On July 30, 1997, William Burroughs wrote: Reading Titanic by Charles Pellegrino. Page 18. What is an experience if it is not shared? Did it even happen? What he wrote later that day is more well-known, his last written words, which seem at a glance so out of character for a writer whose work can often seem inhuman: Love? What is It? Most natural painkiller what … [Read more...]
Translating the Counterculture: The Reception of the Beats in Turkey by Erik Mortenson, reviewed by Marc Olmsted
TRANSLATING THE COUNTERCULTURE The Reception of the Beats in Turkey by Erik Mortenson / Southern Illinois University Press / 978-0809336548 / 2018 The premise is a fascinating one. Erik Mortenson actually was IN Turkey during its attempted coup in 2016 and had to leave with his family. He taught at the Koç University in Istanbul, so this is no thesis conducted from afar. … [Read more...]
The Guardian and the Familiar: William S. Burroughs and Cats
“O fiery river “Spread over this American land. “Drown out the falsity, the smug contempt “For what does not pay … “What would you pay Christ to die again?” -- Kenneth Patchen, from “O Fiery River” William Burroughs has to look after his cats. “I simply could not stand to see my little cats hungry.” But there’s more to this than simple natural compassion. He sees … [Read more...]
Junk Nightmares
William Burroughs was troubled in his childhood by a “fear of nightmares.” The dreams themselves weren’t always so bad. Like when he seemed to wake to find little men playing in a block house he’d made – uncanny yes, but it filled him with wonder rather than fear. It wasn’t what he saw so much as what he didn’t see. “I was afraid to be alone, and afraid of the dark, and afraid … [Read more...]
City of the Red Night: Burroughs poems by Alan Catlin
City of the Red Night He came from some place so far away and unknowable there wasn't a word invented yet to describe it. He spoke of a city of unnatural red nights and impossible vivid days with a look so fervent, so distracted and sincere, there was no sense in calling his bluff on the odd chance his fantasies might just turn out to be … [Read more...]
Out to Lunch with William Burroughs: Who Owns the Dropper Owns the Fix
It was summer 1991, I think, when sharing a joint on a brick fire escape after a night of acid-tapped cartoon lunacy, my friend Steve exhaled smoke into the Manchester morning and casually asked if I’d heard of a writer called William Burroughs. I hadn’t, but that moment has stayed with me as the dawn of what was to become a deep and unremitting love for the man J.G. Ballard … [Read more...]
Sinclair Beiles: A Man Apart
Sinclair Beiles was a South African writer associated with the Beat movement of the late 50s and early 60s. During the time of his earliest successes, he moved from South Africa to Paris, to live with the community of writers and artists, which included Gregory Corso, Brion Gysin, and William Burroughs, among others, at what would become known as The Beat Hotel. Yet, this … [Read more...]
The Curse of the Blinding Worm. A close look at ‘Observed While Falling: Bill Burroughs, Ah Pook and Me’, by Malcolm McNeill
Colin Wilson read this extraordinary book at a single sitting. He can’t have been an exception. Malcolm McNeill’s Observed While Falling: Bill Burroughs, Ah Pook and Me sweeps you up into a multi-layered adventure that presses almost every button: it’s philosophy; it’s science fiction and it’s science fact. It plays astonishing tricks with reality. It’s a wild phantasmagoria … [Read more...]
William S. Burroughs centennial events at Lake Forest College
You are invited to join Lake Forest College in celebrating the 100th birthday of William S. Burroughs Lake Forest College, located in Lake Forest, Illinois, is helping to curate a series of events connected to the William S. Burroughs centennial. 1. Poetry in Performance: Gossamurmur, Gaza, Jaguar Harmonics Lily Reid Holt Memorial Chapel, Lake Forest College / … [Read more...]
Movie Review – Kill Your Darlings
Long before Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, and William S. Burroughs would be celebrated as the poetical and political figureheads of a 'beat generation,' there was a murder. In the new film, Kill Your Darlings, the crime scene sets itself at Columbia University, 1944, when a young Allen Ginsberg (Radcliffe) is introduced to the anarchic, pornographic mind of fellow student, … [Read more...]
