art
and pornography."
As Ms. Gurstein shows, it was not
until the 1950s that the question of
obscenity
was cast as a First Amendment issue. Until then, free speech
had
been explicitly excluded by the courts as a defense for trafficking
in
obscene materials. The problem was not defining obscenity--about
which
there was wide agreement--but in assessing the degree of public
harm
the circulation of certain materials might be expected to cause.
"Obscenity
was successfully regulated," she notes, "because there was
broad
consensus about indecency, rooted in the old standards of the
reticent
sensibility."
That consensus has long since
dissolved, along with the moral
sensibility
that supported it. In this sense, Allen Ginsberg, William
Burroughs.
and the rest of the Beats really do mark an important moment
in
American culture, not as one of its achievements, but as a grievous
example
of its degeneration. The Village Voice observed that, when it
came to
appreciating his nihilism, "the culture had finally caught up
with"
Burroughs. Sadly, that couldn't be more accurate.
Mr. Kimball is managing editor of The New
Criterion.
THE
WALL STREET JOURNAL.
Peter
R. Kann Kenneth L.
Burenga
Chairman
& Publisher President
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Steiger Robert
L. Bartley
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Published
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& Chief Operating
Officer;
CEO, Dew Jones Markets.
Senior
Vice Presidents: James H. Oftaway Jr.,
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This
piece appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Friday August 8, 1997 . . .
Read it
and weep!
The
Dark Ages Lurk, yet!
The
Death of Decency
By
ROGER KIMBALL
It has
been a bad year for famous drugabusing literary charlatans. In April, the
Beat poet Allen Ginsberg-author of "Howl"
(1956) and innumerable other paeans
to pharmacological and sexual excess-died of
liver cancer at the age of 70. On
Aug. 2, the Beat novelist William S.
Burroughs succumbed to a heart attack at
the age of 83. Considering the way they
abused themselves - especially
Burroughs, who was addicted to heroin for
some 15 years-it is hard not to
admire their robust constitutions.
It is even harder, though, to admire
anything else about the life or work of
either. Both specialized in pretentious,
proselytizing pornography: Ginsberg of
an incense-burning, pseudo-Whitmanesque sort,
Burroughs of a much grittier,
sadomasochistic variety. There are few poems
by Ginsberg that could be quoted
whole in this newspaper; I doubt whether any
page of "Naked Lunch," Burroughs's
celebrated 1959 fantasy about a violent,
drugridden sexual underworld, could
be. A generous person might be tempted to
describe the accumulated literary
value of both writers as null. But that would
be grossly unfair to nullity. The
poet Edith Sitwell came closer to the truth
when she described "Naked Lunch" as
"psychopathological filth."
How, then, can we explain the extent
to which Ginsberg and Burroughs have been
lionized by the media and the academic literary
establishment? Anyone who read
the obituaries these men received-especially
Ginsberg, who got lavish,
front-page treatment almost everywhere-might
be tricked into thinking that they
were important literary figures. In the early
1990s, Stanford University paid
$1 million for Ginsberg's papers. His works
are published by prestigious houses
and are studied in classrooms across the
country. Ditto for Burroughs. The word
"genius" is routinely applied to
both. So is "transgressive"--a term that,
tellingly, has emerged as a favorite word of
praise among addicts of the
"cutting edge."
I agree that Ginsberg and Burroughs
were "transgressive." But is that a good
thing? After all, Saddam Hussein is
"transgressire" too. The obituary of
Burroroughs in The New York Times informed
readers that "he spent years
experimenting with drugs as well as with sex,
which he engaged in with men,
women, and children." Note the word
"experimenting," as if Burroughs were
engaged in some sort of of scientific inquiry
rather than straight-foraward
abuse of hard drugs and sordid sexual
debauchery.
Burroughs committed his most clearly
transgressive act in Mexico in 1951.
Although predominantly homosexual, he had
married and fathered a son. Drunk at
a party, he took out a handgun and announced
to his wife that it was time for
their William Tell act. When he tried to
shoot a glass off her head, he missed
and killed her. As one obituary put it,
"the circumstances of the killing were
never fully investigated, and Burroughs fled
Mexico City for South America
rather than stand trial."
Burroughs is often praised for his
"humor." But as far as I can tell, there is
only one genuinely funny sentence in
"Naked Lunch," and its humor is
inadvertent. "Certain passages in the
book that have been called pornographic,"
Burroughs wrote in a preface, "were
written as a tract against Capital
Punishment in the manner of Jonathan Swift's
'Modest Proposal.'"
Burroughs wasn't alone in invoking the
author of "Gulliver's Travels."
Burroughs's fellow Beat writer Jack Kerouac
wrote that his friend was "the
greatest satirical writer since Jonathan
Swift." In 1963, the critic and
novelist Mary McCarthy solemnly said there
were "many points of comparison"
between the two, and concluded that,
"like a classical satirist, Burroughs is
dead serious--a reformer."
But McCarthy was wrong. Burroughs was
not a reformer. Unlike Swift, he had no
ideal to oppose to the degradation his books
depicted. On William Burroughs the
contrary, he was a cynical opportunist who
realized that calling his work
"satire" could help exempt it from
legal action. An obituary in The Village
Voice described Burroughs as "utterly
paranoid and utterly moral." That is
exactly half right.
It is significant that the careers of
both Ginsberg and Burroughs began with an
obscenity trial, Ginsberg with
"'Howl" in 1957, Burroughs with "Naked Lunch" in
1962. Ira Silverberg, a publicist for Burroughs,
is quoted as saying that
"William Burroughs opened the door for
supporters of freedom of expression." In
fact, Burroughs helped open the door on the
public acceptance and academic
adulation of violent, dehumanizing
pornography as a protected form of free
speech.
As Rochelle Gurstein pointed out in
"The Repeal of Reticence," her astute book
about free speech and obscenity, "it is
a sign of our time that this ready-made
plea for freedom of choice, and the dismissal
of standards as a form of
cultural imperialism, is automatically
offered not only on behalf of commercial
entertainment but also for obscene art and
pornography."
As Ms. Gurstein shows, it was not
until the 1950s that the question of
obscenity was cast as a First Amendment
issue. Until then, free speech had been
explicitly excluded by the courts as a
defense for trafficking in obscene
materials. The problem was not defining
obscenity--about which there was wide
agreement--but in assessing the degree of
public harm the circulation of
certain materials might be expected to cause.
"Obscenity was successfully
regulated," she notes, "because
there was broad consensus about indecency,
rooted in the old standards of the reticent
sensibility."
That consensus has long since
dissolved, along with the moral sensibility that
supported it. In this sense, Allen Ginsberg,
William Burroughs. and the rest of
the Beats really do mark an important moment
in American culture, not as one of
its achievements, but as a grievous example
of its degeneration. The Village
Voice observed that, when it came to
appreciating his nihilism, "the culture
had finally caught up with" Burroughs.
Sadly, that couldn't be more accurate.
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Date: Tue, 12 Aug 1997 06:00:57 +0200
Reply-To: Rinaldo Rasa <rinaldo@GPNET.IT>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: Rinaldo Rasa <rinaldo@GPNET.IT>
Subject: (FWD) q: ranaldo & a: burroughs, 9
april 97
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>Return-Path:
<bofus@fcom.com>
>Date:
Mon, 11 Aug 1997 06:34:48 -0800
>From:
bofus? <bofus@fcom.com>
>To:
bofus@fcom.com
>Subject:
q: ranaldo & a: burroughs, 9 april 97
>
>William
Burroughs I-View (w/Lee Ranaldo)
>
>9
April 1997
>
>TAPE
TRANSCRIPTION
>
>
>
>Loud
dial tone and faint "Hello, hello?"
>
>Silence
>
>Touch
tone phone tones
>
>ringing
5 or 6 times
>
>WSB: eh, Hello?
>
>LR: Is this William?
>
>WSB: Yeh.
>
>LR: Hi William, this is Lee Ranaldo in New York
City.
>
>WSB: Yeah.
>
>LR: How are ya?
>
>WSB: Oh
okay.
>
>LR: Well you sound pretty good.
>
>WSB: Uh-huh (TECHNICAL GLITCH-garbled)
>
>LR: Good. (static) Okay, I hope that my
recording equipment is all in
>good
form here
>
>LR: So I wanted to talk to you, for just a few
minutes this afternoon,
>about
Morocco, if you would
>
>WSB: Just a moment, I gotta get my drink
>
>LR: Okay. 25 sec silence
>
>LR: Hello? loud buzzing
>
>LR: Hello? rattling
>
>WSB: OK.
>
>LR: Okay, first off, William, I'd like to say
that I was very sad to
>hear
about Allen I know you guys have been friends for the longest time
>
>WSB: Yes. Yes, well he knew, he knew it. He faced
it.
>
>LR: It seems like he faced it in a very good
way, actually.
>
>WSB: Yep, he told me "I thought I'd be
terrified but I'm not at all"
>
>LR: He did?
>
>WSB: Yes "I'm exhillerated!"
>
>LR: Well, I suppose if anyone had the right, uh,
frame about them to go
>out
that way, it was probably him. I was hoping to get one more visit in
>with
him before he uh, he went, uh he passed on, but that was not meant
>to
be, I'm sure a lot of people felt the same.
>
>WSB: mumbles
>
>LR: When was the last time you saw him?
>
>WSB: Los Angeles. At my show there.
>
>LR: I wanted to talk to you about Morocco a
little bit.
>
>WSB: Yeh.
>
>LR: I've recently been to the country, a few
times, and done some
>exploring
around, and I know you spent quite a bit of time in Tanger. I
>just
wanted to pick yr brain about that a little bit. You went to Tanger
>for
the first time in 1953, 1954?
>
>WSB: Nineteen
Fifty four, I believe.
>
>LR: Yeah. What what how did you end up in
Morocco? What was it about
>the
place that drew you there? I mean, today there are a lot of
>different
romantic associations with the coast of North Africa
>
>WSB: There were a lot more then than there are
now, I can tell you
>that.
>
>LR: Really?
>
>WSB: Well, you'll notice more subdivisions
now as it's modernized and
>is
no longer cheap
>
>LR: Right. But we have the stories of yr time
there, and Paul Bowles'
>time
there, and such things as Lawrence of Arabia, and it's built up in
>a
very romantic way
>
>WSB: In other words for one thing, it was very
cheap.
>
>LR: It was very cheap?
>
>WSB: Yeah, man, I lived like a king for $200 a
month.
>
>LR: Really?
>
>WSB: Yeh.
>
>LR: Did it have the same sort of appeal, then,
that Berlin had in the
>70's,
of being a sort of international zone, where anything goes?
>
>WSB: Pretty much so. It was an anything goes
place, and that's another
>plus.
>
>LR:
Yeah. And that was pretty available
knowledge, when you went there?
>
>WSB: Oh sure.
>
>LR: Had you known Paul Bowles, or known about
him, before you went
>there?
>
>WSB: I'd read his books.
>
>LR: You did?
>
>WSB: Yes. I didn't know him.
>
>LR: Did you meet him fairly quickly after you
were there?
>
>WSB: Mmm, I'd been there for some time, I'd met
him very slightly. Then
>later
we became quite good friends but that was later, some years later.
>
>LR: Right. Did you pretty much exist within an
expatriate community
>there,
or did you have a lot of contact with the local people? Was is
>easy
to have contact?
>
>WSB: The local people umm, I don't speak a
fuckin' word of Arabic, but
>I
speak a little Spanish y'know, they all spoke Spanish in the Northern
>Zone.
>
>LR: Yeah.
>
>WSB: My relations were mostly with the Spanish.
Spanish boys. And, of
>course,
otherwise in the expatriate side.
>
>LR: Right, but you didn't frequent the Barbara
Hutton crowd?
>
>WSB: Nooo.
>
>LR: Did you do much travelling around Morocco
while you were there, or
>did
you pretty much just stick in Tanger?
>
>WSB: I'm ashamed to say, not much. I went to Fes,
I went to Marrakech,
>and
passed through Casablance. Some of the places there I forget the
>names
of the coastal towns and I've been to
Jajouka!
>
>LR: Yeah, I wanted to talk to you about that I'm
friendly with Bachir
>Attar,
and the last time we were there I went to Jajouka as well
>
>WSB: Oh did ya?
>
>LR: I saw your inscriptions in his big
scrapbook, and hear some
>stories
>
>WSB: Yeah.
>
>LR: What was your impression of that place? How
did you end up there?
>Was
it through Brion Gysin and the 1001 Nights?
>
>WSB: More or less, yes.
>
>LR: What did you make of that place? What did
you make of the music?
>
>WSB: Great, great. Love it. Magic It really has a
magical quality that
>you
can't find anymore, anywhere. It's dying our everywhere, that
>quality
>
>LR: It seems to be still there when they play (today),
I don't know if
>you've
heard them recently
>
>WSB: Not recently, but I've hear the recordings,
some of the
>recordings.
Ornette Colemanmade some, you know. I was there when he made
>those.
>
>LR: Excuse me?
>
>WSB: I was there.
>
>LR: You were there when he made those (Dancing
in Your Head)
>recordings?
>
>WSB: That's right.
>
>LR: Oh, gee, wasn't that in the 70's?
>
>WSB: Yeah, it was, '72, I think.
>
>LR: When was the last time you were back in
Morocco?
>
>WSB: When in the hell was it? I went there with
the last time I went
>with
Jeremy Thomas and David Cronenberg, apropos of possibly getting
>some
shots, y'know
>
>LR: Oh, for the movie (Naked Lunch)
>
>WSB: Yeah, for the sets.
>
>LR: Yeah.
>
>WSB: Well, we just were there a couple of days.
>
>LR: Was it anything like you remembered? Had it
changed incredibly?
>
>WSB: Not incredibly but considerably. There's
been a lot of building
>up,
a lot of sort of sub-divisions, it's gotten more westernized there
>used
to be a lot of good restaurants there, now there's only one, and
>that's
in the Hotel Minza.
>
>LR: Right.
>
>WSB: These people I was with were saying "Oh
show me to a little place
>in
the native quarter where the food is good " and I said: There aren't
>no
such places! Right here in your best food in Morocco, or in Tanger
>anyway,
right in the Hotel Minza. Well, they went out and they ate in an
>awful,
greasy Spanish restaurant. After that they believed me!
>
>LR: (laughs)They had to find out the hard way
>
>LR: What about the 1001 Nights? Were the Jajouka
musicians playing in
>there?
>
>WSB: Well, various musicians. They had dancing
boys in there, too.
>
>LR: Yeah?
>
>WSB: Yes Oh, but I didn't know Brion too well I was
only there a couple
>of
times.
>
>LR: Oh really.
>
>WSB: I didn't know him then.
>
>LR: You became friendly with him in Paris,
later?
>
>WSB: That's right.
>
>LR: The place where you spent a lot of your time
there (in Tanger), the
>Muneria?
>
>WSB: The Hotel Mouneria, yes.
>
>LR: Was it a hotel or a boarding house?
>
>WSB: It was a hotel.
>
>LR: That's where you wrote a lot of the routines
that became Naked
>Lunch?
>
>WSB: Quite a few of them, yes.
>
>LR: And is that where Kerouac, and Ginsberg,
those guys came to visit
>you?
Where you living there at that time?
>
>WSB: I was living there at that time, yes. The
didn't there wasn't a
>place
in the Mouneria, but they found various cheap places around very
>near
there.
>
>LR: I heard Kerouac had nightmares from typing
up your stuff at that
>time
>
>WSB: (pauses) Well, he said
>
>LR: Was he the first one to actually sit down
and type a buch of that
>stuff
up?
>
>WSB: No, he was by no means the first. Alan Ansen
did a lot of typing,
>and
of course Allen Ginsberg. I don't know who was first but it wasn't
>Jack.
>
>LR: Those guys came and went pretty quickly,
compared to your time in
>Morocco
I guess they weren't as enamoured of the place
>
>WSB: Well they were settled somewhere else. Now
for example, Jack
>didn't
like any place outside of America he hated Tanger.
>
>LR: I wonder why?
>
>WSB: He hated Paris because they couldn't
understand is French.
>
>LR: His French ws a dialect
>
>WSB:
Those French Canadians got themselves
into a language ghetto.
>Evnet
he French people don't speak their language. Anyway, he'd been to
>Mexico
quite a lot, more than many other places.
>
>LR: He liked it there
>
>WSB: Fairly well.
>
>LR: But he didn't like it very much in Tanger?
>
>WSB: No no, not at all.
>
>LR: I'd like to hear your impressions of the kif
smoking there, and the
>majoun
>
>WSB: Sure. Well, the kif smoking was, y'know,
anywhere and everywhere.
>There
were no laws
>
>LR: They sort of smoke it the way people have a
drink here, don't they?
>
>WSB: Well, not exactly the same way. In the first
place it's pretty
>much
confined to men, thought i suppose the women get to smoke on their
>own.
but anyway, of course majoun is just a cany mad from kif the kif,
>you
see, is mixed with tobacco
>
>LR: Right.
>
>WSB: I can't smoke it.
>
>LR: Nope.
>
>WSB: So I'd always get those boys with the
tobacco, I'd tell 'em: "I
>don't
want the tobacco in it". So I rolled my own, and made my own
>majoun.
It's just a candy, it's pretty much like a Christmas Pudding any
>sort
of candy is good, works, fudge or whatever.
>
>LR: And how did you find it? Was it a high that
was pretty pleasing?
>
>WSB: Very very very much. It was stronger than
pot.
>
>LR: Were you smoking a lot of that, or taking a
lot of that, when you
>were
writing some of the routines?
>
>WSB: Yeah, sure. It helped me alot.
>
>LR: Was Tanger a violent place then?
>
>WSB: It was never a violent place that I know of.
>
>LR: No?
>
>WSB: Never good god I walked around in Tanger at
all hours of the day
>and
night, never any trouble.
>
>LR: Really?
>
>WSB: Yeah, there's always stuff about, the idea
that you go into the
>native
quartier you immediately get stabbed laughs it's nonsense!
>
>LR: Well, people do bring back those stories now
and again
>
>WSB: Well, occasionally it happens, but it is
much less dangerous that
>certain
areas of New York my God!
>
>LR: That's exactly how I likened it, when I was
there if you can walk
>down
the streets of New York you're in pretty good stead.
>
>WSB: Yeah, that's right, you're much better in
Tanger than in New York.
>
>LR: There was a description, In Barry Miles
book, wehre he said that
>when
you got there you felt very lonely and cut off, being sort of
>isolated
in this corner of North Africa
>
>WSB: It wasn't the corner of North Africa, it was
the fact that I
>hadn't
made many friends there.
>
>LR: Was that a strange time for you? Living
there without really
>knowing
anyone?
>
>WSB: Not particularly, I've visited many times,
many places.
>
>LR: Do you think that the gereral tenor of life
in Morocco influenced
>the
way ou were writing at that point? The daily life coming out in some
>of
the routines?
>
>WSB: Probably. The more I was in that surrounding
the more I liked it.
>More
and more.
>
>LR: More and more as you stayed?
>
>WSB: Yeah it was cheap and then, I met this guy
Dave Ulmer (?), who
>was,
Barnaby Bliss, he was at work for the man who did a column for
>their
Tanger paper English paper run by an old expatriate named Byrd,
>William
Byrd, an old Paris expat.
>
>LR: Were there many tourists in Morocco then?
>
>WSB: Not many at all.
>
>LR: That must have been nice.
>
>WSB: It was nice. In the summer of course you had
sometimes quite a few
>Scandinavians,
Germans laughs Brian Howard said about
the Swedes, I
>thik
it was: "You're all ugly, you're all queer, and none of you have
>any
money!"
>
>LR: Well, you know, that was another quote in
Miles book, from you,
>saying
that you'd "never seen so many people in one place without any
>money
or the prospect of any money " I
guess you could live pretty
>cheaply
there?
>
>WSB: You could live pretty cheaply there, yes.
>
>LR: At that time did Americans have to register
with the police to live
>there?
>
>WSB: f course not, nothing, they had to do
nothing. Well, they put in
>various
regulations in town you had to get a card. By the time we got
>our
goddamn cards and stood in line and had to take all that crap I had
>to
get one of those in France, too well, anyway, by that time they had
>another
idea (laughs), so your card that you had aquired was worthless
>
>LR: Were you involved much in the music there?
Did you hear a lot of
>music
while you were in Tanger did it make any strong impression on you?
>
>WSB: Well, I like the Moroccan music very much
>
>LR: It seems to be a very big part of the
lifestyle
>
>WSB: Yes, it is, indeed.
>
>LR: A lot of music, a lot of kef smoking, a lot
of contemplation, in a
>way
>
>WSB: Yes, well the music in omnipresent. I'd be
sitting at my desk and
>hear
it outside. It was all around you.
>
>LR: William, that about covers the subjects I'd
wanted to get at you
>with,
on there
>
>WSB: Sure
>
>LR: I guess your friendship with Bowles started
a bit later
>
>WSB: Yes, it did.
>
>LR: Do you enjoy his writing?
>
>WSB: Very much, very much.
