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William S. Burroughs and Magick: An Interview with James Grauerholz
07.28.2010
09:06 pm
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Enjoyable interview with the literary executor for the William S. Burroughs estate, James Grauerholz, who worked closely with the author for 23 years, conducted by Stephen Foland. It’s a discussion specifically about Burrough’s interest in magick—something that interests me greatly to read about, I can assure you—but what’s fun about the interview is reading between the lines as Grauerholz gently manages to provide a more, how shall I put it, secular viewpoint on the matter.

SF: William’s magickal experimentation, the aspects of recording what he called “Danger Sounds” and replaying them in proximity to his target, or using collage to hit a specific target has become the stuff of legend. Some attribute the closing of one particular establishment to William’s hexes. Is there another specific instance which you can recall that is as dramatic and apparently self-evident?

JG: Nope, not really. You are likely referring to the Moka Bar in London, where William said he received snide, snotty service and lousy, weak tea — and his tape-recorders-and-cameras mock-surveillance routine, back and forth on the sidewalk of Frith Street, and how the Moka Bar failed and was shuttered not too long after that.

Forgive me please, but my cast of mind leads me to suspect the Moka Bar, if it really did sell lousy tea with terrible service, might have been headed out of business, with or without the sound-text-tape-film sidewalk-pacing routine…

Below, Burroughs reads from Nova Express on Saturday Night Live in 1981. I remember seeing this the night it aired live and being totally flabbergasted to actually see William Burroughs on television. Something like that seemed impossible at the time!
 

 
Taking the broooooaaaaad view of things: A Conversation with James Grauerholz on William S. Burroughs and Magick (Pop Damage)

Posted by Richard Metzger
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07.28.2010
09:06 pm
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