Download or read book The Magical Universe of William S Burroughs written by Matthew Levi Stevens and published by . This book was released on 2014-10-31 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In the magical universe there are no coincidences and there are no accidents. Nothing happens unless someone wills it to happen. The dogma of science is that the will cannot possibly affect external forces, and I think that's just ridiculous. It's as bad as the church. My viewpoint is the exact contrary of the scientific viewpoint. I believe that if you run into somebody in the street it's for a reason. Among primitive people they say that if someone was bitten by a snake he was murdered. I believe that." -- William S Burroughs Fully revised and expanded from the limited edition chapbook that first appeared in 2012, this is the first ever in-depth consideration of the significance of Magic and the Occult in the Life & Work of the writer and counter-cultural icon.
Download or read book The Western Lands written by William S. Burroughs and published by Penguin. This book was released on 1988-12-07 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the legendary author of Naked Lunch, the conclusion of his trilogy that includes Cities of the Red Night and Palace of Dead Roads The Western Land is legendary Beat writer William S. Burrough’s profound, revealing, and often astonishing meditation on morality, loneliness, life, and death -- a Book of the Dead for the nuclear age. "Burrough's visionary power, his comic genius, and his unerring ability to crack the codes that make up the life of this century are undimished." -- J.G. Ballard, Washington Post Book World
Download or read book Observed While Falling written by Malcolm McNeill and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Observed While Falling is an account of the personal and creative interaction that defined the collaboration between the writer William S. Burroughs and the artist Malcolm McNeill on the graphic novel Ah Pook is Here. The memoir chronicles the events that surrounded it, the reasons it was abandoned and the unusual circumstances that brought it back to life. McNeill describes his growing friendship with Burroughs and how their personal relationship affected their creative partnership. The book is written with insight and humor, and is liberally sprinkled with the kind of outré anecdotes one would expect working with a writer as original and eccentric as Burroughs. It confirms Burroughs' and McNeill's prescience, the place of Ah Pook in relation to the contemporary graphic novel, and its anticipation of the events surrounding 2012. McNeill expounds on the lessons of that experience to bring Ah Pook into present time.
Download or read book Junky written by William S. Burroughs and published by Penguin Books, Limited (UK). This book was released on 2009 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Junk is not, like alcohol or weed, a means to increased enjoyment in life. Junk is not a kick. It is a way of life.' Burrough's cult classic is a raw, semi-autobiographical account of drug addiction, which outraged America and influenced generations of writers to come. He relates with unflinching realism the highs and lows of dependency- euphoria, hallucinations, ghostly nocturnal wanderings and strange sexual encounters. Junkyis a dark, powerful and mesmerizing account of one man's challenge to turn self-destruction into art.
Download or read book Call Me Burroughs written by Barry Miles and published by Twelve. This book was released on 2014-01-28 with total page 676 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fifty years ago, Norman Mailer asserted, "William Burroughs is the only American novelist living today who may conceivably be possessed by genius." Few since have taken such literary risks, developed such individual political or spiritual ideas, or spanned such a wide range of media. Burroughs wrote novels, memoirs, technical manuals, and poetry. He painted, made collages, took thousands of photographs, produced hundreds of hours of experimental recordings, acted in movies, and recorded more CDs than most rock bands. Burroughs was the original cult figure of the Beat Movement, and with the publication of his novel Naked Lunch, which was originally banned for obscenity, he became a guru to the 60s youth counterculture. In Call Me Burroughs, biographer and Beat historian Barry Miles presents the first full-length biography of Burroughs to be published in a quarter century-and the first one to chronicle the last decade of Burroughs's life and examine his long-term cultural legacy. Written with the full support of the Burroughs estate and drawing from countless interviews with figures like Allen Ginsberg, Lucien Carr, and Burroughs himself, Call Me Burroughs is a rigorously researched biography that finally gets to the heart of its notoriously mercurial subject.
Download or read book The Adding Machine written by William S. Burroughs and published by Grove Press. This book was released on 2013-10-14 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Sheer pleasure. . . . Wonderfully entertaining."--Chicago Sun-Times Acclaimed by Norman Mailer more than twenty years ago as "possibly the only American writer of genius," William S. Burroughs has produced a body of work unique in our time. In these scintillating essays, he writes wittily and wisely about himself, his interests, his influences, his friends and foes. He offers candid and not always flattering assessments of such diverse writers as Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Joseph Conrad, Graham Greene, Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Samuel Beckett, and Marcel Proust. He ruminates on science and the often dubious paths into which it seems intent on leading us, whether into outer or inner space. He reviews his reviewers, explains his famous "cut-up" method, and discusses the role coincidence has played in his life and work. As satirist and parodist, William Burroughs has no peer, as these varied works, written over three decades, amply reveal.
Download or read book Real Magic written by Isaac Bonewits and published by Weiser Books. This book was released on 1989-01-15 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examines every category of occult phenomena from ESP to Eastern ritual and explores the basic laws of magic, relating them to the natural laws of the universe.