>
>LR: He's got a very interesting style
>
>WSB: Very particular style particularly in the
end of Let It Come Down,
>that's
terrific, terrific, and then The Sheltering Sky is almost a
>perfect
novel
>
>LR: Yeah.
>
>WSB: The end of that, oh man, that quote:
"well you turned, stopped it
>was
the end of the line " great!
>
>LR: Did you know Jane (Bowles)?
>
>WSB: Oh yes, quite well.
>
>LR: What'd you think of her?
>
>WSB: Oh she was incredible
>
>LR: I've heard incredible things about her she
lived quite an
>interesting
life herself, although I guess in general, in Tanger and
>Morocco,
women were very much invisible, in a certain way. Native women.
>
>WSB: It's a very complicated situation, very
complex, and I don't
>pretend
to know much about it. Jane Bowles was sort of known for her
>strange
behavior. In New York they invited her to some party where all
>these
powerful ladies were, and they asked her, "Mrs. Bowles, what do
>you
think of all this?", and she said "Oh" and fell to the floor in
>quite
a genuine faint.
>
>LR: That was her answer?
>
>WSB: That was her answer. She had no
(unintelligible).
>
>LR: Are you still in touch with Bachir?
>
>WSB: No, not really.
>
>LR: You were in touch with his father, I suppose
>
>WSB: Yes, I knew the old man, sure, I remember
him.
>
>LR: He was the leader of the group back then?
>
>WSB: Yeah.
>
>LR: How many musicians would you say were in the
group back then?
>
>WSB: Oh, I don't know, it would vary, I'd say
about 12, 15.
>
>LR: That's about how many there still are now.
>
>LR: Okay William, I think that that's gonna be
good.
>
>WSB: Well fine.
>
>LR: I appreciate your talking to me, it's a
great pleasure to talk to
>you.
>
>WSB: Well, it's my pleasure too.
>
>LR: Okay, I hope to get another chance to come
out and say hellow to
>you
out there in Lawrence
>
>WSB: Fine.
>
>LR: Y'know, I have one last question for you
>
>WSB: Good.
>
>LR: Is that, uh, typewriter still growing out in
your garden?
>
>WSB: (puzzled) What typewriter?
>
>LR: Last time we were there you had a typewriter
growing in your garden
>amongst
all the plants and things
>
>WSB: Oh, just one I threw away I guess
>
>LR: Yeah, it was a very beautiful image there,
with the weeds coming up
>through
the keys
>
>WSB: (laughs) I guess so I don't remember the
typewriter I've gone
>through
so many typewriters wear 'em out and throw 'em away.
>
>LR: Do you generally write with a computer these
days?
>
>WSB: I have no idea how to do it. No, I don't.
>
>LR: Typewriter or longhand?
>
>WSB: Typewriter or longhand, yes. These modern
inventions! James has
>one,
but I just don't.
>
>LR: Okay, well listen William, I thank you very
much. Please tell both
>Jim
and James thanks for their help as well.
>
>WSB: I certainly will.
>
>LR: Okay, you take care.
>
>WSB: You too.
>
>LR: Bye bye.
>
>WSB: Bye bye.
>
>
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 12 Aug 1997 00:16:44 -0400
Reply-To: Alex Howard
<kh14586@ACS.APPSTATE.EDU>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: Alex Howard
<kh14586@ACS.APPSTATE.EDU>
Subject: Re: We've had the builders in...
In-Reply-To: <l03020905b015746d985b@[198.5.212.48]>
MIME-Version:
1.0
Content-Type:
TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
Burroughs
is only in the U2 video for 2 or 3 seconds at least. Right at
the end
when the band arrives at the scene of the apocalyptic white light
it is
revealed that the light is eminating from a shopping cart with a
spotlight
lying in it being pushed by the illustrious William S.
Burroughs
wearing dark oldmanwraparound sunglasses.
Video ends with a
freeze
on his face and fade out. A pretty
lackluster video all around.
Nothing
to get in a fuss over.
------------------
Alex
Howard (704)264-8259 Appalachian State
University
kh14586@acs.appstate.edu P.O. Box 12149
http://www.acs.appstate.edu/~kh14586 Boone, NC 28608
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 11 Aug 1997 21:19:38 -0700
Reply-To: "Timothy K. Gallaher"
<gallaher@HSC.USC.EDU>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: "Timothy K. Gallaher"
<gallaher@HSC.USC.EDU>
Subject: Re: Wall Street Journal 'n Fruity
Pebbles
Comments:
To: mike@buchenroth.com
Mime-Version:
1.0
Content-Type:
text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
I saw
this obit posted to the alt.books.beat-generation newsgroup so had
read
it. But thanks to you for posting it
here for everyone to read.
One
thing I find interesting is this obit in light of an earlier post by
runner
who presented comments by someone name Houghton. Houghton wrote:
"One
of the things that irritated me most in the obits for WSB was the
singular
lack of any acknowledgement that his work was at all FUNNY."
Of note
is that this WSJ piece did mention this and the comparisons to Swift
that
were made about Burroughs (one by Kerouac).
So in other words here is
an
example of an obit that acknowledged that he was funny (or at least that
he was
considered funny by his admirers).
Believe
it or not I think this writer was more familiar and understood
Burroughs
work much better than the other obit writers (with exceptions I am
sure)
who seemed to have some details and know he was supposed to be
important. This guy knew who Burroughs was and knew why
he was significant.
It's a
free country and no one has to like the writings of someone else.
And on
a side note, I like the Chocolate Pebble much more than Fruity ones
but I
wouldn't be putting down fruity pebbles.
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 12 Aug 1997 00:34:35 -0400
Reply-To: CVEditions@AOL.COM
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: Pamela Beach Plymell
<CVEditions@AOL.COM>
Subject: Re: U2 universal laugh off ramp
Comments:
To: babu@electriciti.com
In a
message dated 97-08-11 22:00:24 EDT, you write:
<<
Here's another forward from Gerald Houghton.
Seems to be an intelligent
man with lots in the know department. Anybody know about the U2 video and
Burroughs?? >>
Yes..U2
in Kansas City with B pushing a
shopping cart in a traffic jam. He
was on
his way there last I saw him. THE FOUR OFF RAMPS OF THE APOCALYPSE
He
signed a copy of WL for my son who had been in Missuola, Montana. B.
recalled
his fishing there with his father.
Like a
true Johnson, he shared his last stuff with me. "It will kick in about
the
time you get to Kansas City" and vaya con dios to me and billy as we
drove
off.
That
was early this spring.
And yes
of course, His midwestern dry wit and humour. Really! if you haven't
had a
helluva laugh with B you and readin him.That's what he was all about.
Actually,I
heard a lots of things again in his rcorded voice. The old
rounder, con man, etc.; took 'em into reality and
space and then some. He
was
part of them,too. As we were looking at one of his mobils, it was
hallucenitory
magic of the carny. I felt my experiences upon seeing the great
masters.
C.
Plymell
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 12 Aug 1997 00:52:24 -0400
Reply-To: Antoine Maloney
<stratis@ODYSSEE.NET>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: Antoine Maloney
<stratis@ODYSSEE.NET>
Subject: Billie, Ruth and Ruth...for Diane
Mime-Version:
1.0
Content-Type:
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Diane,
Just got my box of goodies (books, CD
and Expos's hat!) from Howard
Park
and included was the "Jack's Book: An Oral Biography of Jack Kerouac"
with a
very complete map of who's who at the back and a geneology of his
texts. ...City Lights bookmark too!
Ruth Heaper was Helen Weaver, a
girlfriend of Jack's in NYC; Ruth
Erickson
was Helen Elliot, a roommate of Helen Weaver's. Billie is Jackie
Gibson
Mercier, a mistress on Neal's from San FRancisco and lover of Jack's
during
Big Sur. She had a son and wanted Jack to marry her, thus the passage
you
quoted.
Couldn't find any reference to Julien,
although he used Julien to
refer
to Lucien Carr on several in two other books...anyone else know the
answer?
Antoine
Voice contact at (514) 933-4956 in Montreal
"An anarchist is someone who doesn't
need a cop to tell him what to do!"
-- Norman Navrotsky and Utah Phillips
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 12 Aug 1997 00:52:25 -0400
Reply-To: Antoine Maloney
<stratis@ODYSSEE.NET>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: Antoine Maloney
<stratis@ODYSSEE.NET>
Subject: Re: Wall Street Journal 'n Fruity
Pebbles
Mime-Version:
1.0
Content-Type:
text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Who the
hell is Roger Kimball and what is The New Criterion???
Antoine
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 11 Aug 1997 21:53:33 -0700
Reply-To: "Michael R. Brown"
<foosi@GLOBAL.CALIFORNIA.COM>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation List"
<BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: "Michael R. Brown"
<foosi@GLOBAL.CALIFORNIA.COM>
Subject: Re: (FWD) q: ranaldo & a: burroughs,
9 april 97
In-Reply-To:
<3.0.1.32.19970812060057.00688d50@pop.gpnet.it>
MIME-Version:
1.0
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Thank
you, Rinaldo Rasa, for posting your telephone chat with Burroughs -
I had
always imagined calling him. WSB sounds a mite tired, but there's
a
moment where the old spirit can be heard:
On Tue,
12 Aug 1997, Rinaldo Rasa wrote:
<snip>
>
WSB: Well, you'll notice more
subdivisions now as it's modernized
>
and is no longer cheap
Sharp
as a razor.
+ -- +
-- + -- + -- + -- + -- + -- + -- + -- + -- + -- + -- + -- + -- +
Michael R. Brown foosi@global.california.com
+ -- +
-- + -- + -- + -- + -- + -- + -- + -- + -- + -- + -- + -- + -- +
"Wittgenstein said that if the universe
is pre-recorded, the only thing
not pre-recorded is those recordings
themselves. In my work,
the cut-ups and all, I attempt to get at
the substance of the
recordings."
- William S.
Burroughs
(quoted from
memory)
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 12 Aug 1997 01:00:19 -0400
Reply-To: CVEditions@AOL.COM
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: Pamela Beach Plymell
<CVEditions@AOL.COM>
Subject: Re: Interstate Hell.
Comments:
To: babu@electriciti.com
Well
hell, haven't you noticed the NYT Newmorality speak? Except for science
and
research, the language is virtually being replace. Most people in this
country
are illiterate anyway (as in reading between the lines). No
inferences
'ferinstance are needed in the Bible, only emotive symbolism of
magical
notions, such as the Holy Trinity, etc. So my point is: Who the hell
they think they're controlling information
for...Anyhow? Well, their bodies
are
what they still need. Someone's gotta clean the shithouse as it's
exploding.
Part of it might be just putting a face on it, y'know 'cause know
one
wants to see it. It's pyschotic now, anyhow, out there, I'll tell you. I
just
got off an Interstate through hell How
could one live in Scranton, for
example.
Toxic behaviorism burning?
C.
plymell
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 12 Aug 1997 01:08:44 -0400
Reply-To: Antoine Maloney
<stratis@ODYSSEE.NET>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: Antoine Maloney
<stratis@ODYSSEE.NET>
Subject: Re: (FWD) q: ranaldo & a: burroughs,
9 april 97
Mime-Version:
1.0
Content-Type:
text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Rinaldo,
Where did you get that terrific
intervew between Lee Ranaldo and
Burroughs?
Ranaldo has done some music by himself away from Sonic Youth that
I
really like. The interview was terrific with all the references to Bowles
and the
others.
Thanks
Antoine
Voice contact at (514) 933-4956 in Montreal
"An anarchist is someone who doesn't
need a cop to tell him what to do!"
-- Norman Navrotsky
and Utah Phillips
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 12 Aug 1997 01:10:29 -0400
Reply-To: CVEditions@AOL.COM
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: Pamela Beach Plymell
<CVEditions@AOL.COM>
Subject: Re: Harry Anslinger Rides Again
Comments:
To: stauffer@pacbell.net
In a
message dated 97-08-11 22:28:45 EDT, you write:
<<
For more info those interested might check this site from the Cognitive
Enhancement Research Institute.
J. Stauffer
>>
What
the hell, they took over my research area for a lousy cover. Bastards!
Some
day I would like to testify in one of those drug hearings. After letting
them
speak the dead language with their wooden puppet mouths, I would lite
up a
big reefer and say, "Gentlemen, Watch me get high. Let me know if or
when
you see something wrong with me. And when you leave this room, look in
the
mirror"
Charles
Plymell
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 12 Aug 1997 01:18:02 -0400
Reply-To: Neil Hennessy
<nhenness@undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: Neil Hennessy
<nhenness@UNDERGRAD.MATH.UWATERLOO.CA>
Subject: Re: Wall Street Journal 'n Fruity
Pebbles
In-Reply-To: <33EFFFC8.5258@buchenroth.com>
MIME-Version:
1.0
Content-Type:
TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
>
The Death of Decency
>
> By
ROGER KIMBALL
>
There are few poems by Ginsberg that could be quoted whole in this
>
newspaper; I doubt whether any page of "Naked Lunch," Burroughs's
>
celebrated 1959 fantasy about a violent, drugridden sexual underworld,
>
could be.
As if I
needed another reason not to read it.
> A
generous person might be tempted to describe the accumulated literary
>
value of both writers as null. But that would be grossly unfair to
>
nullity. The poet Edith Sitwell came closer to the truth when she
>
described "Naked Lunch" as "psychopathological filth."
>From
"A Review of the Reviewers":
"This
reviewer is very tired of so-called critics who would substitute for
criticism
invective and insults strung together like so many gibbering
maniacs
in an asylum."
(Burroughs
does fall into the same name-calling here, but in the context
of the
essay it comes across as ironic: using their word weapons against
them.
In the essay it appears after a similar comment made in a review of
Eterminator!)
> I agree that Ginsberg and Burroughs
were "transgressive." But
> is
that a good thing? After all, Saddam Hussein is "transgressire" too.
See
Burroughs via Korzybski on semantics and the all around
meaninglessness
of calling someone a "fascist", for instance. This is the
silliest
syllogism I've seen in all my life.
>
Although predominantly homosexual, he had married and fathered a
>
son.
He
married and fathered a son? Wow, I'm my own grandma.
> But McCarthy was wrong.
Now
which McCarthy is he referring to here? I better check my John Birch
manual.
>
Burroughs was not a reformer. Unlike Swift, he
>
had no ideal to oppose to the degradation his books depicted.
Where
was the ideal Swift proposed? Must be an apocryphal text that our
esteemed
Mr. Kimball is in possession of, unless he figures those wacky
Hhouhynyms
(egregiously misspelt) were the ideal.
Hmm, he
also obviously hasn't read Burroughs' trilogy beginning with
"Cities":
Burroughs' exploration of utopian possibities. Burroughs
eventually
gives up, but he has a go at it. I guess he failed to notice
the
passage in Naked Lunch (I may be making an erroneous assumption here
that
Mr. Kimball has read past the atrophied preface he quotes from) which
details
the first germination of a possible utopia amongst the carny world
of
dystopias:
"A
cooperative... can live without the state. That is the road to follow.
The
building up of independent units to meet the needs of the people who
participate
in the functioning of the unit." Naked Lunch pg 154.
Sounds
rather ideal to me. Of course Burroughs does not develop this idea
at all
until we see a glimmer of it in The Wild Boys, and its ultimate
manifestation
in Port Roger from Cities. But alas, the Articulated were
doomed
because there were just too many shits.
> On
William
>
Burroughs the contrary, he was a cynical opportunist who realized that
>
calling his work "satire" could help exempt it from legal action.
I seem
to recall that Burroughs refused to testify or participate in the
trial
on principle, but apparently Mr. Kimball is better acquainted with
Burroughs'
defense. I can't remember him calling his own work satire
either.
"Picaresque" he has used, in The Adding Machine, and elsewhere,
but
that's the closest you'll find to Burroughs' personal genre
classification
(unless one counts the "A Fiction in the Form of a Film
Script"
appended to the 2nd edition of Dutch Schultz, or "A Novel", the
subtitle
of Exterminator!).
>
Ira Silverberg, a publicist for Burroughs, is
>
quoted as saying that "William Burroughs opened the door for supporters
> of
freedom of expression." In fact, Burroughs helped open the door on
>
the public acceptance and academic adulation of violent, dehumanizing
>
pornography as a protected form of free speech.
So are
we to believe that the people who call Burroughs' writing
"literature"
merely read it, but the people like our Mr. Kimball
who
call it "pornography" masturbate to it?
>
"Obscenity was successfully regulated," she notes, "because
there was
>
broad consensus about indecency, rooted in the old standards of the
>
reticent sensibility."
Ah, why
can't we return to good ole Queen Victoria, so that all the incest
and
sado-masochism goes back behind closed doors where it can be ignored.
Anyone
here read The Pearl: The Underground Magazine of Victorian
England?
Grove published all of them together in one volume; great
look at
what went on behind closed doors at Thornfield Hall:
Jane:
No! No! Rochester sir, I'm the governess, it's a shame to punish me
so, Oh! Oh! Oh! My God sir, have mercy I beg you!
Rochester:
You'll learn the mercy of the rod and the birch before I'm
finished with you, Ms. Eyre, now be
silent you impudent hussey.
I
imagine Mr. Kimball will take on the Oxford English Dictionary next for
including
this pornographic entry:
gamahuche ('gaem&schwa.hu:S), v. slang.
Also gamaruche. [ad. Fr.
gamahucher.] trans. To practise fellatio or
cunnilingus (with);
also intr. Also as sb. Hence gamahucher.
1879-80 Pearl 271 "You may frig and
gamahuche and try every plan,
But fair fucking's the pride of an
Englishman."
All
those pornographers at Oxford and their vulgar pornography... I can
see
them now, in their academic robes with the ole John Thomas standing at
attention
for all the schoolboys to admire...
>
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
>
SUBSCRIPTION SERVICES: Call 1-800-JOURNAL, or see
Somebody
remind me to renew my subscription.
Although
this particular obituary writer may come off as possessing a tad
more
knowledge than the sum of nil of which the others are in possession,
he is
far from accurate in many places, Timothy.
In any
case, when those of you who are reading The Western Lands get to
the
part about the reviewer, you can join me in wishing a door dog on
Roger
Kimball.
Cheers,
Neil
PS I
haven't read any newspapers, and have shied away from the slanderous,
misinformed
posts on r.m.d. because I just can't help responding,
but
defending him against shits really is no way to honour Burroughs'
memory.
With that, I end any responses to inaccurate invective.
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 12 Aug 1997 01:36:25 -0400
Reply-To: CVEditions@AOL.COM
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: Pamela Beach Plymell
<CVEditions@AOL.COM>
Subject: Re: (FWD) q: ranaldo & a: burroughs,
9 april 97
Comments:
To: foosi@global.california.com
In a
message dated 97-08-12 01:01:05 EDT, you write:
<< WSB:
Well, you'll notice more subdivisions now as it's modernized
> and is no longer cheap
Sharp as a razor. >>
In
every direction we look....
C.Plymell
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 11 Aug 1997 23:09:01 -0700
Reply-To: "Michael R. Brown"
<foosi@GLOBAL.CALIFORNIA.COM>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: "Michael R. Brown"
<foosi@GLOBAL.CALIFORNIA.COM>
Subject: Re: (FWD) q: ranaldo & a: burroughs,
9 april 97
Comments:
To: CVEditions@aol.com
In-Reply-To:
<970812013625_1848781656@emout01.mail.aol.com>
MIME-Version:
1.0
Content-Type:
TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
On Tue,
12 Aug 1997 CVEditions@aol.com wrote:
> In
a message dated 97-08-12 01:01:05 EDT, you write:
>
> > WSB: Well, you'll notice more
subdivisions now as it's
>
> > modernized and is no longer cheap
>
> Sharp as a razor.
> In
every direction we look....
And in
vain. "He was a man. Take him all in all, and all for all, we shall
not see
his like again."
+ -- +
-- + -- + -- + -- + -- + -- + -- + -- + -- + -- + -- + -- + -- +
Michael R. Brown foosi@global.california.com
+ -- +
-- + -- + -- + -- + -- + -- + -- + -- + -- + -- + -- + -- + -- +
"Wittgenstein said that if the universe
is pre-recorded, the only thing
not pre-recorded is those recordings
themselves. In my work,
the cut-ups and all, I attempt to get at
the substance of the
recordings."
- William S.
Burroughs
(quoted from
memory)
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 11 Aug 1997 23:33:59 -0700
Reply-To: runner <babu@ELECTRICITI.COM>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: runner <babu@ELECTRICITI.COM>
Subject: Re: Wall Street Journal 'n Fruity
Pebbles
In-Reply-To: <33EFFFC8.5258@buchenroth.com>
Mime-Version:
1.0
Content-Type:
text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
At
11:16 PM -0700 8/11/97, Michael L. Buchenroth wrote:
> How, then, can we explain the extent
to which Ginsberg and Burroughs
>
have been lionized by the media and the academic literary establishment?
what to do with a drunken
sailor
a drunken sailor
a drunken sailor
early in the morning
???
Douglas
http://www.electriciti.com/babu/ |
0 |
step
aside, and let the man go thru
| { - |
----> let the man go thru
| /\ |
super
bon-bon (soul coughing)
=========
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 11 Aug 1997 23:47:24 -0700
Reply-To: runner <babu@ELECTRICITI.COM>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: runner <babu@ELECTRICITI.COM>
Subject: Re: Interstate Hell.
