It caused nausea and vomiting when first shown at the Cinephone, Oxford Street, in London. Some of the audience demanded their money back, others hurled abuse and shouted “That’s sick,” and ““Its disgusting.” This was the idea, as writer William Burroughs and producer, Antony Balch wanted to achieve a complete “disorientation of the senses.”

Balch had a hard-on for the weird, unusual and sometimes depraved. It was a predilection born from his love of horror films - one compounded when as a child he met his idol, Bela Lugosi, the olde Austro-Hungarian junkie, who was touring Britain with the stage show that had made him famous, Dracula. Film was a love affair that lasted all of Balch’s life.

He also had a knack of making friends with the right people at the right time. In Paris he met and hung out with the artist Brion Gysin and druggie, Glaswegian Beat writer, Alexander Trocchi, who was then writing porn and editing a literary mag called Merlin, along with the likes of Christopher Logue. Through them, Balch met the two men who changed his life, Burroughs and Kenneth Anger.

Anger helped Balch with his ambitions as a cinema distributor, getting him a copy of Todd Browning’s classic Freaks, which was banned the UK, at that time. Balch paid Anger back when he later released his apocalyptic Invocation of My Demon Brother as a support feature.

Burroughs offered Balch something different - the opportunity to collaborate and make their own films.  This they did, first with Towers Open Fire, an accessible montage of Burroughs’ routines, recorded on a Grundig tape recorder, cut-up to Balch’s filmed and found images of a “crumbling society.” Put together stuff like this and the chattering classes will always take you seriously. But don’t doubt it, for it was good.

But it was their second collaboration, Cut Ups which for me is far more interesting and proved far more controversial. Cut Ups was originally intended as a documentary called Guerilla Conditions, and was filmed between 1961 and 1965 in Tangiers and Paris. It included some footage from Balch’s aborted attempt to film the unfilmable Naked Lunch. The finished material was collated and then conventionally edited - but the process didn’t stop there, no. For Balch divided the finshed film into four sections of equal length, and then...
 

 
Bonus clip of ‘Bill and Tony’ after the jump…
 
Previously on Dangerous Minds

 
It’s that time of year when stories once were told around a roaring open-fire, as snow flakes left their prints upon the windows. Now, continuing in that spirit, here is a tale of redemption and hope to enjoy around the flickering laptops and computer screens of our winter time.

Francis Ford Coppola produced this short Claymation film based on William S. Burroughs excellent story The Junky’s Christmas. Directed by Nick Donkin and Melodie McDaniel, it opens with live action footage of Burroughs as he begins his tale:

It was Christmas Day and Danny the Car Wiper hit the street junksick and broke after seventy-two hours in the precinct jail. It was a clear bright day, but there was warmth in the sun. Danny shivered with an inner cold. He turned up the collar of his worn, greasy black overcoat.
This beat benny wouldn’t pawn for a deuce, he thought.

 
In their February 28, 1974, issue, Rolling Stone magazine paired up Beat generation godfather, William S. Burroughs with glitter god David Bowie for a dual interview. At the time of the talk, Burroughs had only heard two of Bowie’s songs and Bowie had only recently read Burroughs’ Nova Express novel, knowing the writer through his reputation more than his actual work. Famously, Bowie went on to use the literary and magical “cut ups” technique developed by Burroughs and painter Brion Gysin, when he soon afterwards began working on his stage musical based on George Orwell’s 1984, what later became known as Diamond Dogs.

Burroughs: Could you explain this Ziggy Stardust image of yours? From what I can see it has to do with the world being on the eve of destruction within five years.

Bowie: The time is five years to go before the end of the earth. It has been announced that the world will end because of lack of natural resources. Ziggy is in a position where all the kids have access to things that they thought they wanted. The older people have lost all touch with reality and the kids are left on their own to plunder anything. Ziggy was in a rock-and-roll band and the kids no longer want rock-and-roll. There’s no electricity to play it. Ziggy’s adviser tells him to collect news and sing it, ‘cause there is no news. So Ziggy does this and there is terrible news. ‘All the young dudes’ is a song about this news. It is no hymn to the youth as people thought. It is completely the opposite.

Burroughs: Where did this Ziggy idea come from, and this five-year idea? Of course, exhaustion of natural resources will not develop the end of the world. It will result in the collapse of civilization. And it will cut down the population by about three-quarters.

Bowie: Exactly. This does not cause the end of the world for Ziggy. The end comes when the infinites arrive. They really are a black hole, but I’ve made them people because it would be very hard to explain a black hole on stage.

Burroughs: Yes, a black hole on stage would be an incredible expense. And it would be a continuing performance, first eating up Shaftesbury Avenue.