Download or read book Storming the Reality Studio written by Larry McCaffery and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 1991 with total page 410 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The term "cyberpunk" entered the literary landscape in 1984 to describe William Gibson's pathbreaking novel Neuromancer. Cyberpunks are now among the shock troops of postmodernism, Larry McCaffery argues in Storming the Reality Studio, marshalling the resources of a fragmentary culture to create a startling new form. Artificial intelligence, genetic engineering, multinational machinations, frenetic bursts of prose, collisions of style, celebrations of texture: although emerging largely from science fiction, these features of cyberpunk writing are, as this volume makes clear, integrally related to the aims and innovations of the literary avant-garde. By bringing together original fiction by well-known contemporary writers (William Burroughs, Thomas Pynchon, Don DeLillo, Kathy Acker, J. G. Ballard, Samuel R. Delany), critical commentary by some of the major theorists of postmodern art and culture (Jacques Derrida, Fredric Jameson, Timothy Leary, Jean-François Lyotard), and work by major practitioners of cyberpunk (William Gibson, Rudy Rucker, John Shirley, Pat Cadigan, Bruce Sterling), Storming the Reality Studio reveals a fascinating ongoing dialog in contemporary culture. What emerges most strikingly from the colloquy is a shared preoccupation with the force of technology in shaping modern life. It is precisely this concern, according to McCaffery, that has put science fiction, typically the province of technological art, at the forefront of creative explorations of our unique age. A rich opporunity for reading across genres, this anthology offers a new perspective on the evolution of postmodern culture and ultimately shows how deeply technological developments have influenced our vision and our art. Selected Fiction contributors: Kathy Acker, J. G. Ballard, William S. Burroughs, Pat Cadigan, Samuel R. Delany, Don DeLillo, William Gibson, Harold Jaffe, Richard Kadrey, Marc Laidlaw, Mark Leyner, Joseph McElroy, Misha, Ted Mooney, Thomas Pynchon, Rudy Rucker, Lucius Shepard, Lewis Shiner, John Shirley, Bruce Sterling, William Vollman Selected Non-Fiction contributors: Jean Baudrillard, Jacques Derrida, Joan Gordon, Veronica Hollinger, Fredric Jameson, Arthur Kroker and David Cook, Timothy Leary, Jean-François Lyotard, Larry McCaffery, Brian McHale, Dave Porush, Bruce Sterling, Darko Suvin, Takayuki Tatsumi
Download or read book William S Burroughs Cutting Up the Century written by Joan Hawkins and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2019-05-17 with total page 457 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: William S. Burroughs Cutting Up the Century is the definitive book on Burroughs’ overarching cut-up project and its relevance to the American twentieth century. Burroughs’s Nova Trilogy (The Soft Machine, Nova Express, and The Ticket That Exploded) remains the best-known of his textual cut-up creations, but he committed more than a decade of his life to searching out multimedia for use in works of collage. By cutting up, folding in, and splicing together newspapers, magazines, letters, book reviews, classical literature, audio recordings, photographs, and films, Burroughs created an eclectic and wide-ranging countercultural archive. This collection includes previously unpublished work by Burroughs such as cut-ups of work written by his son, cut-ups of critical responses to his own work, collages on the Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal, excerpts from his dream journals, and some of the few diary entries that Burroughs wrote about his wife, Joan. William S. Burroughs Cutting Up the Century also features original essays, interviews, and discussions by established Burroughs scholars, respected artists, and people who encountered Burroughs. The essays consider Burroughs from a range of starting points—literary studies, media studies, popular culture, gender studies, post-colonialism, history, and geography. Ultimately, the collection situates Burroughs as a central artist and thinker of his time and considers his insights on political and social problems that have become even more dire in ours.
Download or read book The Cat Inside written by William S. Burroughs and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2002-01-29 with total page 113 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Best known for the wild, phantasmagoric satire of works like Naked Lunch, William S. Burroughs reveals another, gentler side in The Cat Inside. Originally published as a limited-edition volume, this moving and witty discourse on cats combines deadpan routines and dream passages with a heartwarming account of Burroughs's unexpected friendships with the many cats he has known. It is also a meditation on the long, mysterious relationship between cats and their human hosts, which Burroughs traces back to the Egyptian cult of the "animal other." With its street sense and whiplash prose, The Cat Inside is a genuine revelation for Burroughs fans and cat lovers alike.
Download or read book Retaking The Universe written by Davis Schneiderman and published by Pluto Press. This book was released on 2004-05-20 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: William S. Burroughs is one of America's most influential and widely studied writers. A leading member of the Beat movement, his books and essays continue to attract a wide readership. His films, paintings, recordings and other projects that grew out of his literary production, together with his iconic persona as a counter-culture (anti-)hero, mean his work has become a broad cultural phenomenon. This collection of essays by leading scholars offers an interdisciplinary consideration of Burroughs's art. It links his lived experience to his many major prose works written from 1953 on, as well his sound, cinema and media projects. Moving beyond the merely literary, the contributors argue for the continuing social and political relevance of Burroughs's work for the emerging global order. Themes include: Burroughs and contemporary theory; debates on 'reality'; violence; magic and mysticism ; cybernetic cultures; language and technology; control and transformation; transgression and addiction; the limits of prose; image politics and the avant-garde.