Comments:
To: CVEditions@aol.com
In-Reply-To:
<970812010017_806067399@emout04.mail.aol.com>
Mime-Version:
1.0
Content-Type:
text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
At
10:00 PM -0700 8/11/97, CVEditions@aol.com wrote:
>
example. Toxic behaviorism burning?
am
gonna have to think about that one cp
toxic
behaviorism burning....
watching
this television show tonight
hell,
everynight
the
charles grodin show, but hosted by E. Jean Carrol
discussion
on sex and gender; da ladies da men
very
funny overall, enlightening in parts
realizing
that all the action is in connections
yes,
who are they saving information for?
well
themselves, of course
information
wants to be free
men
wanna humpback the world
ladies
wanna nice dinna
who
knows? yeah, I know
> C.
plymell
Douglas
http://www.electriciti.com/babu/ |
0 |
step
aside, and let the man go thru
| { - |
----> let the man go thru
| /\ |
super
bon-bon (soul coughing)
=========
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 12 Aug 1997 03:20:42 -0400
Reply-To: CVEditions@AOL.COM
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: Pamela Beach Plymell
<CVEditions@AOL.COM>
Subject: Re: afterlife press conference
Comments:
To: babu@electriciti.com, jwhite333@sprintmail.com
Could
we have an afterlife press conference? (well, wouldn't you?) I've been
up half
the night with candle burning, insense too. B's farewell card over my
shoulder...
I'd
like to ask Mr. Burroughs: How universal is pain?
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 12 Aug 1997 11:20:56 +0200
Reply-To: Rinaldo Rasa <rinaldo@GPNET.IT>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: Rinaldo Rasa <rinaldo@GPNET.IT>
Subject: (FWD) How the beats beat the First
Amendment
Mime-Version:
1.0
Content-Type:
text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>Return-Path:
<bofus@fcom.com>
>Date:
Mon, 11 Aug 1997 11:27:32 -0800
>From:
bofus? <bofus@fcom.com>
>To:
bofus@fcom.com
>Subject:
How the beats beat the First Amendment
>
>How
the beats beat the First Amendment
>
>
>N.Y.
Times News Service
>
>(August
11, 1997 11:58 a.m. EDT) - The last year has been pretty much
>the
end of the road for the Beat Generation, with the deaths of Herbert
>Huncke,
the hustler who gave Jack Kerouac the word "beat," Allen
>Ginsberg,
who gave poetry "Howl," and, on Aug. 2, William S. Burroughs,
>who
gave the world, ready or not, "Naked Lunch."
>
>The
beats' defiance of authority and their experimentation with drugs
>and
sex helped set a generation on course for the counterculture of the
>1960s.
Not that censors didn't see what was coming. In 1957 Ginsberg
>overcame
an obscenity prosecution for "Howl," which celebrated
>homosexuality
and eroticism. In 1965 "Naked Lunch," in which Burroughs
>opened
the doors to hallucinatory visions of American society, was ruled
>obscene
in Massachusetts.
>
>For
Burroughs' American publisher, Grove Press, this was good news. When
>it
first came out in France in 1959, "Naked Lunch" wasn't even reviewed.
>After
1965, it was a cause celebre.
>
>Better
yet, before the Massachusetts Supreme Court heard Grove's appeal
>in
1966, the U.S. Supreme Court set a new precedent in a case involving
>"John
Cleland's Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure" -- Fanny Hill. Its
>ruling
meant that to be found pornographic, "Naked Lunch" would have to
>be
"utterly without redeeming social value."
>
>The
result was a literary trial that elevated the least upbeat of the
>beats
(Burroughs had a dim view of humanity) to cult status. Grove
>rushed
out a new edition that included testimony. In it, the
>uncertainties
on both sides of the wavering cultural divide showed. To
>get
along, even the beats had to play along. Excerpts from that edition
>follow.
-- GEORGE JUDSON
>
>Burroughs,
a former drug addict with a pharmacologist's knowledge of
>narcotics,
had tried to inoculate "Naked Lunch" against challenges with
>an
introduction describing a high purpose:
>
>I
awoke from The Sickness at the age of forty-five, calm and sane, and
>in
reasonably good health except for a weakened liver and the look of
>borrowed
flesh common to all who survive The Sickness. . . . I have no
>precise
memory of writing the notes which have now been published under
>the
title "Naked Lunch." The title was suggested by Jack Kerouac. I did
>not
understand what the title meant until my recent recovery. The title
>means
exactly what the words say: NAKED Lunch -- a frozen moment when
>everyone
sees what is on the end of every fork.
>
>The
Sickness is drug addiction and I was an addict for fifteen years. .
>. .
>
>So
"Naked Lunch" was a brief for eliminating heroin use by treating
>junkies
rather than punishing them. Burroughs made his case:
>
>Dope
fiends are sick people who cannot act other than they do. . . .
>Assuming
a self-righteous position is nothing to the purpose unless your
>purpose
is to keep the junk virus in operation. And junk is a big
>industry."
. . .
>
>The
junk virus is public health problem number one of the world today
>(emphasis
his). Since "Naked Lunch" treats this health problem, it is
>necessarily
brutal, obscene and disgusting.
>
>What
about the lurid sex scenes that include, among many activities,
>hangings?
He explained:
>
>Certain
passages in the book that have been called pornographic were
>written
as a tract against Capital Punishment in the manner of Jonathan
>Swift's
"Modest Proposal." These sections are intended to reveal capital
>punishment
as the obscene, barbaric and disgusting anachronism it is.
>
>The
dodge didn't work; a judge ruled "Naked Lunch" was hard-core
>pornography.
As the appeal moved along, other novels with legal troubles
>included
"Candy" by Terry Southern and "Last Exit to Brooklyn" by
Hubert
>Selby
Jr. Norman Mailer testified for Burroughs:
>
>There
is a kind of speech that is referred to as gutter talk that often
>has
a very fine, incisive, dramatic line to it; and Burroughs captures
>that
speech like no American writer I know. He also . . . has an
>exquisite
poetic sense. His poetic images are intense. They are often
>disgusting;
but at the same time there is a sense of collision in them,
>of
montage that is quite unusual.
>
>Mailer
also found deep meaning:
>
>William
Burroughs is in my opinion -- whatever his conscious intention
>may
be -- a religious writer. There is a sense in "Naked Lunch" of the
>destruction
of soul, which is more intense than any I have encountered
>in
any other modern novel. It is a vision of how mankind would act if
>man
was totally divorced from eternity. . . .
>
>Just
as Hieronymus Bosch set down the most diabolical and blood-curdling
>details
. . . so, too, does Burroughs leave you with an intimate,
>detailed
vision of what Hell might be like, a Hell which may be waiting
>as
the culmination, the final product, of the scientific revolution.
>
>Allen
Ginsberg testified, too:
>
>The
concept of addiction is carried out to include, in Burroughs'
>phrase,
"control addicts," or people who are habituated or pushing other
>people
around. What it boils down to: controlling them sexually,
>politically,
socially. . . . there are almost scientific expositions
>given
by the author of techniques of mass brainwash and mass control,
>and
theories of modern dictatorships, theories of modern police states.
>. .
.
>
>I
think he is laconically, satirically analyzing them and presenting
>evidences
of these activities in our modern culture, now and then in a
>science-fiction
style, projecting them into the future, nightmare
>situations
if control addicts took over.
>
>Ginsberg,
a homosexual and former lover of Burroughs, was asked to sort
>out
the political parties portrayed in "Naked Lunch." Who, satirically,
>was
whom? "The Divisionists (one party in the book) are the
>homosexuals?"
the court asked. There seemed likely to be a correct
>answer:
>
>Yes.
The Divisionist is a parody of a homosexual situation also; but
>Burroughs
is (Ginsberg's emphasis) attacking the homosexuals in this
>book
also.
>
>The
court then asked, "Do the conservatives fall into any particular sex
>class
in this book?" Ginsberg replied:
>
>Well,
I think the conservatives, if we consider the Factualist (another
>party)
to be conservative, I think they have a feeling of laissez-faire,
>whatever
is natural, whatever does no harm will be acceptable. . . .
>
>A
justice put in:
>
>"Lest
anyone take this seriously, of course, obviously it is a fantasy."
>
>But
the justice soon returned to homosexuality:
>
>"Let
me ask again. Do you think he is seriously suggesting that some
>time
in the future that a political party will be in some way concerned
>with
sex? (Grove's lawyer tried to speak.) Excuse me. When I say,
>"Concerned
with sex," I don't mean in an attempt to reform perversion. .
>. .
what he is trying to portray here, is that some time in the future
>there
will be a political party, for instance, made up of homosexuals?
>
>Ginsberg
replied:
>
>Well,
I think, saying that, this has already happened in a sense, -- or
>of
sex perverts -- and we can point to Hitler, Germany under Hitler.
>
>In
a 4-2 decision, the court found that "Naked Lunch" "may appeal
to the
>prurient
interest of deviants and those curious about deviants. To us,
>it
is grossly offensive and is what the author himself says, 'brutal,
>obscene
and disgusting.' "
>
>But
applying the new federal test, the court stated, "we cannot ignore
>the
serious acceptance of it by so many persons in the literary
>community.
Hence, we cannot say that 'Naked Lunch' has no 'redeeming
>social
importance.' "
>
>"Naked
Lunch" passed. And the obscenity test has since been revised; it
>now
requires a "reasonable person" to find that a work is prurient,
>violates
contemporary community standards and, taken as a whole, "lacks
>serious
literary, artistic, political or scientific value."
>
>Ginsberg
concluded his testimony with a poem, "On Burroughs' Work." It
>ends:
>
>A
naked lunch is natural to us, we eat reality sandwiches. But
>allegories
are so much lettuce. Don't hide the madness.
>
>
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 12 Aug 1997 11:19:11 +0200
Reply-To: Rinaldo Rasa <rinaldo@GPNET.IT>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: Rinaldo Rasa <rinaldo@GPNET.IT>
Subject: (FWD) Burroughs' last thoughts on death,
drugs, Gingrich
Mime-Version:
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>Return-Path:
<bofus@fcom.com>
>Date:
Mon, 11 Aug 1997 11:25:45 -0800
>From:
bofus? <bofus@fcom.com>
>To:
bofus@fcom.com
>Subject:
Burroughs' last thoughts on death, drugs, Gingrich
>
>William
Burroughs' journals reveal last thoughts on death, drugs,
>Gingrich
>
>
>The
Associated Press
>
>NEW
YORK (August 11, 1997 11:58 a.m. EDT) -- Until the end, William S.
>Burroughs
shuddered at the thought of a world without drugs and railed
>against
the politicians trying to ban them.
>
>The
latest issue of "The New Yorker," which hits newsstands Monday,
>contains
excerpts from journals kept by the Beat Generation author and
>former
heroin addict in which he criticizes Newt Gingrich and other
>politicians
he blamed for trying to make American life "banal."
>
>"That
vile salamander Gingrich, squeaker of the House, is slobbering
>about
a drug-free America by the year 2001," Burroughs wrote about two
>months
before his Aug. 2 death at age 83.
>
>"What
a dreary prospect! ... No dope fiends, just good, clean-living
>decent
Americans from sea to shining sea," he wrote on May 31. "How I
>hate
those who are dedicated to producing conformity."
>
>The
author of "Naked Lunch" also praised Beat poet Allen Ginsberg for
>struggling
against censorship to challenge the mores of American
>society.
>
>"Allen
made holes in the Big Lie not only with his poetry but with his
>presence,
his self-evident spiritual truth," he wrote on May 25.
>
>Ginsberg's
death April 5 caused him to think about the end of his own
>life.
>
>"I
thought I would be terrified, but I am exhilarated," Burroughs
>recalled
his friend saying.
>
>The
day before Burroughs died, he wrote his last entry, which was
>printed
on cards and distributed among the 250 mourners at his funeral
>in
Lawrence, Kan.
>
>"Love?
What is it? Most natural painkiller. What there is. LOVE."
>
>
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 11 Aug 1997 22:19:18 -0700
Reply-To: Diane Carter <dcarter@TOGETHER.NET>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: Diane Carter
<dcarter@TOGETHER.NET>
Subject: Re: Wall Street Journal 'n Fruity
Pebbles
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>
Antoine Maloney wrote:
>
>
Who the hell is Roger Kimball and what is The New Criterion???
>
>
Antoine
It
seems to be a literary journal for people who have extremely bad
taste. They seem to be a literary version of Jessie
Helms. My question
is: How
wide a distribution do they have? Are they in every university
library
across the country? And does anyone
take them seriously? If so,
I think
we should start writing letters to the editor to the media that
are
publishing their crap.
DC
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 11 Aug 1997 22:25:13 -0700
Reply-To: Diane Carter <dcarter@TOGETHER.NET>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: Diane Carter
<dcarter@TOGETHER.NET>
Subject: Naked Lunch
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The
first paragraph of the introduction to Naked Lunch begins, "I awoke
from
The Sickness at the age of forty-five, calm and sane, and in
reasonably
good health except for a weakened liver and the look of
borrowed
flesh common to all who survive The Sickness."
Does
Burroughs ever articulate what caused him, after 15 years of drug
use, to
suddenly wake up one morning and think, I'm not going to do this
anymore?
DC
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 12 Aug 1997 10:37:38 -0400
Reply-To: Tony Trigilio
<atrigili@LYNX.DAC.NEU.EDU>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: Tony Trigilio
<atrigili@LYNX.DAC.NEU.EDU>
Subject: Wall Street Journal 'n Fruity Pebbles
Mime-Version:
1.0
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BEAT-Lers: sorry if I'm posting this twice. I'm trying a new email
reader/sender. I'm making every possible email-mistake this
morning.
Tony
***********************************************
Diane
Carter wrote:
>>
Antoine Maloney wrote:
>>
>>
Who the hell is Roger Kimball and what is The New Criterion???
>>
>>
Antoine
>
>It
seems to be a literary journal for people who have extremely bad
>taste. They seem to be a literary version of Jessie
Helms. My question
>is:
How wide a distribution do they have? Are they in every university
>library
across the country? And does anyone
take them seriously? If so,
>I
think we should start writing letters to the editor to the media that
>are
publishing their crap.
>DC
*The
New Criterion* is an ugly old standard of the right wing, and is
distributed
widely in universities, bookstores, and, here in Boston, even in
Tower
Records. The tone of the journal can be
so smarmy that the editors
might
actually welcome response letters from BEAT-L:
such letters might be
seen
perversely as a sign that the journal rattled Beat readers (a sort of
"Nyaah,
nyaah, we took your lunch money at recess!" that is so popular among
the
right wing at the moment).
Yours,
so pained by an infected cat scratch on my thumb that I barely can
tap the
space bar,
Tony
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 12 Aug 1997 07:43:21 -0700
Reply-To: runner <babu@ELECTRICITI.COM>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: runner <babu@ELECTRICITI.COM>
Subject: WSB, so long!
Mime-Version:
1.0
Content-Type:
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again,
cribbed from the patti smith list
props
to Dan for doing all he did below
wish I
coulda been there - Douglas
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
From:
Dan Whitworth <dan@pint.com>
Date:
Mon, 11 Aug 1997 12:04:36 -0700 (PDT)
Subject:
WSB, so long!
A free
concert in San Diego's Balboa Park on Saturday, August 9 included a
tribute
to William S. Burroughs. A friend of mine was DJ'ing between bands
so we
put something together. We kicked it off with Burroughs reading
'Uranian
Willy' (aka 'Towers Open Fire') from "Call Me Burroughs." Then I
said a
few words about WSB, quoted from JG Ballard's Burroughs obituary, and
introduced
local poet Marc Kockinos. After Marc read some of his own
material,
not WSB-specific but very appropriate, I read portions of "The
Western
Lands." This started with the book's opening paragraphs about The
Old
Writer, segued into the last chapter's section about the cat Smoker
whose
return coincided with The Old Writer's death by coronary, and ended
with
the book's final paragraph: "Hurry up, please. It's time."
At the
time, I had no idea that WSB's cat Fletch had died two weeks before
WSB
himself. I chose this text because the image of the mysterious black cat
as an
emissary or embodiment of loving death seemed appropriate. (My own cat
Gandy
had died the night before, just a few months short of 15 years, but I
had
already chosen the text before that.) To top it all off, a beloved aunt
of mine
had died a few weeks earlier, so I felt as if I was reading not just
for
Burroughs but for all who have gone, all who are mourning. Through some
oversight,
I was never introduced to the audience, but that was fine by me:
I felt
more comfortable just being some anonymous guy, reading for the dead.
After I
read, we played 'The Western Lands (a dangerous road mix)' from
Material's
recently reissued "Seven Souls" and other Burroughs recordings,
some
with music, some without. Some people in the sparse (and somewhat
random)
crowd obviously didn't know who WSB was, but quite a few of them
really
enjoyed hearing him read. 'The Lexington Narcotic Hospital' got quite
a few
laughs ("Doctor, when you die I wanna be buried in the same coffin
with
you!" --- "Ask me what the
American flag means to me, doc, and I'll
tell
ya-- soak it in heroin and I'll suck it!"). A watched some women in the
front
row at the Organ Pavilion who kept asking each other 'What is this?'
but
they were obviously getting into it, particularly Dr. Benway's attempted
apendectomy
in "Twilight's Last Gleaming."
When
the next band, Wormhole Effect, came on, my friend continued to DJ,
having
become their official provider of additional sound textures some time
back;
he included some more Burroughs reading throughout their set.
As this
was going on, a teenager approached me and asked "Where did you get
the
phonographs of the great poet?" I wrote down the titles of some
Burroughs
recordings that are still in print and he walked away happy.
Another
fellow, closer to my age (but probably on the farther side of forty)
spotted
my t-shirt, which features a repeating pattern of Burroughs' face
and a
foreground image of a smiling WSB with pistol and fedora. "Great
shirt,"
he said, in almost awe-struck tones. Then he surprised me by putting
his
hands on my shoulders and sadly contemplating Burroughs' face! "I used
to live
in St. Louis," he told me ruefully as he raised his face to mine. "I
know
his house." As he walked away, he murmeured, "I can't believe he's
gone."
Well,
who can?
- --Dan
Whitworth
http://www.electriciti.com/babu/ |
0 |
step
aside, and let the man go thru
| { - |
----> let the man go thru
| /\ |
super
bon-bon (soul coughing)
=========
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 12 Aug 1997 07:58:03 -0700
Reply-To: runner <babu@ELECTRICITI.COM>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: runner <babu@ELECTRICITI.COM>
Subject: Re: afterlife press conference
In-Reply-To:
<970812032041_-1706655616@emout01.mail.aol.com>
Mime-Version:
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At
12:20 AM -0700 8/12/97, CVEditions@aol.com wrote:
> Could
we have an afterlife press conference? (well, wouldn't you?) I've been
> up
half the night with candle burning, insense too. B's farewell card over my
>
shoulder...
>
>
I'd like to ask Mr. Burroughs: How universal is pain?
Well,
the man told me
that
all life is pain and suffering
that
we'll be lucky to get off this wheel
and
that people only learn thru pain
I
argued of course
in a
high whisper
"no,
daddy, people are good"
but he
was right
dreamt
last night I was with friends
new found
friends, friends I didn't know
we were
at this mall, flying around
went to
watch a movie, with our backpacks
et al.
it turned out to be an indoor/outdoor
amplitheatre
[toothpaste dripping out my mouth now
of
course I felt alone
alone
in the seats with my family
alone
up there on stage
alone
with my friends
so
pain? how universal?
I can't
speak for Burroughs
though
I'ld like to hear someone try
but my
answer would be:
as
universal as cotton candy
douglas [[hell, I don't know :: you ok CP?
http://www.electriciti.com/babu/ |
0 |
step
aside, and let the man go thru
| { - |
----> let the man go thru
| /\ |
super
bon-bon (soul coughing)
=========
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 12 Aug 1997 10:30:27 -0500
Reply-To: RACE --- <race@MIDUSA.NET>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: RACE --- <race@MIDUSA.NET>
Subject: Re: WSB, so long!
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runner
wrote:
>
>
again, cribbed from the patti smith list
>
props to Dan for doing all he did below
>
wish I coulda been there - Douglas
>
>
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
>
From: Dan Whitworth <dan@pint.com>
>
Date: Mon, 11 Aug 1997 12:04:36 -0700 (PDT)
>
Subject: WSB, so long!
>
>
> At
the time, I had no idea that WSB's cat Fletch had died two weeks before
>
WSB himself. I chose this text because the image of the mysterious black cat
> as
an emissary or embodiment of loving death seemed appropriate.
on the
way back from the Re-Play celebration after the memorial service
on
Vermont Street somewhere between where Bogart's used to be some years
ago and
where the post office is still on the East side of the road
walking
down the sidewalk i met this mysterious black cat. i paused.
it
paused. i looked into its eyes. It looked into my eyes. We
acknowledge-communicated-whatever
you wish to call such connections and
then
the cat turned and walked in the direction of the Celebration and i
continued
towards the post office and my car.
david
rhaesa
salina,
Kansas
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 12 Aug 1997 08:55:15 -0700
Reply-To: "Shannon L. Stephens"
<shanstep@CS.ARIZONA.EDU>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: "Shannon L. Stephens"
<shanstep@CS.ARIZONA.EDU>
Subject: who's who?