Bowie: Ziggy is advised in a dream by the infinites to write the coming of a starman, so he writes ‘Starman’, which is the first news of hope that the people have heard. So they latch on to it immediately. The starmen that he is talking about are called the infinites, and they are black-hole jumpers. Ziggy has been talking about this amazing spaceman who will be coming down to save the earth. They arrive somewhere in Greenwich Village. They don’t have a care in the world and are of no possible use to us. They just happened to stumble into our universe by black-hole jumping. Their whole life is travelling from universe to universe. In the stage show, one of them resembles Brando, another one is a Black New Yorker. I even have one called Queenie the Infinite Fox.

Now Ziggy starts to believe in all this himself and thinks himself a prophet of the future starman. He takes himself up to incredible spiritual heights and is kept alive by his disciples. When the infinites arrive, they take bits of Ziggy to make themselves real because in their original state they are anti-matter and cannot exist in our world. And they tear him to pieces on stage during the song ‘Rock ‘n’ roll suicide’. As soon as Ziggy dies on stage the infinites take his elements and make themselves visible. It is a science fiction fantasy of today and this is what literally blew my head off when I read Nova Express, which was written in 1961. Maybe we are the Rodgers and Hammerstein of the seventies, Bill!

Beat Godfather Meets Glitter Mainman (Teenage Wildlife)

Below, David Bowie receives an award for the Ziggy Stardus album in Holland, 1974. The dude giving him the award is quite Dutch, to be sure!
 

 
What do rich people do when they have too much money? Get wrecked. So it was for Conrad Rooks, who by the age of fifteen was a full-blown alcoholic. Money may give you many things, but apparently not self-control or a conscience.

Rooks’ pappy owned Avon. Ding-Dong, no need to worry about quitting the booze or getting a job. Instead Rooks started a new hobby - drugs. He jumped from booze to dope, to coke, to LSD, to peyote, to heroin, then decided to get clean. Off to Switzerland, where he was given a new treatment - the sleep cure.

This is what happened to Rooks. His story formed the basis for a 1966 movie Chappaqua, which Rooks produced, directed, wrote, and starred in. It is an interesting mess of a film. It picked up a Silver Medal at the Venice Film Festival, and became a “legendary” underground hit due to its association with drugs and the Beat Generation. This is where its importance lies today: in the appearance of William S. Burroughs as Opium Jones. Along with brief cameos from Allen Ginsberg and Peter Orlovksy, and the beautiful, quite stunning cinematography by Beat film-maker, Robert Frank, who made Pull My Daisy and went on to make Cocksucker Blues for The Rolling Stones. Add to this performances by Ravi Shankar, Ornette Coleman, The Fugs, and a score by Philip Glass. There is enough going on to keep interest, with perhaps the finger occasionally on Fast Forward.
   

 

 
These are just stunning! Stunning! I certainly wouldn’t mind owning one of those fantastic Zappas. From the artist Lisa Brawn:

I have been experimenting with figurative woodcuts for almost twenty years since being introduced to the medium by printmakers at the Alberta College of Art and Design. Recently, I have been wrestling with a new challenge: five truckloads of salvaged century-old rough Douglas fir beams from the restoration of the Alberta Block in Calgary and from the dismantling of grain elevators. This wood is very interesting in its history and also in that it is oddly shaped. Unlike traditional woodcut material such as cherry or walnut, the material is ornery. There are holes and knots and gouges and rusty nails sticking out the sides.

To find suitably rustic and rugged subjects, I have been referencing popular culture personas and archetypes from 1920s silent film cowboys to 1970s tough guys. I have also been through the Glenbow Museum archives for horse rustlers, bootleggers, informants, and loiterers in turn-of-the-century RCMP mug shots for my Quién es más macho series. Cowgirl trick riders and cowboy yodelers in their spectacular ensembles from the 1940s led to my Honky-Tonkin, Honey, Baby series. Inspired by a recent trip to Coney Island, I have been exploring vintage circus culture and am currently working on a series of sideshow portraits including Zip the Pinhead and JoJo the Dog-faced Boy. There is also an ongoing series of iconic gender archetypes, antiheroes and divas, which includes such portraits as Sophia Loren, Maria Callas, Edith Piaf, Jackie Onassis, Steve McQueen, and Clint Eastwood.

Please visit Lisa Brawn’s website to view hundreds of amazing woodcuts.

(via Everlasting Blort)

 
I lived in Manhattan’s East Village from 1984 to 1991 and the sight of the great poet Allen Ginsberg around the neighborhood was a pretty common one, although it was still cool to see him each and every time, I must admit. Now the apartment where Ginsberg lived until the mid-90s has been renovated and come on the rental market. There is a link to the listing today—$1700 for the one-bedroom—on Gothamist:

Allen Ginsberg spent 21 years of his life (1975 to 1996) living in a fourth floor walk-up in the East Village, and now—following the death of his partner Peter Orlovsky, it’s on the rental market. Earlier this month, The Allen Ginsberg Project stopped by as it was undergoing renovations, and there’s little left of the poetic madman’s presence. For example, the bedroom that his pal Harry Everett Smith once resided in is now a bathroom (read an interview Ginsberg did with Paola Igliori in 1995, where the two discussed his one-time roommate)

.
 

