Just curious if any of you lot are into William Burroughs. I believe he wasn't a writer at all, but a goddamned magician. I'm always pleased to find others on the internet who dig the old guy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EION1GUJrdM

I am. I enjoy his readings more than reading him myself, so I guess that I'm kind of a casual fan.

I guess. The guy's got such a killer voice and delivery it's hard to fault you, though. I'm a big fan of his readings too, though I have read quite a bit of his catalog, the cut-up stuff can be difficult reading and takes an adjustment to enjoy.

You might want to try The Place Of Dead Roads or Cities Of The Red Night. If you tried one of his cut-up novels first, it might have turned you off. These are pretty much straight up narratives.

Hearing how he reads his own material is essential to hearing that "voice" when you read it on your own. I was fascinated by him in high school, but ever since seeing him read from "Cities of the Red Night" at a college reading, his style made more sense. He was very entertaining in person, had more of a warmth and sense of humor than you might have expected.

There are also several audio and video clips at Ubuweb.

The most accessible Burroughs writings are the essays and the early novels "Queer" and "Junky." And Odibex is right ... the late trilogy of novels is also a little easier to get into than crazy stuff like "Naked Lunch," "The Ticket that Exploded," and "The Wild Boys." But those are important classics of midcentury experiment.

I think Old Bull would have loved being called "more a magician than a writer."

Yeah, Ubuweb is the coolest. I used to spend hours there. Thanks for the reminder!
And you got to see him perform live!? I envy you!

It was a long time ago, but yeah, he was great. A real gentleman, and very funny.

I watched Naked Lunch awhile back, that was awesome but I've never read any of his work. I put him off with Bukowski for after I'm over 25 and been in a few more fights.

How did a man who's done so many drugs (and hard drugs) live for so long?

Nah, but really haven't gotten around to it..how is the book compared to the movie if anyone's checked out both? My dad also has a documentary on him I think..genesis p. orridge was in it too I think?

He must have been up there in years. I got to see Ginsberg perform live (he played accordion and sang a bit) but I'd give my left corpuscle to have seen Burroughs do his thing.

leili, the book Naked Lunch and the movie are very different animals. The book is a hurdle to read but it's got some great bits. The movie was entertaining enough, but just couldn't hope to capture the explosiveness of the book.

He's great . . . i haven't read all his stuff, but what i have read i liked very much.


The Naked Lunch by The Moog Image Dump, on Flickr


Junky by The Moog Image Dump, on Flickr


Queer by The Moog Image Dump, on Flickr


Exterminator by The Moog Image Dump, on Flickr


Cities of the Red Night by The Moog Image Dump, on Flickr


The Soft Machine by The Moog Image Dump, on Flickr


Electric Underground by The Moog Image Dump, on Flickr

^ Thanks for sharing your Burroughs stuff, Joe! I only read "The Naked Lunch", his most popular novel in Brazil. I want this.

^^ Yeah, that looks great . . . i've never seen that before!

Yeah, that's uber-cool. I've never seen it before either. Those old book covers are cool too.

I shouldn't have opened that while eating my cereal. Should've known better.

This thread got me to thinking about the possibility of a sofubi Mugwump. And now to see that Typewriter ... so cool!

My brother and I have a running joke of saying "rub it on my lips" in that Burroughs/Capote voice that the movie used for the Mugwump.

Sofubi Mugwump! Fund it!

I have a fantastic old pulpy copy of Junkie with a great cover, it's packed away somewheres though. One of the first things I did when getting on the internet was win this signed by Burroughs zine-like thing from e-bay, that's packed away somewhere, too. I have a plethora of stuff "packed away" sitting in my kitchen including my old action figure collection.

I'm the kind of jerk who hasn't read him, but Cronenberg's loose adaptation of Naked Lunch is one of my favorite movies ever, probably a masterpiece.

Read his books and be revelated!

Skip to 4:40: http://smotri.com/video/view/?id=v9564336a24

One of the most amazing things about it is that anyone would think it could be turned into a movie at all. As Cronenberg said, if he made a literal adaptation, it'd be unbelievably expensive, and would be banned in almost every country in the world. The other thing I loved about that movie (and which was an indicator of the direction Cronenberg was headed in generally) was how he wove Burroughs' real-life guilt about shooting his wife into the film. The book may have had its black humor, but it didn't have humane poignancy per se. Burroughs himself was very happy with the movie.

Uh-oh! It looks like Control is reading my thoughts with that beam again.