Mime-Version:
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I'm
still working on "On the Road," and have a character question.
Don't
jump all over me for this...if it screams ignorance...chalk it up
to
unfamiliarity. Who is Remi...and subsequently Lee Ann?
-shannon
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 12 Aug 1997 09:29:45 -0700
Reply-To: "Penn, Douglas, K"
<dkpenn@OEES.COM>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: "Penn, Douglas, K"
<dkpenn@OEES.COM>
Subject: Re: Wall Street Journal 'n Fruity
Pebbles
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Tim
wrote:
><<I
saw this obit posted to the alt.books.beat-generation newsgroup so had
read
it. But thanks to you for posting it
here for everyone to read.>>
>yes,
thanx for sending.
>
><<Believe
it or not I think this writer was more familiar and understood
>Burroughs
work much better than the other obit writers (with exceptions I am
>sure)
who seemed to have some details and know he was supposed to be
important. This guy knew who Burroughs was and knew why
he was
>significant.
It's a free country and no one has to like the writings of
someone
else.>>
Yes,
and we should all have critics like this one.
<<really>> Not
quite
in the same vein as Larry Flynt and whatshisface Farrel, but an
opposition
that gives good definition. Such critiques
provide fuel and
inspiration. Kinda like how Burroughs wrote through it,
his pain, I
suppose. Kinda like all the obsenity trials and
public outrage that
surrounds
certain books/authors. just more fuel
to the fire. <<a
>defining
purpose results>>
>
and it
goes to show that if you can't keep a good dog down in life, you
sure
can kick em a few times in death. fuck
the new york times.
>
>Douglas
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 12 Aug 1997 09:42:39 -0700
Reply-To: "Penn, Douglas, K"
<dkpenn@OEES.COM>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: "Penn, Douglas, K"
<dkpenn@OEES.COM>
Subject: Re: (FWD) Burroughs' last thoughts on
death, drugs, Gingrich
MIME-Version:
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yep,
cottoncandy. most certainly.
>----------
>From: Rinaldo Rasa[SMTP:rinaldo@GPNET.IT]
>Sent: Tuesday, August 12, 1997 2:19 AM
>To: BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU
>Subject: (FWD) Burroughs' last thoughts on
death, drugs, Gingrich
>
>>The
day before Burroughs died, he wrote his last entry, which was
>>printed
on cards and distributed among the 250 mourners at his funeral
>>in
Lawrence, Kan.
>>
>>"Love?
What is it? Most natural painkiller. What there is. LOVE."
>>
>>
>
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 12 Aug 1997 12:45:40 -0400
Reply-To: Greg Elwell <elwellg@VOICENET.COM>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: Greg Elwell
<elwellg@VOICENET.COM>
Subject: Re: Wall Street Journal 'n Fruity
Pebbles
Comments:
To: mike@buchenroth.com
Mime-Version:
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To tell
the truth, I think that the author of this article is just jealous
because he isn't as good as Burroughs or
Ginsberg!
At
11:16 PM 8/11/97 -0700, Michael L. Buchenroth wrote:
>Last
Saturday morning (Friday night) I read an article / bio / slam /
>insulting
and frightening propaganda bullshit narrowly filtered opinion
>in
the "Wall Street Journal" about Burroughs and the Beats, etc.
>***
>This
Roger Kimball guy has eaten Fruity Pebbles everyday of his life
>since
his 4th birthday when his great grandmother, A. Puritan, gave him
>his
first box as a gift. He measures precisely 1/2 cup of 2% each day.
>And
all this time, he has used the same licked-worn spoon too. He likes
>to
lick the tarnish from that clad silver plated zink, lead, and steel
>alloy
spoon. Ole Roger seems just a few licks short of bacon and eggs.
>Roger
so loves his Fruity Pebbles...
>-Mike
>***
>This
piece appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Friday August 8, 1997 .
>. .
>Read
it and weep!
>The
Dark Ages Lurk, yet!
>
>The
Death of Decency
>
>By
ROGER KIMBALL
>It
has been a bad year for famous drugabusing literary charlatans. In
>April,
the Beat poet Allen Ginsberg-author of "Howl" (1956) and
>innumerable
other paeans to pharmacological and sexual excess-died of
>liver
cancer at the age of 70. On Aug. 2, the Beat novelist William S.
>Burroughs
succumbed to a heart attack at the age of 83. Considering the
>way
they abused themselves - especially Burroughs, who was addicted to
>heroin
for some 15 years-it is hard not to admire their robust
>constitutions.
> It is even harder, though, to admire
anything else about the life or
>work
of either. Both specialized in pretentious, proselytizing
>pornography:
Ginsberg of an incense-burning, pseudo-Whitmanesque sort,
>Burroughs
of a much grittier, sadomasochistic variety. There are few
>poems
by Ginsberg that could be quoted whole in this newspaper; I doubt
>whether
any page of "Naked Lunch," Burroughs's celebrated 1959 fantasy
>about
a violent, drugridden sexual underworld, could be. A generous
>person
might be tempted to describe the accumulated literary value of
>both
writers as null. But that would be grossly unfair to nullity. The
>poet
Edith Sitwell came closer to the truth when she described "Naked
>Lunch"
as "psychopathological filth."
> How, then, can we explain the extent
to which Ginsberg and Burroughs
>have
been lionized by the media and the academic literary establishment?
>Anyone
who read the obituaries these men received-especially Ginsberg,
>who
got lavish, front-page treatment almost everywhere-might be tricked
>into
thinking that they were important literary figures. In the early
>1990s,
Stanford University paid $1 million for Ginsberg's papers. His
>works
are published by prestigious houses and are studied in classrooms
>across
the country. Ditto for Burroughs. The word "genius" is routinely
>applied
to both. So is "transgressive"--a term that, tellingly, has
>emerged
as a favorite word of praise among addicts of the "cutting
>edge."
> I agree that Ginsberg and Burroughs
were "transgressive." But is that a
>good
thing? After all, Saddam Hussein is "transgressire" too. The
>obituary
of Burroroughs in The New York Times informed readers that "he
>spent
years experimenting with drugs as well as with sex, which he
>engaged
in with men, women, and children." Note the word
>"experimenting,"
as if Burroughs were engaged in some sort of of
>scientific
inquiry rather than straight-foraward abuse of hard drugs and
>sordid
sexual debauchery.
> Burroughs committed his most clearly
transgressive act in Mexico in
>1951.
Although predominantly homosexual, he had married and fathered a
>son.
Drunk at a party, he took out a handgun and announced to his wife
>that
it was time for their William Tell act. When he tried to shoot a
>glass
off her head, he missed and killed her. As one obituary put it,
>"the
circumstances of the killing were never fully investigated, and
>Burroughs
fled Mexico City for South America rather than stand trial."
> Burroughs is often praised for his
"humor." But as far as I can tell,
>there
is only one genuinely funny sentence in "Naked Lunch," and its
>humor
is inadvertent. "Certain passages in the book that have been
>called
pornographic," Burroughs wrote in a preface, "were written as a
>tract
against Capital Punishment in the manner of Jonathan Swift's
>'Modest
Proposal.'"
> Burroughs wasn't alone in invoking the
author of "Gulliver's Travels."
>Burroughs's
fellow Beat writer Jack Kerouac wrote that his friend was
>"the
greatest satirical writer since Jonathan Swift." In 1963, the
>critic
and novelist Mary McCarthy solemnly said there were "many points
>of
comparison" between the two, and concluded that, "like a classical
>satirist,
Burroughs is dead serious--a reformer."
> But McCarthy was wrong. Burroughs was
not a reformer. Unlike Swift, he
>had
no ideal to oppose to the degradation his books depicted. On William
>Burroughs
the contrary, he was a cynical opportunist who realized that
>calling
his work "satire" could help exempt it from legal action. An
>obituary
in The Village Voice described Burroughs as "utterly paranoid
>and
utterly moral." That is exactly half right.
> It is significant that the careers of
both Ginsberg and Burroughs began
>with
an obscenity trial, Ginsberg with "'Howl" in 1957, Burroughs with
>"Naked
Lunch" in 1962. Ira Silverberg, a publicist for Burroughs, is
>quoted
as saying that "William Burroughs opened the door for supporters
>of
freedom of expression." In fact, Burroughs helped open the door on
>the
public acceptance and academic adulation of violent, dehumanizing
>pornography
as a protected form of free speech.
> As Rochelle Gurstein pointed out in
"The Repeal of Reticence," her
>astute
book about free speech and obscenity, "it is a sign of our time
>that
this ready-made plea for freedom of choice, and the dismissal of
>standards
as a form of cultural imperialism, is automatically offered
>not
only on behalf of commercial entertainment but also for obscene art
>and
pornography."
> As Ms. Gurstein shows, it was not
until the 1950s that the question of
>obscenity
was cast as a First Amendment issue. Until then, free speech
>had
been explicitly excluded by the courts as a defense for trafficking
>in
obscene materials. The problem was not defining obscenity--about
>which
there was wide agreement--but in assessing the degree of public
>harm
the circulation of certain materials might be expected to cause.
>"Obscenity
was successfully regulated," she notes, "because there was
>broad
consensus about indecency, rooted in the old standards of the
>reticent
sensibility."
> That consensus has long since
dissolved, along with the moral
>sensibility
that supported it. In this sense, Allen Ginsberg, William
>Burroughs.
and the rest of the Beats really do mark an important moment
>in
American culture, not as one of its achievements, but as a grievous
>example
of its degeneration. The Village Voice observed that, when it
>came
to appreciating his nihilism, "the culture had finally caught up
>with"
Burroughs. Sadly, that couldn't be more accurate.
>
> Mr. Kimball is managing editor of The New
Criterion.
>
>THE
WALL STREET JOURNAL.
>
>Peter
R. Kann Kenneth L.
Burenga
>Chairman
& Publisher President
>
>Paul
E. Steiger
Robert L. Bartley
>Managing
Editor Editor
>Byron
E. Calame Daniel
Hemfinger
>Daniel
Hertzberg Deputy
Editor,
>Deputy
Managing Editors
Editorial Page
>
> Vice Presidents
>Danforth
W. Austin General Manager
>Paul
C. Atkinson
AdVertising
>William
E. Casey Jr.
Circulation
>Michael
F. Sheehan
Production
>Charles
F. Russell
Technology
>F,
Thomas Kull Jr.
Operations
>
>Published
since 1889 by
>
>DOWJONES
& COMPANY
>
>Peter
R. Kann, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer; Kenneth L. Burenga,
>President
& Chief Operating
>Officer;
CEO, Dew Jones Markets.
>Senior
Vice Presidents: James H. Oftaway Jr.,
>Chairman,
Ottaway Newspapers, President,
>Magazines;
Peter G. Skinner, General Counsel,
>President,
Television; Carl M. Valenti, Teetmology &
>Affiliates,
President/Publisher, Newswires.
>Vice
Presidents/Operating Groups: Karen Elliott House, President,
>International;
Dorothea Cocoeli Palshe, President, Interactive
>Publishing.
>
>Vice
Presidents: Kevin J. Roehe, Chief Financial Officer; Julian B.
>Childs,
Markets; Paul J. Ingrassia, Richard J. Levino, Newswires; James
>A.
Scaduto, Employee Relations; David E. Moran, Law.
>
>EDITORIAL
AND CORPORATE HEADQUARTEES: 200 Liberty
>Street,
New York, N.Y. 10281. Telephone (212) 416-2000.
>SUBSCRIPTION
SERVICES: Call 1-800-JOURNAL, or see
>This
piece appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Friday August 8, 1997 . . .
>Read
it and weep!
>The
Dark Ages Lurk, yet!
>
>The
Death of Decency
>
>By
ROGER KIMBALL
>It
has been a bad year for famous drugabusing literary charlatans. In April,
the
>
Beat poet Allen Ginsberg-author of "Howl" (1956) and innumerable
other paeans
> to
pharmacological and sexual excess-died of liver cancer at the age of 70. On
>
Aug. 2, the Beat novelist William S. Burroughs succumbed to a heart attack at
>
the age of 83. Considering the way they abused themselves - especially
>
Burroughs, who was addicted to heroin for some 15 years-it is hard not to
>
admire their robust constitutions.
> It is even harder, though, to admire
anything else about the life or
work of
>
either. Both specialized in pretentious, proselytizing pornography: Ginsberg
of
> an
incense-burning, pseudo-Whitmanesque sort, Burroughs of a much grittier,
>
sadomasochistic variety. There are few poems by Ginsberg that could be quoted
>
whole in this newspaper; I doubt whether any page of "Naked Lunch,"
Burroughs's
>
celebrated 1959 fantasy about a violent, drugridden sexual underworld, could
>
be. A generous person might be tempted to describe the accumulated literary
>
value of both writers as null. But that would be grossly unfair to nullity.
The
>
poet Edith Sitwell came closer to the truth when she described "Naked
Lunch"
as
>
"psychopathological filth."
> How, then, can we explain the extent
to which Ginsberg and Burroughs
have been
>
lionized by the media and the academic literary establishment? Anyone who read
>
the obituaries these men received-especially Ginsberg, who got lavish,
>
front-page treatment almost everywhere-might be tricked into thinking that
they
>
were important literary figures. In the early 1990s, Stanford University paid
> $1
million for Ginsberg's papers. His works are published by prestigious
houses
>
and are studied in classrooms across the country. Ditto for Burroughs. The
word
>
"genius" is routinely applied to both. So is
"transgressive"--a term that,
>
tellingly, has emerged as a favorite word of praise among addicts of the
>
"cutting edge."
> I agree that Ginsberg and Burroughs
were "transgressive." But is that a
good
>
thing? After all, Saddam Hussein is "transgressire" too. The obituary
of
>
Burroroughs in The New York Times informed readers that "he spent years
>
experimenting with drugs as well as with sex, which he engaged in with men,
>
women, and children." Note the word "experimenting," as if
Burroughs were
>
engaged in some sort of of scientific inquiry rather than straight-foraward
>
abuse of hard drugs and sordid sexual debauchery.
> Burroughs committed his most clearly
transgressive act in Mexico in
1951.
>
Although predominantly homosexual, he had married and fathered a son. Drunk at
> a
party, he took out a handgun and announced to his wife that it was time for
>
their William Tell act. When he tried to shoot a glass off her head, he missed
>
and killed her. As one obituary put it, "the circumstances of the killing
were
>
never fully investigated, and Burroughs fled Mexico City for South America
>
rather than stand trial."
> Burroughs is often praised for his
"humor." But as far as I can tell,
there is
>
only one genuinely funny sentence in "Naked Lunch," and its humor is
>
inadvertent. "Certain passages in the book that have been called
pornographic,"
>
Burroughs wrote in a preface, "were written as a tract against Capital
>
Punishment in the manner of Jonathan Swift's 'Modest Proposal.'"
> Burroughs wasn't alone in invoking the
author of "Gulliver's Travels."
>
Burroughs's fellow Beat writer Jack Kerouac wrote that his friend was "the
>
greatest satirical writer since Jonathan Swift." In 1963, the critic and
>
novelist Mary McCarthy solemnly said there were "many points of
comparison"
>
between the two, and concluded that, "like a classical satirist, Burroughs
is
>
dead serious--a reformer."
> But McCarthy was wrong. Burroughs was
not a reformer. Unlike Swift, he
had no
>
ideal to oppose to the degradation his books depicted. On William Burroughs
the
>
contrary, he was a cynical opportunist who realized that calling his work
>
"satire" could help exempt it from legal action. An obituary in The
Village
>
Voice described Burroughs as "utterly paranoid and utterly moral."
That is
>
exactly half right.
> It is significant that the careers of
both Ginsberg and Burroughs began
with an
>
obscenity trial, Ginsberg with "'Howl" in 1957, Burroughs with
"Naked Lunch"
in
>
1962. Ira Silverberg, a publicist for Burroughs, is quoted as saying that
>
"William Burroughs opened the door for supporters of freedom of
expression."
In
>
fact, Burroughs helped open the door on the public acceptance and academic
>
adulation of violent, dehumanizing pornography as a protected form of free
>
speech.
> As Rochelle Gurstein pointed out in
"The Repeal of Reticence," her
astute book
>
about free speech and obscenity, "it is a sign of our time that this
ready-made
>
plea for freedom of choice, and the dismissal of standards as a form of
>
cultural imperialism, is automatically offered not only on behalf of
commercial
>
entertainment but also for obscene art and pornography."
> As Ms. Gurstein shows, it was not
until the 1950s that the question of
>
obscenity was cast as a First Amendment issue. Until then, free speech had
been
>
explicitly excluded by the courts as a defense for trafficking in obscene
>
materials. The problem was not defining obscenity--about which there was wide
>
agreement--but in assessing the degree of public harm the circulation of
>
certain materials might be expected to cause. "Obscenity was successfully
>
regulated," she notes, "because there was broad consensus about
indecency,
>
rooted in the old standards of the reticent sensibility."
> That consensus has long since
dissolved, along with the moral
sensibility that
>
supported it. In this sense, Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs. and the rest
of
>
the Beats really do mark an important moment in American culture, not as one
of
>
its achievements, but as a grievous example of its degeneration. The Village
>
Voice observed that, when it came to appreciating his nihilism, "the
culture
>
had finally caught up with" Burroughs. Sadly, that couldn't be more
accurate.
>
> Mr. Kimball is managing editor of The New
Criterion.
>
>THE
WALL STREET JOURNAL.
>
>Peter
R. Kann Kenneth L.
Burenga
>Chairman
& Publisher President
>
>Paul
E. Steiger
Robert L. Bartley
>Managing
Editor Editor
>Byron
E. Calame Daniel
Hemfinger
>Daniel
Hertzberg Deputy
Editor,
>Deputy
Managing Editors
Editorial Page
>
> Vice Presidents
>Danforth
W. Austin General
Manager
>Paul
C. Atkinson
AdVertising
>William
E. Casey Jr.
Circulation
>Michael
F. Sheehan
Production
>Charles
F. Russell
Technology
>F,
Thomas Kull Jr.
Operations
>
>Published
since 1889 by
>
>DOWJONES
& COMPANY
>
>Peter
R. Kann, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer; Kenneth L. Burenga,
President
>
& Chief Operating
>Officer;
CEO, Dew Jones Markets.
>Senior
Vice Presidents: James H. Oftaway Jr.,
>Chairman,
Ottaway Newspapers, President,
>Magazines;
Peter G. Skinner, General Counsel,
>President,
Television; Carl M. Valenti, Teetmology &
>Affiliates,
President/Publisher, Newswires.
>Vice
Presidents/Operating Groups: Karen Elliott House, President,
International;
>
Dorothea Cocoeli Palshe, President, Interactive Publishing.
>
>Vice
Presidents: Kevin J. Roehe, Chief Financial Officer; Julian B. Childs,
>
Markets; Paul J. Ingrassia, Richard J. Levino, Newswires; James A. Scaduto,
>
Employee Relations; David E. Moran, Law.
>
>EDITORIAL
AND CORPORATE HEADQUARTEES: 200 Liberty
>Street,
New York, N.Y. 10281. Telephone (212) 416-2000.
>SUBSCRIPTION
SERVICES: Call 1-800-JOURNAL, or see
>
>
>
<center>--------------------------------------------------
Greg
Elwell
elwellg@voicenet.com
|| elwellgr@juno.com
<<http://www.voicenet.com/~elwellg>
</center>
--------------------------------------------------
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 12 Aug 1997 09:55:40 -0700
Reply-To: "Penn, Douglas, K"
<dkpenn@OEES.COM>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: "Penn, Douglas, K"
<dkpenn@OEES.COM>
Subject: Re: Wall Street Journal 'n Fruity
Pebbles
MIME-Version:
1.0
Content-Type:
text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Content-Transfer-Encoding:
7bit
<<ahem>>
and we could all use a good editor too...
not the
new york times ..... but the Wall Street Journal
sorry
to waste bandwidth on the correction.
Douglas
>----------
>From: Penn, Douglas, K
>Sent: Tuesday, August 12, 1997 9:29 AM
>To: BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU
>Subject: RE: Wall Street Journal 'n Fruity
Pebbles
>
>
>and
it goes to show that if you can't keep a good dog down in life, you sure
>can
kick em a few times in death. fuck the
new york times.
>
>Douglas
>
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 12 Aug 1997 18:54:39 +0200
Reply-To: Rinaldo Rasa <rinaldo@GPNET.IT>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: Rinaldo Rasa <rinaldo@GPNET.IT>
Subject: Re: (FWD) q: ranaldo & a: burroughs,
9 april 97
In-Reply-To: <970812013625_1848781656@emout01.mail.aol.com>
Mime-Version:
1.0
Content-Type:
text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
At
01.36 12/08/97 -0400,
Pamela
Beach Plymell <CVEditions@AOL.COM> wrote:
>In
a message dated 97-08-12 01:01:05 EDT, you write:
>
><< WSB:
Well, you'll notice more subdivisions now as it's modernized
>
> and is no longer cheap
>
>
Sharp as a razor. >>
>
>In
every direction we look....