Above: Harry Smith’s in the guest room, now a bathroom.
 

Above: Here’s how Wired’s Steve Silberman remembers the apartment:
 

Left to right: Allen Ginsberg, Peter Orlovsky, Louis Cartwright, Herbert Huncke, William Burroughs, Allen & Peter’s new apartment, 437 East 12th Street, New York City, December 1975. Photographer unknown. (Via)
 

 
Above: Allen Ginsberg on William F. Buckley’s Firing Line TV program in 1968.

There’s also a link on Gothamist to some photos of the converted YMCA on the Bowery where William Burroughs used to live, famously dubbed “The Bunker.” John Giorno, who took over the place when Burroughs left, kept his bedroom exactly as it was.

 
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)

 
Some artists, like Picasso and Dali, were discovered when they were young and their talents grew to maturity before the public eye. Sometimes, however it takes,,, well, dying before the art world sits up and takes notice of you, This has certainly been the case with Brion Gysin, the Canadian/British painter and author who has long stood in the shadows, figuratively speaking, of William S. Burroughs, his lifelong friend and collaborator. Burroughs once said that Brion Gysin, the inventor of the Cut-Ups literary technique was the only man he ever truly respected.

Gysin is an artist whose work must be seen in person to be truly appreciated. This is said about every artist’s work, but it’s particularly true with Brion Gysin. What might appear to be random chicken scratch calligraphy when reproduced in a book, becomes ALIVE when seen in person. Seemingly careless hash marks become scenes of hundreds of people around a bonfire or a crowded Arab marketplace when you’re staring right at it.

The man was a master. And he left an awful lot of work behind. Although there were various Gysin gallery exhibits in New York while he was still alive—I recall being astonished by some large works on paper in a great 1985 show at the Tower Gallery—there has never been a museum level retrospective of Gysin’s work in the United States until now:

“Brion Gysin: Dream Machine” will be the first US survey of the work of Brion Gysin (b. 1916, Taplow, UK; d. 1986, Paris), an irrepressible innovator, serial collaborator, and subversive spirit who continues to inspire artists today. The exhibition will include over 250 drawings, books, paintings, photo-collages, films, slide projections, and sound works, as well as the Dreamachine—a kinetic light sculpture that utilizes the flicker effect to induce visions.

In 1959, Gysin created the Cut-Up Method, wherein words and phrases were randomly collaged to unlock unknown meanings, culminating in The Third Mind, a book-length collage created with his lifelong collaborator William S. Burroughs. Transferring the idea of the Cut-Up to magnetic tape, Gysin became the father of sound poetry. Throughout his life, Gysin was a collaborator and an inspiration to artists, poets, and musicians, such as John Giorno, Brian Jones, David Bowie, Patti Smith, Genesis-P-Orridge, and Keith Haring.

More than two decades after his death, his work continues to attract the interest of a new generation of artists drawn to Gysin’s radical inderdisciplinarity, including Rirkrit Tiravanija, Cerith Wyn Evans, Trisha Donnelly, and Scott Treleaven. The exhibition is curated by Laura Hoptman, Kraus Family Senior Curator, and will be on view in the New Museum’s second-floor gallery. It will be accompanied by an illustrated catalogue co-published with Hugh Merrell, Ltd. which will include scholarly essays and appreciations by contemporary artists, musicians, and poets.

Video below, a trailer for FLicKer a Canadian documentary about Gysin directed by Nik Sheehan, in which I make a brief appearance.
 

Great conversation between the two people who defined punk literature in the 1980s, one of them a couple decades ahead of time.

(Essential Acker: The Selected Writings of Kathy Acker)

(Word Virus: The William S. Burroughs Reader)

 
It’s too bad all trailers can’t all start out with Burroughs’ soothing drone, “Death smells.  I mean, death has a special smell, over and above the smell of cyanide, cordite, blood, carrion of burnt flesh.”  The website for William S. Burroughs: A Man Within suggests that the film’s currently in post-production, and

features never before seen footage of William S. Burroughs, as well as exclusive interviews with his closest friends and colleagues including John Waters, Genesis P-Orridge, Laurie Anderson, Peter Weller, David Cronenberg, Iggy Pop, Gus Van Sant, Sonic Youth, Anne Waldman, George Condo, Hal Willner, James Grauerholz, Amiri Baraka, Jello Biafra, V. Vale, David Ohle, Wayne Propst, Dr. William Ayers, Diane DiPrima, Donovan, Dean Ripa (the world?