Download or read book Literary Outlaw The Life and Times of William S Burroughs written by Ted Morgan and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2012-07-31 with total page 753 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Almost indecently readable . . . captures [Burroughs’s] destructive energy, his ferocious pessimism, and the renegade brilliance of his style.”—Vogue With a new preface as well as a final chapter on William S. Burroughs’s last years, the acclaimed Literary Outlaw is the only existing full biography of an extraordinary figure. Anarchist, heroin addict, alcoholic, and brilliant writer, Burroughs was the patron saint of the Beats. His avant-garde masterpiece Naked Lunch shook up the literary world with its graphic descriptions of drug abuse and illicit sex—and resulted in a landmark Supreme Court ruling on obscenity. Burroughs continued to revolutionize literature with novels like The Soft Machine and to shock with the events in his life, such as the accidental shooting of his wife, which haunted him until his death. Ted Morgan captures the man, his work, and his friends—Allen Ginsberg and Paul Bowles among them—in this riveting story of an iconoclast.
Download or read book William S Burroughs and the Cult of Rock n Roll written by Casey Rae and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2019-06-11 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: William S. Burroughs's fiction and essays are legendary, but his influence on music's counterculture has been less well documented—until now. Examining how one of America's most controversial literary figures altered the destinies of many notable and varied musicians, William S. Burroughs and the Cult of Rock 'n' Roll reveals the transformations in music history that can be traced to Burroughs. A heroin addict and a gay man, Burroughs rose to notoriety outside the conventional literary world; his masterpiece, Naked Lunch, was banned on the grounds of obscenity, but its nonlinear structure was just as daring as its content. Casey Rae brings to life Burroughs's parallel rise to fame among daring musicians of the 1960s, '70s, and '80s, when it became a rite of passage to hang out with the author or to experiment with his cut-up techniques for producing revolutionary lyrics (as the Beatles and Radiohead did). Whether they tell of him exploring the occult with David Bowie, providing Lou Reed with gritty depictions of street life, or counseling Patti Smith about coping with fame, the stories of Burroughs's backstage impact will transform the way you see America's cultural revolution—and the way you hear its music.
Download or read book Move Under Ground written by Nick Mamatas and published by Courier Dover Publications. This book was released on 2020-06-17 with total page 178 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Readers will be enthralled, chilled, and astonished." -- Tom Piccirilli, author of A Choir of Ill Children. In the first of many references to H. P. Lovecraft's "The Call of Cthulhu," this thoroughly unique novel begins with the rise of the lost city of R'lyeh, portending certain doom for human existence. The witness to this deadly harbinger is Jack Kerouac, who recruits fellow beats Neal Cassady and William S. Burroughs for a cross-country road trip that will climax in a confrontation with a murderous cult.
Download or read book CUT UP An Anthology Inspired by the Cut Up Method of William S Burroughs Brion Gysin written by A.D. Hitchin and published by Lulu.com. This book was released on 2014 with total page 396 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Paris in the late Fifties the Beat Generation writer William Burroughs and his sidekick Brion Gysin developed the cut-up method. It involved taking a piece of finished text and cutting it into pieces - then rearranging those pieces to create a new text or work of art. Burroughs wrote that: "When you cut into the present the future leaks out." The cut-up had a profound effect on music, writing, painting, and film. Devotees of the cut-up include David Bowie, Radiohead, and Kathy Acker. In addition to bringing together new work by new people, CUT UP! also salutes some better known 20th Century voices who kept the spirit of Burroughs and Gysin alive. Contributors include Kenji Siratori, Claude Pelieu, Nina Antonia, Billy Chainsaw, Cabell McLean, Mary Beach, Marc Olmsted, Allen Ginsberg, Spencer Kansa, Michael Butterworth, Robert Rosen, Nathan Penlington, Sinclair Beiles, Gary J. Shipley, D M Mitchell, and Edward S. Robinson.
Download or read book The Spiritual Imagination of the Beats written by David Stephen Calonne and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2017-08-17 with total page 245 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first comprehensive study to explore the role of esoteric, occult, alchemical, shamanistic, mystical and magical traditions in the work of major Beat authors.
Download or read book Running with Scissors written by Augusten Burroughs and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2010-04-01 with total page 347 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The #1 New York Times bestselling memoir from Augusten Burroughs, Running with Scissors, now a Major Motion Picture! Running with Scissors is the true story of a boy whose mother (a poet with delusions of Anne Sexton) gave him away to be raised by her psychiatrist, a dead-ringer for Santa and a lunatic in the bargain. Suddenly, at age twelve, Augusten Burroughs found himself living in a dilapidated Victorian in perfect squalor. The doctor's bizarre family, a few patients, and a pedophile living in the backyard shed completed the tableau. Here, there were no rules, there was no school. The Christmas tree stayed up until summer, and Valium was eaten like Pez. And when things got dull, there was always the vintage electroshock therapy machine under the stairs.... Running with Scissors is at turns foul and harrowing, compelling and maniacally funny. But above all, it chronicles an ordinary boy's survival under the most extraordinary circumstances.