>
>C.Plymell
>
ENTIA NON SUNT MULTIPLICANDA
PRAETER NECESSITATEM...
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 12 Aug 1997 10:12:47 -0700
Reply-To: "Timothy K. Gallaher"
<gallaher@HSC.USC.EDU>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: "Timothy K. Gallaher"
<gallaher@HSC.USC.EDU>
Subject: Re: who's who?
Comments:
To: "Shannon L. Stephens" <shanstep@CS.ARIZONA.EDU>
Mime-Version:
1.0
Content-Type:
text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
At
08:55 AM 8/12/97 -0700, you wrote:
>I'm
still working on "On the Road," and have a character question.
>Don't
jump all over me for this...if it screams ignorance...chalk it up
>to
unfamiliarity. Who is Remi...and subsequently Lee Ann?
>
>-shannon
>
>
Henri
Cru, as I recall, friend of kerouac from Horace Mann prep school.
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 12 Aug 1997 10:25:30 -0700
Reply-To: "Penn, Douglas, K"
<dkpenn@OEES.COM>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: "Penn, Douglas, K"
<dkpenn@OEES.COM>
Subject: Re: (FWD) q: ranaldo & a: burroughs,
9 april 97
Comments:
To: Rinaldo Rasa <rinaldo@GPNET.IT>
MIME-Version:
1.0
Content-Type:
text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Content-Transfer-Encoding:
7bit
Rinaldo,
you are such a tease. Somebody please
translate?
Douglas
>----------
>From: Rinaldo Rasa[SMTP:rinaldo@GPNET.IT]
>Sent: Tuesday, August 12, 1997 9:54 AM
>To: BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU
>Subject: Re: (FWD) q: ranaldo & a: burroughs,
9 april 97
>
> ENTIA NON SUNT MULTIPLICANDA
> PRAETER NECESSITATEM...
>
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 12 Aug 1997 14:48:57 -0600
Reply-To: Sorted <junky@BURROUGHS.NET>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: Sorted <junky@BURROUGHS.NET>
Subject: burroughs.net, asking permissions,
possibly some other meanderings
Mime-Version:
1.0
Content-Type:
text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
to whom
it may concern,
i've
shut down burroughs.net indefinitely...in its place is a photo of wsb
with
the dreamachine, his dates on this planet, and a link to some site
info...site
info is two short paragraphs as to what's going on, a short
list of
other burroughs sites (Levi's, Luke's, Malcolm's, and Critter's),
as well
as what i'm hoping is a pretty complete index of the recent news
articles
on his death, and another index of the tribute and memorial sites
popping
up...@
http://www.burroughs.net/
...his
death has not really hit me yet, i think. i felt a need to shut down
the
site, and i feel as if the last week+ has been spent on some mutated
form of
acid, what with all the event cracking my head open across that
time,
there's no other possible explanation other than this is just not
real.
but of
course, it is....
One
thing i have been thinking about recently is possibly taking the posts
to this
list about WSB's death and influence and archiving them on
burroughs.net,
sort of a memorial of my own, wanting to show what he and
his
work meant to so many people...please let me know what you all think
about
this...
(and,
maybe to ease some minds, i make no money from this site...been
running
it for over two years and not made one dime, in fact lost a bunch
of $
when i registered the domain...so for those suspecting me of
profiting,
nah. i just love the man and his work. maybe this whole
paragraph
was unnecessary; maybe not.)
Seeing
as this has to do with almost all of you, i'd appreciate as many
responses
as i can get, either privately or over the list. I really would
like to
do this, but i won't go ahead without talking to you first...
thanks,
-zach.
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 12 Aug 1997 16:58:16 EDT
Reply-To: Bill Gargan <WXGBC@CUNYVM.BITNET>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: Bill Gargan
<WXGBC@CUNYVM.BITNET>
Subject: FDA
Next thing
you know they'll try to regulate sperm.
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 12 Aug 1997 18:28:32 +0000
Reply-To: letabor@cruzio.com
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
Comments: Authenticated sender is
<letabor@mail.cruzio.com>
From: Leon Tabory
<letabor@CRUZIO.COM>
Subject: Re: Burroughs Obit
Date
sent: Tue, 12 Aug 1997 09:22:24
-0700
From: Leon Tabory <letabor@cruzio.com>
To:
"BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
hmmm.
No one offering to translate this interesting obit from Der
Spiegel?
Well,
my credentials to attempt it ain't exactly impeccable.
Sure,learning
wasintense when you were trying to figure out what the Waffen SS
men were saying was
Waffen
SS men were saying to each other. Subsequent living in Muenchen for half
a year helped,
especially
the loving attention of Herma "dein Munchener kindl" in the
only
language she knew helped broaden content and style. My new friend
old
Herr Doctor Karl Hagenmueller helped with pointers about grammar
etc,
but that was over fifty years ago, and soon forgotten. Never did
bother
to get a german dictionary since, but I did get the gist of
it.
Amazing how things come back. I thought some of you would like to
get a
look at what Der Spiegel had to say. If you are curious and not too
worried
about total accuracy, read on.
Words
that I knew stomped me I enclosed in brackets followed by a ?. The
writer
of the obit is not identified.
Here it
goes:
OBITUARY
William
S. Burroughs
Naturally
one could talk with Bill Burroughs about literature, as well
as
about polishing of furniture, or pop music, because he was a
gracious
person. His shuffling, monotonous voice betrayed a cultivated
disinterest.
But when the conversation turned to weapons, it took on
color.
Then it
became clear: not a doyen of the american underground, or
head of
the punks, or member of the respected academy, but Marshall in
Dodge
City - that would well have been his darling role. That or the
scoundrel
at the other end of the street. Drawing the line between good
and bad
didn't interest him particularly. Presence of wit, that's what it came
to for him.
William
S. Burroughs knew how to pick up (?) unique (?) illusionless
qualities.
"I could always take up(?) with doc Holliday", he
said at
a shooting practice at his ranch in Kansas. (??)
Bill
Burroughs, the farthest out avant-garde that american literature
produced
in this century, was at the same time as american as
cornflakes.
He was a member of the arch reactionary "National Rifle
Association"
and felt comfortable under the rednecks in Kansas, where he
died
last week at age 83 of heart failure.
He knew
the myths and legends about the o.k. corral inside out, and
before
he was inducted in the temple and seminar halls of literary
scholarship,
he resided in the cosmos of the penny notebooks. He was
Harvard
reared with a passion for the trivial. The crownprince of an
industrial
family, who was at home in the fixers (junkies?) scenes of
New
Orleans, London and Tanger. He was a remarkable buttoned up traveller with a
love
for
dirt and trash of all kinds. THe was also gay. Basically
Burroghs
was the nightmare of american society - because he came from
its
innermost midst.
He
functioned as a stranger in the beatnik circles around Ginsberg and
Kerouac,
whom he got to know in the middle of the forties. There is
hardly
a photo of these early years in which he smiles, and so his face
remained
a shocked Buster-Keaton look at
the bad
play of the century. He was married
twice. His
first
wife was a german jewish woman, whom he enabled to emigrate
through
the marriage. The second wife he shot during a drug party. It
could
never be clarified without a doubt whether the accident was in
fact an
accident. Shortly after the deed Burroughs gave a deposition
(testimony?
confession?) which he later retracted.
Still,
the scandal lent him a sinister luster, which later made him a black
romantic
pop-icon: He was the writer outlaw, the pistol hero with a
typewriter,
who didn't worry particularly over the laws, whether they
applied
to life or to literature.
Already
as a youth Burroughs dreamt about a literary career for
absolutely
nonliterary reasons. He wanted to write, "because writers
were
rich and famous, hung around in Singapore and Rangoon, wore yellow
silk
suits, smoked opium or hashish in the native quarters of Tangier and
patted
a tame gazelle".
He got
it, the drugs and the gazelles and later the fame and riches, but
it was
a long road to that, and his sheer longevity belongs to his most
amazing
achievements. For decades he hung on the needle, he climbed
out and
got back in and back out and back into other drugs, and he
(strapazierte)?
(punished)? his body to the limit. Yet when he died he
had
outlived most of his fellow treavelers, Ginsberg and Neal Cassady and
Timothy
Leary
and Kerouac anyway.
His
debut novel "Junkie" which appeared 1953 as a cheap paperback, a
book
about the logistics of the scoring of drugs, the horror of cold
withdrawals,
was his most readable book. Still he became famous through
the
phantasmagories from "Naked Lunch" (1959), that obscene,
halucinogenic
penny novel about Dr. "Fingers" Schafer, "Lobotomy Kid"
and
William Lee, that is at the same time a satire of society gone
too
far.
About
the invention of the famous cut-up method that was employed
in it
for the first time, there are various versions in circulation,
and one
of these, not the least likely, is banal. In drugged dimness, in
the
middle of strewn about manuscript pages, in a hotel room he supposedly was
staring
at his
feet, when Ginsburg dusted those up and stapled the unsorted
texts
together. Later Burroughs found the
accidental sort most highly
interesting.
Thereupon he cut the pages and put them together anew.
"Naked
Lunch" became subject to scandal because of its pornographic
passages,
and because of its neologisms and Hieronymus-Bosch-visions it
became
a quarry for pop groups, who borrowed their
names
from it and from following novels, "Steely Dan" or "Soft
Machine",
and
other groups named their music "Heavy Metal".
Still,
Burroghs hardly interested himself in the entire Rock theater. He
was no
world improver like Ginzberg, no dionysian visionary like
Kerouac.
Deep inside he held the Beatnik-pose and the following
Pop-pretense
good for kid stuff..
He
lived his last years disciplined. He got up early, fed the cats,
wrote.
He never took the first vodka before four o'clock in the
afternoon.
Now and then he visited his old weapons-brother Fred, to
shoot.
He was
the Deputy Marshall, and he held up a long time, until in
the end
it caught him (?).
DER
SPIEGEL 33/1997
Well, I
did give it a try.
leon
>
Date: Mon, 11 Aug 1997 14:18:05
EDT
>
Reply-to: Fred Bogin
<FDBBC@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
>
From: Fred Bogin
<FDBBC@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
>
Organization: Brooklyn College Library
>
Subject: Burroughs Obit
>
To: BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU
>
Attached is a Burroughs obit from this week's German magazine, Der
>
Spiegel. (http://www.spiegel.de) I
replaced the umlauted letters by
>
ae, oe, ue, etc. to make it readable.
>
>
Fred
>
>
>
>
>
NACHRUF
>
>
William S. Burroughs
>
>
1914 bis 1997
>
>
Natuerlich konnte man mit Bill Burroughs auch ueber Literatur
>
reden oder ueber Moebelpolitur oder Popmusik, denn er war ein
>
hoeflicher Mensch. Seine schleppende, monotone Stimme verriet
>
kultiviertes Desinteresse. Doch wenn das Gespraech auf Waffen
>
kam, gewann sie an Farbe.
>
>
Dann wurde klar: Nicht Doyen des amerikanischen Underground oder
>
Pate des Punks oder respektiertes Akademie-Mitglied, sondern
>
Marshall in Dodge City - das waere wohl seine Lieblingsrolle
>
gewesen. Das oder der Schurke am anderen Strassenende. Die
>
Grenzen zwischen Gut und Boese haben ihn ohnehin nie sonderlich
>
interessiert. Geistesgegenwart, darauf kam es ihm an.
>
>
William S. Burroughs wusste die eigenen Qualitaeten illusionslos
>
einzuschaetzen. "Mit Doc Holliday koennte ich es noch allemal
>
aufnehmen", sagte er bei einer Probeschiesserei auf seiner Ranch
> in
Kansas.
>
>
Bill Burroughs, die aeusserste Avantgarde, die sich die
>
amerikanische Literatur in diesem Jahrhundert leistete, war
>
gleichzeitig so amerikanisch wie Cornflakes. Er war Mitglied der
>
erzreaktionaeren "National Rifle Association" und fuehlte sich
>
wohl unter den Rednecks in Kansas, wo er vorvergangene Woche
>
83jaehrig an Herzversagen starb.
>
> Er
kannte die Mythen und Legenden um den O. K. Corral in- und
>
auswendig, und bevor er in die Tempel und Seminarraeume der
>
Literaturwissenschaftler einzog, bewohnte er den Kosmos der
>
Groschenhefte. Er war der Harvard-Zoegling mit Leidenschaft fuer
>
das Triviale. Der Kronprinz einer Industriellenfamilie, der in
>
den Fixerszenen von New Orleans, London und Tanger zu Hause war.
> Er
war ein merkwuerdig zugeknoepfter Reisender mit der Vorliebe
>
fuer Schmutz und Schund aller Art. Zudem war er schwul. Im Grunde
>
war Burroughs der Alptraum der amerikanischen Gesellschaft - weil
> er
aus ihrer innersten Mitte stammte.
>
> In
den Beatnik-Zirkeln um Ginsberg und Kerouac, die er Mitte der
>
vierziger Jahre kennenlernte, wirkte er wie ein Fremder. Es gibt
>
selbst in diesen fruehen Jahren kaum ein Foto, auf dem er
>
laechelt - und so blieb sein Gesicht eine unerschuetterliche
>
Buster-Keaton-Miene zum boesen Spiel des Jahrhunderts. Er
>
heiratete zweimal. Die erste Frau war eine deutsche Juedin, der
> er
mit der Ehe die Einwanderung ermoeglichte. Die zweite Frau
>
erschoss er waehrend einer drogenberauschten Party. Restlos
>
konnte nie geklaert werden, ob der Unfall tatsaechlich ein Unfall
>
war. Burroughs gab kurz nach der Tat ein Gestaendnis ab, das er
>
spaeter widerrief.
>
>
Der Skandal jedoch verlieh ihm jenen duesteren Glanz, der ihn
>
spaeter zur schwarzromantischen Pop-Ikone machte: Er war der
>
schriftstellernde Outlaw, der Revolverheld mit der
>
Schreibmaschine, der sich um die Gesetze nicht sonderlich
>
kuemmerte, weder um die des Lebens noch um die der Literatur.
>
>
Schon als Junge hatte Burroughs von einer literarischen Karriere
>
aus absolut ausserliterarischen Gruenden getraeumt. Er wollte
>
schreiben, "weil Schriftsteller reich und beruehmt waren, in
>
Singapur und Rangun herumhingen, gelbe Seidenanzuege trugen und
>
Opium rauchten oder Haschisch in den Vierteln der Einheimischen
>
von Tanger und dabei eine zahme Gazelle streichelten".
>
> Er
hat es gehabt, das Rauschgift und die Gazellen und spaeter den
>
Ruhm und den Reichtum, doch es war ein langer Weg dahin, und zu
>
den erstaunlichsten Leistungen Burroughs' gehoert wohl seine
>
schiere Langlebigkeit. Jahrzehntelang hing er an der Nadel, er
>
stieg aus und wieder ein und wieder aus und stieg um auf andere
>
Drogen und strapazierte seinen Koerper bis an die Grenze. Doch
>
als er starb, hatte er die meisten seiner Weggefaehrten
>
ueberlebt, Ginsberg und Neal Cassady und Timothy Leary und
>
Kerouac sowieso.
>
>
Sein Debuet-Roman "Junkie" erschien 1953 als billiges Paperback,
>
ein Hoellenbuch ueber die Logistik der Drogenbeschaffung, den
>
Horror der kalten Entzuege, wohl sein lesbarstes Buch. Beruehmt
>
wurde er jedoch durch die Phantasmagorien aus "Naked Lunch"
>
(1959), diesem obszoenen, halluzinogenen Groschenroman um Dr.
>
"Fingers" Schafer, "Lobotomy Kid" und William Lee, der
zugleich
>
eine ueberbordende Gesellschaftssatire ist.
>
>
Ueber die Erfindung der darin zum ersten Male angewandten
>
beruehmten Cut-up-Methode sind verschiedene Versionen im Umlauf,
>
und eine davon, nicht die unwahrscheinlichste, ist banal. Im
>
Drogendaemmer, inmitten zerfledderter Manuskriptseiten, soll er
> in
einem Hotelzimmer auf seine Fuesse gestarrt haben, als
>
Ginsberg ihn aufstoeberte und die Texte wahllos zusammenstapelte.
>
Spaeter fand Burroughs die Zufallsreihung hoechst interessant.
>
Daraufhin zerschnitt er die Seiten und puzzelte sie neu zusammen.
>
>
"Naked Lunch" wurde wegen seiner pornographischen Passagen zum
>
Skandalerfolg und wegen seiner Neologismen und
>
Hieronymus-Bosch-Visionen zum Steinbruch fuer Popgruppen, die aus
>
ihm und den Folgeromanen ihre Namen entliehen, "Steely Dan" oder
>
"Soft Machine", und andere Gruppen nannten ihre Musik "Heavy
>
Metal".
>
>
Doch Burroughs interessierte sich kaum fuer das ganze
>
Rocktheater. Er war kein Weltverbesserer wie Ginsberg, kein
>
dionysischer Schwaermer wie Kerouac. Tief im Innersten hielt er
>
die Beatnik-Pose und das nachfolgende Pop-Getue wohl fuer
>
Kinderkram.
>
>
Seine letzten Jahre lebte er diszipliniert. Er stand frueh auf,
>
fuetterte die Katzen, schrieb. Den ersten Wodka genehmigte er
>
sich nie vor vier Uhr nachmittags. Ab und zu besuchte er seinen
>
alten Waffenbruder Fred, um zu schiessen.
>
> Er
war der Deputy-Marshall, und er hat sich lang gehalten, bis es
>
ihn endlich doch noch erwischte.
>
>
DER SPIEGEL 33/1997
> -
>
>
>
Leon
Tabory
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 12 Aug 1997 21:47:47 -0400
Reply-To: "Diane M. Homza"
<ek242@cleveland.Freenet.Edu>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: "Diane M. Homza"
<ek242@CLEVELAND.FREENET.EDU>
Subject: Re: Village Voice obit.
Reply
to message from WXGBC@CUNYVM.BITNET of Mon, 11 Aug
>
>This
week's issue of the Voice carried a full page obit on Burroughs
>with
articles by David Ulin and C. (I assume Lucien's son Caleb) Carr.
I was
just flipping through teh issue with the Ginsberg memorial stories &
also
noticed an article by this C. Carr....& wondered if he (or she?) was
related
to Lucien.
Diane.
--
Diane M. Homza <---Professional Rebound Girl!
2 Years
Experience; References Are Avaliable!
ek242@cleveland.freenet.edu
"I
can't imagine how I ever thought my love might make a difference to him."
--Richard Powers, _The Gold
Bug Variations_
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 12 Aug 1997 22:13:38 -0400
Reply-To: Richard Wallner
<rwallner@CAPACCESS.ORG>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: Richard Wallner
<rwallner@CAPACCESS.ORG>
Subject: Was Burroughs really a beat writer?
In-Reply-To: <9708121837.aa12617@mail.cruzio.com>
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Heard
an interesting argument recently in discussions about Burroughs
life. It was argued that Bill Burroughs was not
really a beat writer.
Jack
Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg and most of the other beat writers, saw
their
literary efforts as part of a religious mission, a search for faith
as it
were. Most of them were into eastern
religions and philosphies and
the
ideas of finding peace in mind spirit, and soul.
Bill
Burroughs hadno such mission in his writings, he was totally anti-
religion,
anti-society, anti-everything. Burroughs,
it is argued, was
not
idealistic, had no hopes of changing the world or acheiving greater
purposes
with his writing.
He was
a total libertarian who had no use for most people, and for muchof
the
world. Kerouac was an explorer, he
traveled to experience and to
write
about his experiences. Burroughs
traveled to find drugs so he
could
escape from the world, NOT write about it.
Jack Kerouac dreamed of
his
hometown and yearned to find new ways to write about and understand
his
past. Burroughs lived in exile most of
his life, desperately trying
to
convince himself that the world he knew knew outside of Tangier, or
wherever
he was living, didnt exsist.
Burroughs
was a great writer, therefore, but has he been inaccurately
cast as
a beat writer because of his friendship with Kerouac and Allen
Ginsberg?
RJW
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 12 Aug 1997 19:19:09 -0700
Reply-To: Levi Asher <brooklyn@NETCOM.COM>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: Levi Asher
<brooklyn@NETCOM.COM>
Subject: Bill faces judgement
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At
least the Wall Street Journal article tried to be funny
("an
insult to nullity" ... yeah, yeah).
Really, it's
their
job to insult people like Burroughs, and I'm only
glad
the Wall Street Journal didn't suddenly decide to
embrace
Burroughs and call him a genius. Then
I'd really
worry. Like when Bill Gates suddenly embraces
Microsoft.
I
prefer to see my adversaries standing across the street,
not to
feel their arms around my back.
Here
are two more "tributes" to Burroughs, one from
the
Black Mountain poet Robert Creeley, who's now teaching
at SUNY
Buffalo, and one from Carolyn Cassady, the longtime
wife of
Neal and frequent Kerouac fictional character.
I
emailed both of them asking for spontaneous tributes,
so
don't blame them if you don't like their words, blame
me,
because I'm the one who asked!
