At some point the available information should lead to a conclusion, like an
equation. Sometimes this is difficult for open-minded or indecisive
people but it must be done. This is especially hard in evaluating the artist whose creations are, to some extent, outside himself. But what you are, like a magnet, reorders the world around you. What you are cannot be escaped. What you are cannot be a footnote to your work. Mussolini did make the trains run on time. And Nero might have been a thespian but it will
not--and should not--define him; any theatrical contribution he made should be screened
out by his more essential qualities. Art, in a library or studio, might be beyond judgment but man, an essentially interactive being, is not.
When William Burroughs died at age 83 in 1997, his last words were: "Be back in no time." It might have been his finest moment.
Burroughs was born 100 years ago and that, presumably, has necessitated another biography of him, this time by Barry Miles in Call Me Burroughs: A Life.
Burroughs dragged himself through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix in the most miserable, sordid places he could find, all over the world. He started and stopped efforts, careers, educations, and jobs as he lived out his shiftless, pointless life through a family inheritance. He was addicted to heroin, alcohol, marijuana, Eukodol, and morphine; he was an outspoken homosexual and a junkie when neither was chic. He was a misogynist and loved guns. He once sawed off his own finger joint with poultry shears in some sort of romantic and symbolic act of love over a teenage prostitute. He reported to have accepted the news of the murder of his close friend, David Kammerer by Lucian Carr, with no emotion. He pursued peripheral beliefs like telepathy, alien abduction, scrying (like crystal balls), Orgone boxes (boxes said to accumulate positive anti-entropic energy), and dreamachines.
And, of course, Joan Vollmer. Vollmer was a Barnard student who was caught up in the Beat world in New York and became one of the group's female centers. She had psychiatric admissions for drug use, eventually married Burroughs and moved with him as he searched for cheap places to live that had cheap drugs. In Mexico while both were drunk, Burroughs tried to shoot a glass off her head a la William Tell. He killed her with a bullet in her forehead.
As a man in a consistent downhill slide virtually from birth, it is surprising to find that Burroughs thought this a pivotal event. "The death of Joan brought me in contact with the invader, the Ugly Spirit," he said. Whether this was a general Manichean element or a more person possession is not known.
Nor should anyone care.
When William Burroughs died at age 83 in 1997, his last words were: "Be back in no time." It might have been his finest moment.
Burroughs was born 100 years ago and that, presumably, has necessitated another biography of him, this time by Barry Miles in Call Me Burroughs: A Life.
Burroughs dragged himself through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix in the most miserable, sordid places he could find, all over the world. He started and stopped efforts, careers, educations, and jobs as he lived out his shiftless, pointless life through a family inheritance. He was addicted to heroin, alcohol, marijuana, Eukodol, and morphine; he was an outspoken homosexual and a junkie when neither was chic. He was a misogynist and loved guns. He once sawed off his own finger joint with poultry shears in some sort of romantic and symbolic act of love over a teenage prostitute. He reported to have accepted the news of the murder of his close friend, David Kammerer by Lucian Carr, with no emotion. He pursued peripheral beliefs like telepathy, alien abduction, scrying (like crystal balls), Orgone boxes (boxes said to accumulate positive anti-entropic energy), and dreamachines.
And, of course, Joan Vollmer. Vollmer was a Barnard student who was caught up in the Beat world in New York and became one of the group's female centers. She had psychiatric admissions for drug use, eventually married Burroughs and moved with him as he searched for cheap places to live that had cheap drugs. In Mexico while both were drunk, Burroughs tried to shoot a glass off her head a la William Tell. He killed her with a bullet in her forehead.
As a man in a consistent downhill slide virtually from birth, it is surprising to find that Burroughs thought this a pivotal event. "The death of Joan brought me in contact with the invader, the Ugly Spirit," he said. Whether this was a general Manichean element or a more person possession is not known.
Nor should anyone care.
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