Review – The Stray Bullet: William S. Burroughs in Mexico
The Stray Bullet: William S. Burroughs in Mexico by Jorge García-Robles, translated by Daniel C. Schechter / University of Minnesota Press / paperback / 978-0816680634 / 176 pages / October 2013 In 1990, Jorge García-Robles, professor of literature, traveled from Mexico to meet and interview William S. Burroughs in Lawrence, Kansas. Much of the information presented in … [Read more...]
Beat Generation film – Kill Your Darlings trailer released!
Kill Your Darlings dramatizes an actual event that took place in 1944, as the writers who would later be identified with the Beat Generation became embroiled in a murder that made headlines. While attending Columbia University, Allen Ginsberg became friends with Lucien Carr who introduced him to Jack Kerouac, William S. Burroughs - and to David Kammerer, an older man who was … [Read more...]
Review – The Beats: A Very Short Introduction by David Sterritt
The Beats: A Very Short Introduction by David Sterritt / Oxford University Press / 978-0-19-979677-9 / 126 pages David Sterritt's work might be familiar to Beat or film aficionados through his previous books, which include Mad to be Saved: The Beats, the '50s, and Film, and Screening the Beats: Media Culture and the Beat Sensibility among others. In The Beats: A Very … [Read more...]
Charged Vision: The Photographs of Allen Ginsberg
The photographs of Allen Ginsberg recently were on display at the Jewish Contemporary Museum in San Francisco. Walking through the museum is like going on a jaunt through Beat History. A spritely Jack Kerouac followed by the drunk. A youthful William Burroughs, and the junky with withered skin. Gregory Corso, Gary Snyder, Robert La Vigne, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and of course, … [Read more...]
A William S. Burroughs top ten from Jed B. with his comments
comment: So you have read Naked Lunch and Junkie and maybe even paged though the Nova Trilogy of Soft Machine, The Ticket That Exploded and Nova Express, you think you know William Burroughs. Well that is only the tip of the iceberg. Here is a list of ten Burroughs to sink your teeth into after you have gotten your feet wet. As with any list, this list has biases. The most … [Read more...]
The Teducated Mouth: John Barbato interviews Ted Joans
Ted Joans, one of the original Beat poets, was born in Cairo, Illinois on 4 July 1928. By his twenties, living in New York City, he moved in the surrealist world of painters, jazz players, and poets. If a scene was happening Joans had it covered. A partial list of his friends reads like a who's who of the important creators of the 20th century: Allen Ginsberg, Ella … [Read more...]
Book Review – The Beat Hotel by Barry Miles
With the July 2000 Grove Press release of The Beat Hotel, author (Barry) Miles revisits 9 rue Git-le-Coeur, an historic set of decaying digs amid a rat infested slum on the Left Bank of Paris, "a decrepit rooming house with hole-in-the-floor toilets shared by all..." circa 1957-1963. A spectral time in diminutive spaces where life's more literate mysteries were eloquently … [Read more...]
In Memory of Poet Alan Ansen: Biography, Books & Links
Alan Ansen passed away in Athens, Grece on November 12, 2006. A poet, playwright, and author, he was associated with both the Beat Generation & New York poets. Ansen served as secretary to W.H. Auden for a number of years. Ansen inspired the character Rollo Greb in On the Road, and other of Kerouac's characters as well. Living in Tangier, he spent time with Paul Bowles, … [Read more...]
Book Review – Who was Sinclair Beiles?
Who was Sinclair Beiles? / Gary Cummiskey & Eva Kowalska, editors / Dye Hard Press / 2009 / 978-0-620-42792-0 Before I opened Dye Hard Press' new volume, its title, Who was Sinclair Beiles? was a question I certainly didn't know the answer to. His is a name I've occasionally come across, as a poet who, as a resident of Paris' famous "Beat Hotel," created cut-ups with William … [Read more...]