I also
wrote to a few other people who were likely to
have
interesting memories ... if more write
back, I'll keep
posting
them.
This is
what Robert Creeley wrote back:
****************************************************************
"Here's
a brief sense of what I quickly remember apropos
Bill
Burroughs. I can't now recall just who
had told me -- like
peripheral
gossip -- but sometime in the early '50s I heard of someone
who'd
written a 1000 plus page ms with the only objective action being a
neon
sign going off/on over a store one could see (in the novel) across
the
street, etc, and of someone else who had killed his wife
acidentally,
attempting to shoot a glass off her head with gun he said
later
characteristically undershot. That was
Kerouac and Bill Burroughs
respectively,
though for a time I reversed them not yet knowing either.
In SF
in the mid-fifties, and meeting (though he said we'd met briefly
in '49)
Allen, he gave me the Yage ms to read, which fsscinated me --
and
you'll know I printed "from Naked Lunch, Book III" in the Black
Mountain
Review No. 7 (last issue with Allen a contributing editor and
stuff
from Jack, Edward Marshall's great poem "Leave the Word Alone."
Cubby
Selby, Phil Whalen, Gary Snyder, Mike McClure, Joel Oppenheimer,
WC
Williams, Ed Dorn, Edward Dahlberg, Zukofsky, Denise Levertov --
etc.) I was also fellow contributor for the Big
Table business -- and I
remember
writing a statement in support when Naked Lunch was to be
published
by Grove.
We
didn't meet, however, untl some years later, must have been at least
the
mid-sixties, when he was living in London and I was there for
something
or other, and John and Bettina Calder had a party variously
honoring
various writers, particularly Burroughs.
We were both John's
"authors"
at that point and I was staying with the Calders. Alex
Trocchi
was a good friend and he too was much involved. Anyhow I
remember
making the classic gauche comment when we're introduced, saying
I was
stunned with the pleasure of being able to say how much I
respected
his work etc etc, and then stumbling on to ask whether or no
he was
thinking to stay in London, etc etc -- to all of which he replied
briefly,
dryly, yes, no -- etc. In confusion I
grabbed Ed Dorn who was
there,
and pulled him over to introduce him. Instantly Burroughs
brightened,
asking Ed about a recent piece of Ed's in the Paris Review
-- and
how he'd managed the montage, etc. In
short, this was work and
had
substance -- not just banal social blather.
Thankfully
I saw him again quite frequently over the years, and got past
my
school boy admiration (though never entirely).
Anyhow we'd meet most
frequently
on the road and I liked his droll humor and clarity, call it,
always. One time after a talk at Naropa wherein he
had recounted his
experiences
with a device he'd assembled permitting one to track by
thought
"traces" or manifests of the physical entiry itself (he said
he'd
found one of his cats who'd got lost), he was bemused that none of
the
young had asked afterwards how to actually make the device, despite
he had
emphasized that all the necessary components could be got at any
place
like Radio Shack. Where's their curiousity, was the question.
Another
time, when mutual friends were sitting around him in sad
depression
over fact of an impending death much affecting him, as I came
in, I
am convinced he looked up and winked at me -- certainly a
communication,
like they say.
I've
always thought of him as a literalist, as I think I was -- saying
what he
felt, understood, recognized, respected, abhorred, in very
literal
terms, including the fantasies.
Thinking of an early common
interest
in Korzybski, the non-Aristotelian sense of "meaning" and
syntax,
his use of cut-up was very practical and effective. It broke
the
classic "order" or narative as simply a "cause and
effect,""historically"
ordered sequence. I'd already connected
with
Celine,
for example, and Burroughs was the solid next step.
I'd get
occasional Xmas cards I am sure James Grauerholtz helped get in
the
mail -- I am grateful Bill Burroughs knew I cared, like they say.
He was
the impeccable "lone telegraph operator," as he put it. He got a
lot
done for us all."
(Robert
Creeley)
****************************************************************
And now for a dissenting opinion, here's
what Carolyn Cassady
(of Neal and Carolyn/"Off The
Road" fame) wrote. I hope
it doesn't seem she's being disrespectful
of Burroughs here,
rather she's speaking her mind because I
asked her for her
honest thoughts, not just an empty polite
tribute.
****************************************************************
"Trouble
is, I don't feel like any "tribute" to BB. As I
wrote,
he didn't want to know me nor I him. He
represented all
that I
think negative and counter-poductive, if not downright destructive in
human
life and the antithesis of what I believe we should all be about. I
felt
somewhat better about him when the TV interviewer asked him if there was
anything
in his life he regretted. Bill's reply
was "Are your kidding? Everyt
hing!" I wanted to say, well, duh--I coulda told
you so. "Wise men learn
from
the experience of others; fools from their own". I know, there's this
theory
that in order to appreciate the heights, you have to know the depths,
but I
don't agree. I have much to learn, but
I don't think his way would be
rewarding. So, sorry, Levi,--but lemme know if we
scored on this.
Cheers,
CC"
(Carolyn
Cassady)
****************************************************************
(And
now, if anybody out there is in touch with Gary Snyder,
could
you please go nudge him and tell him to write back too?)
------------------------------------------------------
| Levi
Asher = brooklyn@netcom.com
|
|
|
| Literary Kicks:
http://www.charm.net/~brooklyn/ |
| (3 years old and still running) |
|
|
| "Coffeehouse: Writings from the
Web" |
| (a real book, like on paper) |
| also at
http://coffeehousebook.com |
| |
|
*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*
|
|
|
| "It was my dream that
screwed up" |
| -- Jack
Kerouac |
------------------------------------------------------
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 12 Aug 1997 19:22:02 -0700
Reply-To: Levi Asher <brooklyn@NETCOM.COM>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: Levi Asher
<brooklyn@NETCOM.COM>
Subject: Bill faces judgement (fwd)
MIME-Version:
1.0
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I wrote
(2 seconds ago)
> At
least the Wall Street Journal article tried to be funny
>
("an insult to nullity" ... yeah, yeah). Really, it's
>
their job to insult people like Burroughs, and I'm only
>
glad the Wall Street Journal didn't suddenly decide to
>
embrace Burroughs and call him a genius.
Then I'd really
>
worry. Like when Bill Gates suddenly
embraces Microsoft.
> I
prefer to see my adversaries standing across the street,
Oops,
obviously I meant "embraces Apple" -- see, I'm
totally
confused already ...
------------------------------------------------------
| Levi
Asher = brooklyn@netcom.com
|
|
|
| Literary Kicks:
http://www.charm.net/~brooklyn/ |
| (3 years old and still running) |
|
|
| "Coffeehouse: Writings from the
Web" |
| (a real book, like on paper) |
| also at
http://coffeehousebook.com |
| |
|
*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*
|
|
|
| "It was my dream that
screwed up" |
| -- Jack
Kerouac |
------------------------------------------------------
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 12 Aug 1997 21:30:58 -0500
Reply-To: jo grant <jgrant@BOOKZEN.COM>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: jo grant <jgrant@BOOKZEN.COM>
Subject: Luther Allison
Mime-Version:
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Luther
Allison died today, 08-12-97, in Madison, Wi.
j grant
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 12 Aug 1997 19:35:12 -0700
Reply-To: stauffer@pacbell.net
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: James Stauffer <stauffer@PACBELL.NET>
Subject: Church of St. John
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Beal-l
folk looking for a more attractive religious organization might
be
interested in the St. Johns African Orthodox Church in SF, since the
St.
John is Coltrane. Was going to post a
reference to a story on this
unique
church but got lazy and then the Burroughs death dominated
everyone's
mind. For a more complete report one
could look up a story
that
appeared in the SF Weekly for the week of July 23-39. Services
with
Coltrane's music held every Sunday and special services on the
anniversery
of Coltrane's ascension. Any Coltrane fanatics out there
interested
in a copy let me know.
J.
Stauffer
I guess
until we get a St. Williams, this will have to do.
J
Stauffer
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 12 Aug 1997 19:40:32 -0700
Reply-To: stauffer@pacbell.net
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: James Stauffer
<stauffer@PACBELL.NET>
Subject: Re: Luther Allison
Comments:
To: jo grant <jgrant@BOOKZEN.COM>
MIME-Version:
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jo
grant wrote:
>
>
Luther Allison died today, 08-12-97, in Madison, Wi.
>
What a
year. Think I'll put on
"Reckless".
J.
Stauffer
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 12 Aug 1997 19:23:03 -0700
Reply-To: stauffer@pacbell.net
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: James Stauffer
<stauffer@PACBELL.NET>
Subject: [Fwd: Re: Wall Street Journal 'n Fruity
Pebbles]
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Date:
Tue, 12 Aug 1997 19:21:58 -0700
From:
James Stauffer <stauffer@pacbell.net>
Reply-To:
stauffer@pacbell.net
X-Mailer:
Mozilla 3.01 (Win95; I)
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To:
"Penn, Douglas, K" <dkpenn@OEES.COM>
Subject:
Re: Wall Street Journal 'n Fruity Pebbles
References:
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Without
a doubt the WSJ piece was poorly
thought and badly timed. As
someone
who usually reads the WSJ editorial page I was appalled. But I
am
still for free speech, even stupid speech. Good art always seems to
be able
to outlast stupid criticism. Such a
tirade may even attract
readers
for Ginsberg's and Burrough's work.
Think of what a
masterstroke
of marketing the Howl obscenity trial was--no publisher
could
or would have bought a poet that kind of a high profile. Same was
true
for Joyce and Lawrence. Remember how
delighted movie and book
distributors
used to be when they were banned in Boston so that they
could
splash "Banned in Boston" on a marquee or a book display?
J
Stauffer
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 12 Aug 1997 21:48:06 -0500
Reply-To: Patricia Elliott
<pelliott@SUNFLOWER.COM>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: Patricia Elliott <pelliott@SUNFLOWER.COM>
Subject: Re: Luther Allison
Comments:
To: jo grant <jgrant@BOOKZEN.COM>
MIME-Version:
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jo
grant wrote:
>
>
Luther Allison died today, 08-12-97, in Madison, Wi.
>
> j
grant
who was
Luther Allison? Pardon my ignorance.
p
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 13 Aug 1997 03:09:44 UT
Reply-To: Sherri <love_singing@MSN.COM>
Sender:
"BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: Sherri <love_singing@MSN.COM>
Subject: Re: Luther Allison
Damn!! is there anybody left?
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 12 Aug 1997 23:47:23 -0400
Reply-To: Alex Howard
<kh14586@ACS.APPSTATE.EDU>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: Alex Howard
<kh14586@ACS.APPSTATE.EDU>
Subject: Re: Was Burroughs really a beat writer?
In-Reply-To:
<Pine.SUN.3.91-FP.970812220342.23103A-100000@cap1.capaccess.org>
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When
discussing this in the past and asked to name the big three, I always
said
Kerouac, Ginsberg, and Corso. Burroughs
too, but always I list last
as he
seemed to transcend beat. He was beat
and something more. He, like
the
others, sought to break literary and (insert conceptual term here)
boundaries,
but only as a means to better communicate.
What he wanted to
communicate
went above, beyond, and sideways to the others. As beat as he
wanted
to be, no more no less; but so much more.
Years from now when
post-modernism
finally gets a real name and is figured out by academia so
they can
teach about it Burroughs will be there just after the sophmores
finish
their papers on Beckett.
------------------
Alex
Howard (704)264-8259 Appalachian State
University
kh14586@acs.appstate.edu P.O. Box 12149
http://www.acs.appstate.edu/~kh14586 Boone, NC 28608
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 12 Aug 1997 23:54:10 -0600
Reply-To: stand666@bitstream.net
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: R&R Houff
<stand666@BITSTREAM.NET>
Subject: LUTHER ALLISON
MIME-Version:
1.0
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Thanks
Jo for the post, and Bentz, James, Charles,
for
your kindness. My father was with him earlier
yesterday,
and called late last night. When the phone
rings
after 3:00 A.M., you pretty much know what's
next.
I've spent pretty much the whole day and evening
on my
back steps playing bottleneck. There's a band shell
amphitheater
100 miles south of St Paul. It's a nice quiet
place
that is no longer in use. I think I'll head down there
for a
few days and play some slide. About a month ago I was
there
and it had a beautiful sound bouncing off the walls. My
dad
wants to give Luther a Scotish rites farewell with bagpipes
and
drums. Play The Black Watch and Amazing Grace. You know,
Luther
would probably get a bang out of that one. All these old
white
guys from the Masonic Lodge, honoring him. Maybe there's
hope
after all. It seems strange that my interview with Luther
would
be his last. Alligator Records loved it, Pulse Magazine
prints
it, and two days later he recieves a terminal diagnosis.
But the
blues never dies. I'll be interviewing Homesick James for
Pulse.
Homesick James is probably the last living link to Robert
Johnson.
He is the same age as Burroughs: 83, born in 1914--and
he
plays on a Fender Strat with Marshall Amp, slide, and all--
rocking
the house!!! Now that's cool.
Richard
Houff
Pariah
Press
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 13 Aug 1997 00:58:20 -0400
Reply-To: CVEditions@AOL.COM
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: Pamela Beach Plymell
<CVEditions@AOL.COM>
Subject: Re: Last look at Walgreens?
Comments:
To: junky@burroughs.net
In a
message dated 97-08-12 23:53:00 EDT, you write:
<<
has been spent on some mutated
form of acid, what with all the event
cracking my head open across that
time, there's no other possible explanation
other than this is just not
real.
but of course, it is.... >>
Damn
right. I caught that same "bug." Something did happen, I'dsay. I've
been
through
'em before. I knew that old con man was gonna restonate the hell
outta
things. "Look at these paintings, Charley; this is great art. See the
shapes
of things that keep forming? I did.
You can
have anything of mine. Sharing love for the old man is enough.
Tonight
has been the first night I started to come off the "mutated acid"
jag. I
wonder if Burroughs cut to another stratasphere, or is he peering
around in a black hole looking for Huncke to ferret
out the scence?
C
Plymell
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 13 Aug 1997 01:33:27 -0400
Reply-To: DawnDR@AOL.COM
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: "Dawn B. Sova"
<DawnDR@AOL.COM>
Subject: Re: Village Voice obit.
Just a
response regarding the C.Carr whose byline appears in the voice. That
is
Lucien's son Caleb --- author of THE
ALIENIST (a very dark, literate and
engrossing
novel ) -- as well as much other work.
I saw interviews with him
in
'94? when the novel was climbing up the
bestseller lists.
Dawn
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 13 Aug 1997 05:41:14 -0400
Reply-To: Mike Rice <mrice@CENTURYINTER.NET>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: Mike Rice
<mrice@CENTURYINTER.NET>
Subject: Re: Bill faces judgement (fwd)
Comments:
To: Levi Asher <brooklyn@NETCOM.COM>
Mime-Version:
1.0
Content-Type:
text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
No, you
had it right. Gates certainly embraced
Microsoft
before Apple so you had it right. I
wish
the
sledge thrower from the 84 macintosh intro
commercial
by Ridley Scott, I wish some had had a
hammer
to throw at Gates' massive TV head during the
Apple
symposium in Boston, where Gates appeared as
a new
"Big Brother."
Mike
Rice
At
07:22 PM 8/12/97 -0700, you wrote:
>I
wrote (2 seconds ago)
>
>>
At least the Wall Street Journal article tried to be funny
>>
("an insult to nullity" ... yeah, yeah). Really, it's
>>
their job to insult people like Burroughs, and I'm only
>>
glad the Wall Street Journal didn't suddenly decide to
>>
embrace Burroughs and call him a genius.
Then I'd really
>>
worry. Like when Bill Gates suddenly
embraces Microsoft.
>>
I prefer to see my adversaries standing across the street,
>
>Oops,
obviously I meant "embraces Apple" -- see, I'm
>totally
confused already ...
>
>------------------------------------------------------
>| Levi
Asher = brooklyn@netcom.com
|
>|
|
>| Literary Kicks:
http://www.charm.net/~brooklyn/ |
>| (3 years old and still running) |
>| |
>| "Coffeehouse: Writings from the
Web" |
>| (a real book, like on paper) |
>| also at
http://coffeehousebook.com |
>|
|
>| *--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--* |
>|
|
>| "It was my dream that
screwed up" |
>| -- Jack
Kerouac |
>------------------------------------------------------
>
>
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 13 Aug 1997 13:37:46 +0200
Reply-To: Rinaldo Rasa <rinaldo@GPNET.IT>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: Rinaldo Rasa <rinaldo@GPNET.IT>
Subject: Re: who's who?
In-Reply-To:
<Pine.SOL.3.91.970812085153.12553C-100000@baskerville.CS.Ar
izona.EDU>
Mime-Version:
1.0
Content-Type:
text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Shannon,
the
writer Fernanda Pivano in the '60s was in correspondence
with
Henri Cru (in OTR he is Remi Boncoeur),
exempli
gratia:
#1
''Dear
Miss Pivano, please permit me to introduce myself...
My name
is Henry Cru and my best friend "Jack Kerouac"
sent ne
the enclosed postal card on my trip around the
world.
I am an electrician on the President Jackson and
we are
scheduled to arrive in Genoa June sixt or possibly
a day
or two later. In Jack's best selling novel On The
Road he
named himself "Sal Paradise" and he called me
"Remi
Bon Coeur". According to his card he wishes for me
to tell
you that I am Remi and then he sent me. I have no
idea
why he wants me to tell you this but knowing Jack as
I do he
must have some kind of mystical reason. I would be
delighted
to receive a card from you enlightening me to
Kerouac's
motives. My very best wishes.''.
#2
"Dear
Nanda & Ettore, I have been on the road ona on the
ocean
for many years but when ''Mon Frere'' Jack Kerouac
forget
about ''the Beatnik Generation'' and starts to
entertain
notions of scraping all his nonsensical ideas
about
non conformism and starts to formulatae a gospel that
will
bring peace to this miserable world, peoples in every
land
will find love and genuine kindness like I found in
this
home where I was treated like a King... Merci du fond
de mon
coeur. Henri Cru "Remi Bon Coeur" ''.
Henri
Cru, (Remi Boncoeur) is very important &
Jack
Kerouac devoted alot of pages about him
in "On the Road"
but
Henri Cru is not mentioned in the Legend of Beat, why?
Boncoeur
said "You can't teach the old maestro a new tone",
i
consider the best motto in all OTR,
saluti
Rinaldo.
*
"Aaaaah
Paradise, he comes in through the window,
he
follows instructions to a T."---Remi Boncoeur in JK's OTR
*
At
08.55 12/08/97 -0700,
"Shannon
L. Stephens" <shanstep@CS.ARIZONA.EDU> wrote:
>I'm
still working on "On the Road," and have a character question.
>Don't
jump all over me for this...if it screams ignorance...chalk it up
>to
unfamiliarity. Who is Remi...and subsequently Lee Ann?
>
>-shannon
>
>
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 13 Aug 1997 08:03:19 -0400
Reply-To: Bruce Hartman
<bwhartmanjr@INAME.COM>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: Bruce Hartman
<bwhartmanjr@INAME.COM>
Subject: Re: Church of St. John
MIME-Version:
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J.,
Resident
Coltrane fanatic here. . . what
exactly are you offering copies
of? I've seen the article you're talking about,
and I must say that sounds
like
the coolest place in the world. I just
hope one of these days I'll
make it
to San Francisco to experience it personally.
If
you've got leads on any other obscure Coltrane info on the web shoot 'em
my
way. I surfed well into (probably a few
thousand sites deep) the
altavista
return for "Coltrane" and was pretty let down by the majority of
the
tributes. . .
Best to
you,
Bruce
bwhartmanjr@iname.com
http://www.geocities.com/~tranestation
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 13 Aug 1997 09:04:35 EDT
Reply-To: Fred Bogin <FDBBC@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
Comments: Resent-From: Fred Bogin
<FDBBC@cunyvm.cuny.edu>
Comments: Originally-From: Matthias_Schneider
<magrobi@mail.zedat.fu-berlin.de>
From: Fred Bogin
<FDBBC@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
Subject: Help! I am looking for an citation by
Ginsberg
Mime-Version:
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Hi
folks!
I am
working at a thesis on Contemporary
American Literature, and I have
once
heard a citation by Ginsberg of which I have lost the source.
It=B4s
about his attitude about literature which he considers as something
like
leaving traces that can be followed and by this have to be
interpreteted
and even translated .
Any idea?
Thanks,
M.
Schneider (Berlin)
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 13 Aug 1997 09:40:21 EDT
Reply-To: Fred Bogin <FDBBC@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
Comments: Resent-From: Fred Bogin
<FDBBC@cunyvm.cuny.edu>
Comments: Originally-From: Ddrooy@aol.com
From: Fred Bogin
<FDBBC@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
Subject: Re: Help! I am looking for an citation
by Ginsberg
Comments:
To: Bill Gargan <wxgbc@cunyvm.cuny.edu>
This
isn't the citation, but it does have the essence of the citation, one
thing
leading into another... and you may yet find it useful to your work:
..............................................................................
.....
In 1948
I had some kind of break in the normal modality of my consciousness.
While
alone living a relatively solitary vegetarian contemplative life,
reading
St. John of the Cross, Plotinus some, notions of "alone with the
Alone,"
or "one hand clapping," or The Cloud of Unknowing, or Plato's
Phaedrus,
and William Blake, I had what was--for me--an extraordinary break
in the
normal nature of my thought when something opened up.
I had
finished masturbating, actually, on the sixth floor of a Harlem
tenement
on 121st Street looking out at the roofs while reading Blake, back
and
forth, and suddenly had a kind of auditory hallucination, hearing
Blake-what
I thought was his voice, very deep, earthen tone, not very far
from my
own mature tone of voice, so perhaps a projection of my own latent
physiology-reciting
a poem called "The Sunflower," which I thought expressed
some
kind of universal longing for union with some infinite nature. The poem
goes,
"Ah, Sunflower/Weary of time/Who counteth the steps of the sun/Seeking
after
that sweet golden clime where the traveler's journey is done/Where the
youth
pined away with desire/And the pale virgin shrouded with snow/Arise
from
their graves and aspire where my sunflower wishes to go."
I can't
interpret it exactly now, but the impression that I had at the time
was of
some infinite yearning for the infinite, finally realized, and I
looked
out the window and began to notice the extraordinary detail of
intelligent
labor that had gone into the making of the rooftop cornices of
the
Harlem buildings. And I suddenly realized that the world was, in a sense,
not
dead matter, but an increment or deposit of living intelligence and
action
and activity that finally took form-the Italian laborers of 1890 and
1910,
making very fine copper work and roofcomb ornament as you find along
the
older tenement apartment buildings.
And as
I looked at the sky I wondered what kind of intelligence had made that
vastness,
or what was the nature of the intelligence that I was glimpsing,
and
felt a sense of vastness and of coming home to a space I hadn't realized
was
there before but which seemed old and infinite, like the ancient of Days,
so to
speak.
But I
had no training in anything but Western notions and didn't know how to
find a
vocabulary for the experience, so I thought I had seen "God" or
"Light"
or some western notion of a theistic center, or that was the
impression
at the time.
..........................................................................
Here's
the link to the entire interview: <A
HREF="http://www.shambhalasun.com
/ginsberg.html">The
Spiritual Biography of Allen Ginsberg</A>
Good
luck.
Diane
De Rooy
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 13 Aug 1997 10:29:49 EST
Reply-To: DUST MY BROOM <breithau@KENYON.EDU>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: DUST MY BROOM
<breithau@KENYON.EDU>
Subject: Kesey schedule, attention Canadians
Just a
reminder to check the schedule of Kesey and his Pranksters as the bus
heads
east and north once again on the Grandfurthur II Tour. If I remember, he
is
making some stops in Canada. Click on the GRAND FURTHUR II Tour via
WWW.INTREPIDTRIPS.COM
They
may be coming soon to a town near you!
Dave B.
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 13 Aug 1997 11:48:06 EDT
Reply-To: Fred Bogin <FDBBC@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: Fred Bogin
<FDBBC@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
Organization:
Brooklyn College Library
Subject: ANother German Burroughs obit
Sueddeutsche
Zeitung (Munich) August 4, 1997
Bill
the Ripper
Zum Tod
von Amerikas Saeulenheiligen
William
S. Burroughs
Liebe
Kinder, bitte nicht nachmachen!
Nach
Augenzeugenberichten war es nur ein
Partyspiel.
Aber weil zur Bowle Peyote
gereicht
wurde und Marihuana, pflanzte
Burroughs
seiner Frau einen Apfel auf
den
Kopf, spielte Wilhelm Tell und
schoss.
Der Apfel ueberstand das Spiel,
aber
Joan Vollmer war auf der Stelle
tot.
Halbwegs vernuenftige Menschen
wuerden
jetzt das Fixen und Kiffen sein
lassen
und nie wieder eine Waffe
anfassen,
aber William Burroughs knallte
sich
weiter rein, was an Halluzinogenen
zu
kriegen war. In der Einleitung zum
Naked
Lunch (1959) spricht er von einer
45
Jahre waehrenden Sucht; wer ihn
besuchte
in den letzten Jahren, musste
mit ihm
zuallererst auf Blechbuechsen
ballern.
Der Mann war offensichtlich
verrueckt.
Oder
Amerikaner. Da stand er 1990 auf
der
Buehne des Thalia Theaters in Hamburg
neben
Robert Wilson und Lou Reed, ein
hoffnungslos
in seinem Buchhalteranzug
verschrumpfter
Opa, zerknittert und bis
aufs
feinste Knoechelchen entfleischt,
nicht
mehr von dieser Welt, aber durch
saemtliche
Formen geschritten, ein
Saeulenheiliger
der Avantgarde, der alles
ueberlebt
hatte. Aufgefuehrt wurde sein
Musical
Black Rider, eine
Freischuetz-Geschichte
-- und wieder eine
toedliche
Kugel aus Liebe.
William
Seward Burroughs, 1914 in St.
Louis
als Fabrikantensohn geboren, war
nun
wirklich fuer Besseres geboren. Wie
sein
Landsmann T. S. Eliot ein
Vierteljahrhundert
zuvor ging er nach
Harvard
zum Studieren, dann nach Europa,
aber
irgendwann drehte er durch und
machte
seinen Unfrieden mit dem Alptraum
Amerika.
Meldete sich eines schoenen
Tages
beim FBI und wollte Geheimagent
werden.
Sie lehnten ihn
vernuenftigerweise
ab. Ersatzweise wurde
er
rauschgiftsuechtig und lebte nun
selber
in bestaendiger Furcht vor den
Haeschern.
Einer wie Burroughs war
geboren
fuer die Grosse Amerikanische
Paranoia.
Mit der
Verbissenheit seiner Vorvaeter --
dieser
Geldverdiener und sittenstrengen
Stuetzen
der Gemeinde --, mit der gleichen
inbruenstigen
Verbissenheit setzte sich
Burroughs
jeder Sucht dieser irdischen
Welt
aus, lungerte in Tanger herum, wo
er die
Sonne nicht vertrug, schrieb,
obwohl
er nicht wusste wie und wovon er
leben
sollte, schrieb auf Entzug und im
Rausch,
wie ein Suechtiger.
Sie
sind ziemlich schwer zu lesen, seine
Buecher,
cut up. Zerstueckelt habe er
seine
Texte bis zur Unverstaendlichkeit,
immer
neu zusammengefuegt und dabei
zerfleddert.
Aber brauchte so viel
Wahnsinn
ueberhaupt eine Methode? Sie
sollten
"reines Fleisch" sein, schrieb
ihm
sein Freund Allen Ginsberg ins Buch,
"ohne
symbolische Sosse". Weh dem, der
Symbole
sieht in seinen Tausendfuesslern,
Halbtieren
und Dreiviertelmonstern!
Alles
Fleisch vom Fleische Amerikas, die
schlichte
Wahrheit, wie Burroughs sie
sah im
Wahn. "Ich bin", versicherte er,
"ich
bin nur ein Aufzeichnungsgeraet."
Roland
Barthes harfte ausgiebig ueber den
Nullpunkt,
an dem sich die Literatur um
1960
angeblich befand, aber Burroughs
beschrieb
diesen Punkt nicht bloss,
sondern
stach immer wieder hinein, nahm
sich
staendig neue Proben ab, zerfetzte
sich
und seine Texte. Der Dichter in
seiner
besten Eigenschaft als Schlitzer.
Entziehungskuren
mussten dann sein, mal
bei Dr.
Wilhelm Reich, dann bei L. Ron
Hubbard,
aber weder die Orgonmaschine
noch
die Scientology halfen. Und so fand
er nach
zwei Ehefrauen und einem Sohn
zurueck
zu den Freuden der Jugend, zur
Erinnerung
an die ersten verstohlenen
Griffe
in die fremde Unterhose. Gegen so
viel
Leben kommt das Werk nicht an,
schon
allein, weil es nach den fruehen
Buechern
Methode wurde. Aber: Von Velvet
Underground
ueber Patti Smith bis Kurt
Cobain
folgten sie ihm nach -- und war er
nicht
ein Heiliger?
In New
York verschanzte er sich in einem
Gelass
in der Bowery, vierfach verriegelt
gegen
die Penner und Junkies draussen,
die
ihn, den alten gebrechlichen Mann,
vielleicht
haetten ueberfallen koennen,
waehrend
er sich drin, umgeben von
Stahlruten,
Revolvern und Pornoheften,
ausmalte,
wie es wohl war, von den
wilden
Kerlen ueberfallen zu werden.
Zuletzt
kehrte er zurueck in den
Mittleren
Westen, zu seinen xenophoben,
dafuer
gottesfuerchtigen Mitbuergern,
schiesswuetig
wie sie und nicht weniger
paranoid.
Sie wussten genau, dass die
Kommunisten
(wahlweise die Juden, die
Katholiken)
das Trinkwasser vergiftet
hatten
oder der CIA das Aids-Virus
gezuechtet,
um die ganze Menschheit
auszurotten.
Burroughs sammelte all
diese
Geschichten und bewegte sie in
seinem
Herzen. Dann schoss er wieder auf
seine
Blechbuechsen.
Aber
bitte, liebe Kinder, nicht
nachmachen
zu Hause! Am Samstag ist der
gute
Amerikaner William S. Burroughs in
Lawrence
(Kansas) im Alter von 83 Jahren
gestorben.
WILLI
WINKLER
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 13 Aug 1997 11:48:33 EDT
Reply-To: Fred Bogin <FDBBC@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: Fred Bogin
<FDBBC@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
Organization:
Brooklyn College Library
Subject: Oops
Sorry
about that last post. I hit the wrong key too soon. It was a
Burroughs
obit from the Munich paper, Sueddeutsche Zeitung. Thanks to Leon
for
translating the other one, sorry I'm too lazy to do it myself. If
you
want to do this one, too... :-)
Fred
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 13 Aug 1997 09:29:54 -0700
Reply-To: "Penn, Douglas, K"
<dkpenn@OEES.COM>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: "Penn, Douglas, K"
<dkpenn@OEES.COM>
Subject: Re: Wall Street Journal 'n Fruity
Pebbles
Comments:
To: "stauffer@pacbell.net" <stauffer@pacbell.net>
MIME-Version:
1.0
Content-Type:
text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Content-Transfer-Encoding:
7bit
James
writ:
<<
>But
I
>am
still for free speech, even stupid speech. Good art always seems to
>be
able to outlast stupid criticism. Such
a tirade may even attract
>readers
for Ginsberg's and Burrough's work.
>>
good
art, <hm>.... Been talking backchannel about death and
aesthetics. How death always wins over style and
substance and whatnot.
At least I'm assuming that's the end
equation. Can a writer/artist be
immortal? That's the question. Will the remaining works leave enough
of an
impression to live forever?
And
then we get talking about "art for art's" sake. Yep, I'm a firm
believer
in that; but I don't think it's unfair to also ask what *work*
does a
piece do. What *work*? And not *if* it is art, but *when* is it
art?
driving
into work today, thinking of all my old friends. 5 years oughta
college,
10 years oughta high school. and all
them before and since.
Promotion? What is that dirty dog? A:
It's an attitude I haven't
quite
grasped yet. The citation and linking
of "new" and "cool" with a
person. All these newspapers, all the television
shows, all the fucking
middlemen
mucking up the works, taking their 5-10%+.
Promotion taking
it's
cut of the action.
PJ
Harvey's "driving" pumping on the car stereo, waiting for the light
to
change. Attractive executive woman in a
uptown car applies makeup.
Nerd boy
to my right thinks about his code unraveling in various places.
And where am I? Who am I hustling today?
and
death? you wanna piece of me? come and take it
>>
J Stauffer
Douglas
>
>
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 13 Aug 1997 12:35:51 -0400
Reply-To: CVEditions@AOL.COM
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: Pamela Beach Plymell
<CVEditions@AOL.COM>
Subject: Re: Bill faces judgement (fwd)
Comments:
To: mrice@centuryinter.net
In a
message dated 97-08-13 12:20:02 EDT, you write:
<< glad the Wall Street Journal didn't suddenly
decide to
>> embrace Burroughs and call him a ge
>>
I'm
with you there. Though, I think the writer was some of that new
merchandise
who will never have that old spirit B talked about. That is
sad...for
them .Oh Brave Newts.
C.
Plymell
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 13 Aug 1997 09:42:59 -0700
Reply-To: "Penn, Douglas, K"
<dkpenn@OEES.COM>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: "Penn, Douglas, K"
<dkpenn@OEES.COM>
Subject: Re: Last look at Walgreens?
Comments:
To: "CVEditions@AOL.COM" <CVEditions@AOL.COM>
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C writ:
<<
>I
wonder if Burroughs cut to another stratasphere, or is he peering
>around in a black hole looking for Huncke to ferret
out the scence?
>>
and
death as in life Charley Brown?
Interesting to read all these obits
and
questions of beatness. That Burroughs
wasn't an optimist, wasn't
this
and that compared to Kerouac and Ginsberg.
So he didn't care what
people
thought? Didn't care about this and
that ideal?
and in
death? free of this mortal coil, so to
speak, then what? Maybe
he's
living a completely different life now.
Am feeling poetic and
generally
pissed off this morning. I'll die a 1000
deaths and report
back
later.
>>
C Plymell
Douglas
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 13 Aug 1997 12:44:04 EDT
Reply-To: Bill Gargan <WXGBC@CUNYVM.BITNET>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: Bill Gargan
<WXGBC@CUNYVM.BITNET>
Subject: Thanks Leon
Good
shot at that translation. My buddy Fred
who posted it said that it would
be
tough to translate because of slang.
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 13 Aug 1997 14:47:58 -0500
Reply-To: Michael Skau
<mskau@CWIS.UNOMAHA.EDU>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: Michael Skau
<mskau@CWIS.UNOMAHA.EDU>
Subject: burroughs
Content-Type:
text
Hello
again.
I've
been out of town for a few weeks and quit the list for that
period.
I saw about Burroughs's passing in a newspaper.
Has
anyone seen any comments from either Corso or Ferlinghetti on
his
death? If so, could you let me know where you saw them by
contacting
me on the list or privately.
Thanks.
I appreciate it in advance.
Cordially,
Mike
Skau
8/13/97
mskau@cwis.unomaha.edu
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 13 Aug 1997 18:36:01 EDT
Reply-To: Bill Gargan <WXGBC@CUNYVM.BITNET>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: Bill Gargan <WXGBC@CUNYVM.BITNET>
I've
had several requests to change the reply function on the list so
that
all replies default to the list rather than the sender. Since
traffic
seems to have become more reasonable lately, I've asked Fred
Bogin
to change the default tomorrow morning.
After this is done, your
reply
will be sent directly to all list members.
Please keep this in
mind to
avoid sending private messages out to the whole list.
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 13 Aug 1997 18:59:29 -0400
Reply-To: Judith Campbell
<boondock@POBOX.COM>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: Judith Campbell
<boondock@POBOX.COM>
Subject: McCarthy Review of Naked Lunch Online
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The New
York Book of Reviews has posted the entire content of the first
issue
online, including the review of Naked Lunch by Mary McCarthy.
The
url: http://www.nybooks.com/nyrev/firstcontents.html
Enjoy!
Judith
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 13 Aug 1997 20:04:12 -0700
Reply-To: "Michael R. Brown"
<foosi@GLOBAL.CALIFORNIA.COM>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: "Michael R. Brown"
<foosi@GLOBAL.CALIFORNIA.COM>
Subject: Re: Was Burroughs really a beat writer?
Comments:
To: Richard Wallner <rwallner@CAPACCESS.ORG>
In-Reply-To: <Pine.SUN.3.91-FP.970812220342.23103A-100000@cap1.capaccess.org>
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On Tue,
12 Aug 1997, Richard Wallner wrote:
>
Heard an interesting argument recently in discussions about Burroughs
>
life. It was argued that Bill Burroughs
was not really a beat writer.
>
Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg and most of the other beat writers, saw
>
their literary efforts as part of a religious mission, a search for faith
> as
it were. Most of them were into eastern
religions and philosphies and
>
the ideas of finding peace in mind spirit, and soul.
Oh,
Burroughs was at least as religious as Kerouac, Ginsberg & Co. Ker and
Gins
were more in the extroverted, extrojected Catholic or Tibetan
Buddhist
line. Burr had religion, but it had no deity-object, no cathedral
(other
tha, perhaps, the experiential soma), no Holy Book. He was in the
minimalist-to-negative-theology
family of Zen, Nagarjuna, Pierre de
Caussade
S.J. (_Abandonment to Divine Providence_ - *good book), and
minimalist
good-works Protestantism.
"Beat"
perhaps has no wider meaning than Kerouac, Ginsberg, Burroughs,
Ferlinghetti,
et fils. What does "Impressionist" mean other than those
painters?
But if "Beat" has any general meaning, it would seem to be the
the following:
-
sacredness of immediate inspiration
-
defiance of past forms/formulas
-
Whitmanesque onward rushing motion
-
concrete-oriented street-grit in style
-
sexual and pharmacological themes
-
nomadic narrators
-
combination of cynical or even resigned-depressive tendencies (style
often emotionally flat) with idealism.
Highly
religious, and fits Burr perfectly.
+ -- +
-- + -- + -- + -- + -- + -- + -- + -- + -- + -- + -- + -- + -- +
Michael R. Brown foosi@global.california.com
+ -- +
-- + -- + -- + -- + -- + -- + -- + -- + -- + -- + -- + -- + -- +
"Wittgenstein said that if the universe
is pre-recorded, the only thing
not pre-recorded is those recordings
themselves. In my work,
the cut-ups and all, I attempt to get at
the substance of the
recordings."
- William S.
Burroughs
(quoted from
memory)
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 13 Aug 1997 23:27:50 -0400
Reply-To: "R. Bentz Kirby"
<bocelts@SCSN.NET>
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List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: "R. Bentz Kirby"
<bocelts@SCSN.NET>
Organization:
Law Office of R. Bentz Kirby
Subject: [Fwd: Old Bull Lee]
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I
thought this was a particularly good post from the Dylan newsgroup.
Patricia,
maybe he could still come to Lawrence, but what would he do,
maybe
he could feed the cats or something.
Peace,
--
Bentz
bocelts@scsn.net
http://www.scsn.net/users/sclaw
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Supernews69!SupernewsFH!news.maxwell.syr.edu!news.eecs.umich.edu!newshub.tc.umn
.edu!news.d.umn.edu!bulldog.d.umn.edu!mlenz
From:
mlenz@bulldog.d.umn.edu (michael lenz)
Newsgroups:
rec.music.dylan
Subject:
Old Bull Lee
Date:
12 Aug 1997 20:42:38 GMT
Organization:
University of Minnesota, Duluth
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Supernews69 rec.music.dylan:89808
i'm not
a regular reader of this newsgroup.
this is my first visit since the
death
of mr.
burroughs. i have to say i'm apalled at
at the general brutality and
ignorance
that is reigning in here. you cannot
place a value on literature. it
is
not
quantitative. you cannot say that
hemingway is better than burroughs or
that
burroughs
is better than hemingway. you can like
them both, one of them or
neither. i think to fully appreciate burroughs you
have to here the voice.
burroughs
voice is that of a withered shaman. his
work is about culture's
absurd
attempt
to keep up with the technological explosion.
it reflects in dark humor
the
entropy
and isolation that has come to earmark postmodern lioterature. for me
he
was
among the best. i value cut-ups and
other such experimental forms of
writing.
i put
only pynchon before him and i hesitate to do that because as i said
before,
it's
not a quantitative thing. i was
planning a trip to lawrence next summer,
maybe
take in a few horde/furthur shows on the way and sit on the old mystic's
porch
for a while. (i know people who have
done this. burroughs was always a
gentleman
to the wayfarers). i don't know who
said what, nor do i care, but the
person
who said that he never wrote anything good after Junkie (it was
origanally
published
"Junkie" then reprinted "Junky") and Naked Lunch is
ignorant of that
last
triumphant
trilogy (Cities of the Red Night, Place of Dead Roads, and The
Western
Lands)
and the short, but beautiful "The Cat Inside". Burroughs caused me to
question
in my own thinking and writing such elemetary things as words and
phrases.
to
discount his body of work as a "blight" is ignorant and
short-sighted. i for
one
will miss the voice and am sorry that my plans were a summer too late.
mike
lenz
p.s.
Check out Ports of Entry. it's a book
of Burroughs artwork. he was
equally
talented
and equally inventive in that as an artist and a writer.
--------------9DEC3992ADB3BC61D795DE66--
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 14 Aug 1997 00:47:55 -0400
Reply-To: Antoine Maloney
<stratis@ODYSSEE.NET>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: Antoine Maloney
<stratis@ODYSSEE.NET>
Subject: Re: LUTHER ALLISON
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Richard,
Thought you'd like to know that our
local paper , the Montreal
Gazette
(founded by Ben Franklin believe it or not!) had a nice obituary
about
Luther Allison. They described his great show at this year's Montreal
Jazz
Festival (which we missed!?!) and what a great receptiion he had.
Also, CBC (the Canadian Broadcasting
Corporation, our counterpart to
NPR)
had a nice bit about Luther on their national radio news at 6:00pm
yesterday,
finishing up with "Walkin' Papers". Very nice.
My regards and condolences,
Antoine
Voice contact at (514) 933-4956 in Montreal
"An anarchist is someone who doesn't
need a cop to tell him what to do!"
-- Norman Navrotsky
and Utah Phillips
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 14 Aug 1997 10:17:51 +0200
Reply-To: Rinaldo Rasa <rinaldo@GPNET.IT>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: Rinaldo Rasa <rinaldo@GPNET.IT>
Subject: about razor
In-Reply-To:
<c=US%a=_%p=OEES%l=SD-MAIL-970812172530Z-539@sd-mail.sd.oee s.com>
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>Rinaldo,
you are such a tease. Somebody please
translate?
>
>Douglas
>> ENTIA NON SUNT MULTIPLICANDA
>> PRAETER NECESSITATEM...
>>
please,
excuse me, the translation is
"IT IS VAIN TO DO WITH MORE
WHAT CAN BE DONE WITH FEWER"
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 14 Aug 1997 08:44:33 -0400
Reply-To: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation List"
<BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: James J Stavola
<JDSept@AOL.COM>
Subject: Re: Was Burroughs really a beat writer?
Comments:
To: rwallner@capaccess.org
Certainly
WSB was a beat writer,maybe not in the total sense of religious
mission
or so called peace of mind that you mentioned but all of them were a
reaction
to that little white house Leave it to Beaver mentality of the late
40s and
early 50s.I think the begining of the beat movement was actually a
reaction
to the boring mentality of America at that time by the showing of
the
fringe livers.WSB certainly fills that concept.Afterwards the writers
went in
many individual but loosely tied direction but the original bindings
were
still there.most of these guys lived in some kind of exile WSB by
himself
or in a group type exile as some of the others did.The idea of
beatness
goes farther then just writing anyways.The ultimate beat(terrible
term)
who most admired and was a starting point for some of them Neal C. was
hardly
a writer at all.I think WSB fits the beat mold.
thank-you
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 14 Aug 1997 09:04:00 -0400
Reply-To: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation List"
<BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation List"
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From: "Hemenway . Mark"
<MHemenway@DRC.COM>
Subject: Lowell Schedule
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----------
From: Mark Hemenway[SMTP:mhemenway@igc.apc.org]
Sent: Wednesday, August 13, 1997 9:57 PM
To: Hemenway . Mark
10th
Annual Lowell Celebrates Kerouac! Festival 2-5 October 1997
Lowell,
MA Jack Kerouac Celebrates Lowell
THURSDAY
2 OCTOBER
Barbara
Concannon-Crete Memorial Poetry Prize- High School Poetry
9:00AM-11:00AM
Lowell
High School Poetry Competition for High School Students-
for
Information call 508-452-7966
Downtown
Kerouac Places- Walking Tour
4:30-6:00
PM
Roger
Brunelle leads a walking tour of
Kerouac's downtown. Begins
at
Middlesex Community College, ends at the Pollard Memorial
Library.
Images
of Kerouac '97- Reception and
Photography Exhibition
6:00PM-
8:00PM
Whistler
House Museum of Art, 243 Worthen Street
Open exhibition
of
photography inspired by Jack Kerouac or the Beats. Entries
welcome.
Deadline 12 September. Co-sponsored by the Whistler House
Museum
of Art, 508-452-7641.
Jack
Kerouac Literary Prize Award
7:00PM
Whistler
House Museum of Art, 243 Worthen Street Presentation of
the 9th
Annual Jack Kerouac Literary Prize. The prize is sponsored
by The
Estate of Jack and Stella Kerouac, Lowell Celebrates
Kerouac!,
Inc. and Middlesex Community College.
Dr Sax
Nights- Walking Tours
8:00PM-10:00PM
Roger Brunelle
leads a walking tour of Kerouac's Pawtucketville.
Tour
begins at MacDonald's Mammoth Rd, ends at
the Spaulding
House, Pawtucket Blvd. for discussion. Rain or
shine.
Friends
and Music
10:00PM-12:00PM
Greek
Band, Greek food and Lowell Poets. The Athenian Corner
Restaurant,
207 Market Street.
FRIDAY
3 OCTOBER
3rd
Annual Beat Literature Symposium
8:00AM-5:00PM
O'Leary
Library, Room 222, South Campus, UMASS-Lowell 9:00AM-12:00
Noon -
Presentation of Papers 2:00PM - Keynote Presentation by Ann
Douglas,
Columbia University 3:00PM-5:00 - Panel discussions
Leading
scholars present original research on beat authors,
writing
techniques and cultural phenomena. No charge.
For
information
and pre-registration, call 508-934-2446. Sponsored by
the
English Department and the Department of Continuing Education,
UMASS-Lowell.
Mystic
Jack- Walking Tour
5:00PM-6:00PM
Begins
and ends at St. Louis Church, Centralville. Tour by Roger
Brunelle.
Memorial
Mass for Jack and Stella Kerouac
6:00PM-7:00PM
St.
Louis de France Church, Centralville
Listen
to the Beat- Readings
8:00PM-10:00PM
The
Parkway Cafe, 350 Market Street Poets
Vincent Ferrini,
Patricia
Smith, Michael Brown, Lawrence Carradini, and Meg Smith.
Singer
song-writer, Bob Martin present and
evening of performance
poetry
and music. Suggested donation $3.00.
Friends
Music and Lowell Poets
10:00PM-12:00PM
Park
Way Cafe
SATURDAY
4 OCTOBER
Nashua
- Bus Tour
RESERVATIONS
REQUIRED
9:00AM-1:00PM
9:00AM-
Depart from Lowell Barnes and Noble. Reservations can be
made in
person, or call 508-458-3939. 9:30AM-
Depart Nashua, NH
Barnes
and Noble. NH. For reservations, call Laura Eanes at
603-897-0777. A bus tour of Kerouac places in Nashua, NH.
Small
Press Book Fair
10:00AM-4:00PM
Memorial
Hall, Pollard Library A sampling of local presses and
Kerouac
material. Co-sponsored by the Pollard Memorial Library and
Friends
of the Library.
Commemorative
at the Commemorative- Honoring Jack Kerouac and
Allen
Ginsberg 11:00AM-12:00Noon The Kerouac Commemorative, Bridge
and
French Streets
Strictly
Kerouac- Dance
12:30-1:00
PM
The
Courtyard at the Market Street Visitor's Center, Lowell
National
Historical Park Jan Zwadney and a Feast of Friends
interprets
Kerouac in dance, music and word.
Allen
Ginsberg and Friends: A Photographic Remembrance
1:00PM-
3:00PM Brush Art Gallery, Market Street Visitors Center
Photographs
by Gordon Ball, Elsa Dorfman, Gerard Malanga and Fred
McDarrah.
Exhibition open from September 25 - November 16th.
Gallery
Talk- Gordon Ball
1:30PM
Brush Art Gallery, Market Street Visitor Center
Photographer
and Ginsberg editor, Gordon Ball talks about
photographing
Allen Ginsberg.
Poetry
at the Rainbow Cafe 4:00PM-6:00PM Rainbow Cafe, Cabot
Street
Anne
Waldman and Friends- A Tribute to Allen Ginsberg
8:00PM-10:00PM
Smith Baker Auditorium, Merrimack Street-
Admission-
$7.00 Anne Waldman, renowned poet, performer, and
editor
leads a tribute to the Dharma Lion. James Cameron on
saxophone.
Music
Friends and Lowell Poets 10:00PM -12:00 PM The Downstairs
Cafe,
Merrimack Street
SUNDAY
5 OCTOBER The Jack Kerouac Tour- Bus Tour 9:30AM-11:30AM
RESERVATIONS
REQUIRED Departs from Middlesex
Community College,
Merrimack
Street Bus tour of Kerouac's Lowell. Call 508-452-7966
for
reservations. Please give name, phone number and number of
places
reserved. Words and Music- Open Mic
1:00PM-3:00PM
The Coffee Mill, Palmer Street.
Lowell
Celebrates Kerouac!, Inc. is a non-profit corporation
dedicated
to the celebration, enjoyment and study of Jack Kerouac
and his
writings. Whenever possible, events are free, however,
donations
are gratefully accepted for continued support of the
annual
Lowell Celebrates Kerouac! Festival.. To make a donation,
or to
find out more about Lowell Celebrates Kerouac!, Inc., write:
P.O.
Box 1111, Lowell, MA 01853.
Before
he died at age 47, Jack Kerouac published 24 books
chronicling
the lives and adventures of the post war generation in
America.
The raw energy and beauty of his prose established a new
standard
in American literature. Jack Kerouac was born, raised and
remained
a native of Lowell throughout his life. 5 of his novels
take
place in Lowell, and the city is mentioned in virtually every
one of
his books. His descriptions of Lowell are remarkable for
their
beauty, power and timelessness. Through them, millions of
readers
have come to know Lowell as a universal hometown.
This
publication is funded....
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 13 Aug 1997 21:50:38 -0700
Reply-To: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation List"
<BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: Diane Carter <dcarter@TOGETHER.NET>
Subject: Re: [Fwd: Re: For Diane M. Homza,
"In regards"]
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I am
forwarding this post for Arthur so he doesn't have to retype it as
we start our discussion of Naked Lunch/On the
Road/Howl. There is also
quite a long essay on how to approach Naked
Lunch at www.bigtable.com
DC
>
---------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
Subject: Re: For Diane M. Homza, "In regards"
>
Date: Thu, 24 Jul 1997 15:07:38 -0400
>
From: Arthur Nusbaum <SSASN@AOL.COM>
>
Reply-To: SSASN@AOL.COM
>
To: BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU
>
>
Dear Diane:
>
> I
would like to offer some suggestions for your reading of NAKED LUNCH.
> It
>
was also the first WSB book that I read in its entirety, almost 2
>
decades
>
ago, and it can indeed be a little daunting as your first exposure to
>
one of
>
the great literary and cultural figures of our waning century, and a
>
prophet
> of
the next and beyond. In the intervening
years since I was in your
>
position, I have read, seen, heard and interacted with virtually every
>
published item that I am aware of by or about WSB, including the great
>
man
>
himself whom I visited 2&1/2 years ago.
Besides my posts that are
>
flowing at
> a
steady rate on this List and to some of its correspondents
>
individually, I
>
have done a small amount of scholarly writing on him myself. So, I
>
believe I
> am
qualified to answer your call for support and advice.
>
>
After having read NL several times and absorbed a lot of commentary on
> it
>
from many sources, I thought I had a fair handle on it. But luckily
>
for you,
>
there now exists an unprecedented guide, a key to understanding this
>
kaleidescopic work. An audio version of
the book, read by WSB himself,
> is
>
available. I have the cd version, I
know there is a cassette edition
>
also,
>
and it should still be available in stock or by order, it only came out
>
about
> 2
years ago this fall. Although abridged,
it is 3 hours long and most
> of
the
>
text is there. I cannot stress how
highly I recommend that you listen
> to
WSB
>
read NL, it is clear, well-paced, and the very ways in which he
>
emphasizes
>
and modulates words and sentences bring them into focus and out of the
>
fragmentary fog from which they can fade in and out of the text without
>
this
>
aid. You could finish reading NL and
then obtain the audio edition, or
>
better yet obtain and listen to it (at least twice) now, then return to
>
your
>
reading. My listening to the cd's no
less than doubled my
>
comprehension and
>
appreciation of this critical work. But
I should note something at
>
this
>
point- what I've said above does not
mean that you can't enjoy or
>
benefit
>
from NL without hearing it read by the author, one of the greatest
>
pleasures
> I
have gotten from it before or after being exposed to the cd's is to
>
savor
>
the evocative and poetic phrases that have a life of their own and jump
>
off
>
the page to burrow, so to speak, in your brain. Some of my favorites
>
from
>
this rich treasure trove are: "The
days glide by, strung on a syringe
>
with a
>
long thread of blood", "Motel...Motel...Motel...broken neon
>
arabesque...loneliness moans across the continent like foghorns over
>
still
>
oily water of tidal rivers" (one of my all-time favorite phrases in all
> of
>
literature), and so many more. As the
author advises near the end, you
>
can
>
re-order the pages and read them in any combination, this is a roiling,
>
organic work that should not be read with an attitude that it can be
>
reined
>
in, amenable to cliff-note condensation.
>
>
After you have read and heard NL, I further advise you to go back and
>
chronologically read all the works that precede it, in this way you
>
will see
>
how WSB arrived at NL and further appreciate his achievement in the
>
context
> of
his life and work up to that point. The
books, all still in print,
>
are in
>
order as follows: JUNKY, QUEER, THE
YAGE LETTERS (with Allen Ginsberg)
>
and
>
THE LETTERS OF WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS (1945-1959), which were written,
>
mostly
> to
AG, during the period leading up to the first publication of NL.
>
There is
>
another volume of letters written by WSB to AG, many of which do not
>
overlap
>
with the ones in the other, but it is hard to find. If you can locate
> it
>
(it's just titled WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS\LETTERS TO ALLEN GINSBERG
>
1953-1957),
> I
highly recommend it, some of the letters are real gems. The best
>
letters
> of
all, in my opinion, are those from WSB to AG in TYL above, it is a
>
perversely hilarious and quintessentially Burroughsian work that is
>
often
>
overlooked, short and fun to read again and again. All of these early
>
works
>
are written in a lucid, easily comprehensible style, although you'll
>
know
>
that only WSB could have written them.
Along with the above works, you
>
should also read the biography LITERARY OUTLAW: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF
>
WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS by Ted Morgan, concurrently, before or after them.
> It
>
will give you a good initial grounding in the life and experiences from
>
which
>
the works emerged, it was published in and goes up to 1988, beyond the
> NL
>
period so good enough for your purposes at this point. As with the
>
other
>
major Beat figures, the life and art are particularly intertwined and
>
mirrors
> of
each other. Finally, you should attempt
to see the film biography
>
BURROUGHS, directed by Howard Brookner, originally released in 1985.
>
Like
>
LO, it provides an initial overview.
>
> I
can assure you that you won't be sorry if you follow my suggestions,
>
and
>
would like to know how you're coming along from time to time. It may
>
seem as
> if
I've burdoned you with a semester's worth of reading, listening and
>
viewing, but if you catch the WSB virus, you will quickly devour these
>
items
>
and want MORE. A few more NL comments
to conclude for now- The
>
introductory
>
essays which probably appear in whatever edition you're reading,
>
TESTIMONY
>
CONCERNING A SICKNESS and LETTER FROM A MASTER ADDICT TO DANGEROUS
>
DRUGS are
>
remarkable in their clarity of language and are in themselves minor
>
masterpieces separable from NL even as they enrich it. And your
>
comment
>
about Macbeth is interesting. While an
undergraduate at Harvard, WSB
>
studied
>
Shakespeare, and he is familiar with and weaves quotes from the Bard in
>
his
>
works and conversation. WSB arrived at
his avant-garde experiments,
>
which
>
become literally more cutting-edge with the cutups after NL, from a
>
firm,
>
rounded educational and reading background, not to mention his myriad
>
experiences right up to and over the edge.
>
>
Well, enough for now. Good luck, and I
envy your reading these works
>
for the
>
first time, there's nothing like that first shot......
>
>
Regards,
>
>
Arthur S. Nusbaum
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 14 Aug 1997 09:00:19 -0500
Reply-To: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation List"
<BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: jo grant <jgrant@BOOKZEN.COM>
Subject: Re: Lowell Kerouac organizers
In-Reply-To:
<c=US%a=_%p=drc%l=AND02-970814130400Z-14979@and02.drc.com>
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>----------
>From:
"Hemenway . Mark" <MHemenway@DRC.COM>
>Sent: Wednesday, August 13, 1997 9:57 PM
>10th
Annual Lowell Celebrates Kerouac! Festival 2-5 October 1997
>Lowell,
MA Jack Kerouac Celebrates Lowell
>Memorial
Mass for Jack and Stella Kerouac
>6:00PM-7:00PM
>St.
Louis de France Church, Centralville
It is a
disgrace that Jack's daughter, Jan Kerouac, dead slightly more than
a year,
is not being included in this mass.
This is
such an overt act of hatred for a dear, compassionate, generous and
talented
writer/daughter that I am without words.
I can
only hope that beats, be they students, scholars, readers, or
wannabees
with heart, brains and gonads, will see that this kind of crap
ends--someday.
j grant
Small
Press Authors and Publishers display books
FREE
http://www.bookzen.com/addbook-form.html
375,913 visitors - 07-01-96 to
07-01-97
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 14 Aug 1997 08:03:15 -0700
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<BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation List"
<BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: runner <babu@ELECTRICITI.COM>
Subject: patti smith news (boston)
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got
some more news about patti smith
and her
continued support for beat artists
burroughs
and ginsberg
Interesting
to note her attitude
towards
performance
towards
friendship and art
and
<<ahem>>
that
she made drawings at AG's deathbed
anybody
from boston seen these??
stolen
from the babel-list (again)
From:
JP Jacob <jpjacob@bu.edu>
Date:
Wed, 13 Aug 1997 23:04:50 -0400
Subject:
Re: Boston show
Douglas
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Thanks
to all who came to the Boston show for support of the
Photographic
Resource Center. It was a great evening for me, and Patti,
Lenny,
and Oliver were also very happy. Before they left, much later
Monday
night, Patti said that the band will be doing a limited tour this
fall
that will include Boston, followed by a full scale tour next year.
Something
to look forward to!
I
haven't compared this with Mitch's note, so sorry for redundancy, but
here is
the complete setlist:
1.
Footnotes to Howl
<<[snip]>>
9.
Psalm 23 Revisited [her WSB poem]
What
was wonderful for me about the set, since this event was put
together
in conjunction with our exhibition at the PRC, was the thread
that
Patti wove throughout the show with pieces by and about the
important
artists in her life: Ginsberg (to whom the exhibition was
dedicated),
Burroughs, O'Keefe, Pollock, and Mapplethorpe.
It's
something that hasn't received too much attention, but the two new
drawings
in the exhibit are the first new drawings that Patti has shown
since
the 1970s (anyway, so she tells me). They're expansions of
sketches
and notes that she made at Ginsberg's deathbed (she was
carrying
the original sketches in her pocket while reading the Footnotes
from
Howl to us), and the performance seemed to me to come right out of
the
passion and the love that went into those drawings. That was the
starting
point.
<<[snip]>>
There's
one other thing. I had a real introduction, but Patti asked me
not to
read it. What I'd wanted to talk about is how impressed I have
been by
Patti, Lenny, and Oliver's ongoing support of organizations and
individuals,
taking positions in relation to small causes as readily as
to
issues of global importance. I mean, it's probably not too hard for a
celebrity
to support one or two important causes. But I think that it's
exhausting
and to some extent precarious for an artist these days to
support
many causes, especially the small, unproven ones (for example,
it's
easy to do a benefit for MoMA, but the Photographic Resource
Center?
An artists space with a staff of 3?).
I
remember that the Seegers, Mike and Pete, could always be counted to
show up
in support of local causes in the Hudson River valley area where
my
grandfather lived, and where I spent a lot of time during high
school.
I was always so impressed that they could function
simultaneously
on local and international levels that way. I don't feel
that
many artists today have that sense of commitment, and to see it in
Patti,
Lenny, and Oliver makes me proud to support them. Their
commitment
to the values that we share enables me to be *not* just a
consumer
of their products, but, to some extent, a part of the its
creation.
That kind of sharing is absent from most other
entertainer/artist/audience/venue
relationships that I experience. And I
think
that's what makes shows like Monday night's so wonderful and
renewing
for us as supporters of Patti's artwork.
That's
enough for now.
John
- --
jpjacob@bu.edu
Photographic
Resource Center at Boston University
http://web.bu.edu/PRC
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 14 Aug 1997 11:06:20 -0400
Reply-To: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation List"
<BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: Antoine Maloney <stratis@ODYSSEE.NET>
Subject: Re: about razor..Occam's
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This
has often been referred to as "Occam's razor", the desire to shave
away
any
excess conditions in an hypothesis or theory. Occam (Henry of ...?) as I
recall
was a contemporary of the monk-philosopher Francis Bacon, the central
figure
in "The Name of the Rose".
Antoine
***************
>>Rinaldo,
you are such a tease. Somebody please
translate?
>>
>>Douglas
>
>>> ENTIA NON SUNT MULTIPLICANDA
>>> PRAETER NECESSITATEM...
>>>
>
>please,
excuse me, the translation is
>
> "IT IS VAIN TO DO WITH MORE
> WHAT CAN BE DONE WITH FEWER"
>
Voice contact at (514) 933-4956 in Montreal
"An anarchist is someone who doesn't
need a cop to tell him what to do!"
-- Norman Navrotsky
and Utah Phillips
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 14 Aug 1997 11:06:22 -0400
Reply-To: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation List"
<BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: Antoine Maloney
<stratis@ODYSSEE.NET>
Subject: Re: Lowell Kerouac organizers
Mime-Version:
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Jo, ...please bear with me on this Jo; not a
flame war, and especially not
on the
first day that we have our reply priveleges reinstated!; read on.