Naked Lunch, the infamous novel by American writer William S. Burroughs and the subject of the final literary obscenity trial in the United States, turns 50 this year. To celebrate the anniversary, the first collection of critical essays devoted to the novel will be published this month and a three-day "homage and symposium" will be held in July at the University of London Institute in Paris, with complementary celebrations taking place in New York and other cities throughout the rest of 2009.
posted by Houyhnhnm on Jun 19, 2009 - 69 comments

"Look at the surrealist moustache on the Mona Lisa. Just a silly joke? Consider where this joke can lead. I had been working with Malcolm Mc Neill for five years on an illustrated book entitled Ah Pook Is Here, and we used the same idea: Hieronymous Bosch as the background for scenes and characters taken from the Mayan codices and transformed into modern counterparts. That face in the Mayan Dresden Codex will be the barmaid in this scene, and we can use the Vulture God over here. Bosch, Michelangelo, Renoir, Monet, Picasso — steal anything in sight. You want a certain light on your scene? Lift it from Monet. You want a 1930s backdrop? Use Hopper." -- William S. Burroughs, Les Voleurs [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief on May 2, 2009 - 29 comments

Around 1965ish, artist Joel Rothberg created a series of woodcuts illustrating Edgar Rice Burroughs' A Princess of Mars (gutenberg link), the first book in the John Carter series. In the series, Rothberg detailed Carter killing his first Thark; a herd of thoats; and Carter winning Dejah Thoris. Via. [more inside]
posted by hifiparasol on Mar 3, 2009 - 12 comments

'Junky's Christmas' by William S Burroughs (Part 1, Part 2) [more inside]
posted by fearfulsymmetry on Dec 22, 2008 - 15 comments

William Burroughs recites from the last words of Dutch Schultz, set to the music of The Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy
posted by Artw on Jul 8, 2008 - 20 comments

Book nerds everywhere will enjoy these scans of cover art from the works of Beat Generation authors William S. Burroughs, Jack Kerouac, Neal Cassady, and John Clellon Holmes. [more inside]
posted by dhammond on Mar 4, 2008 - 12 comments

Wax or the Discovery of Television Among the Bees was the first movie on the internet. Also, allegedly the first indie movie edited on a digital non-linear system. Mostly, though it's just awesome because it features a cameo from William S. Burroughs and is just plain weird. [more inside]
posted by juv3nal on Feb 13, 2008 - 21 comments

Before Frank Frazetta, Roy Krenkel, and Michael Whelan, J. Allen St. John brought to life the works of Edgar Rice Burroughs and defined the images of Tarzan and Barsoom. St. John also illustrated a wide variety of books and magazines and produced some pulp masterpieces.
posted by marxchivist on Aug 21, 2007 - 10 comments

Burroughs
A 1983 documentary by Howard Brookner on William S. Burroughs. 89 mins, G-vid, a bit more inside...
posted by carsonb on Jul 10, 2007 - 13 comments

The Unpublished Illustrated Mind of William Burroughs. Before his death Burroughs collaborated with Artist Malcolm McNeill on an illustrated book that never made it to press. A garden of earthly delights. (NSFW)
posted by harlanpepper on Oct 30, 2006 - 9 comments

A video broadcast of György Ligeti's Poème Symphonique for 100 metronomes (AVI, French), with helpful background on the controversial piece located here. For those who know French, you may also be interested in 1993's György Ligeti: Portrait, A Documentary by Michel Follin, showing Ligeti as "the displaced cosmopolitan", through the metaphor of train ride through the European countryside. These and many other avant-garde films can be found at Ubuweb, including features with William Burroughs, a recent "performance" of Cage's 4'33", and Varése and Le Corbusier's 1958 World Fair collaboration Poême électronique, a 400-speaker soundspace installation predating later, more experimental feedback pieces.
posted by Blazecock Pileon on Jul 2, 2006 - 14 comments

Orwell: Politics and the English Language. Some timely links in the fast changing world of instant communication. Alistair Cooke Needles the Jargonauts in Assessing the State of the English Language. The Electronic Revolution by William S. Burroughs. On Wittgenstein's Concept of a Language Game. The Economist Looking for a sign. John Zerzan Language: Origin and Meaning. Hakim Bey: Aimless Wandering: Chuang Tzu's Chaos Linguistics also Chaos Linguistics. The Language of Animals. John C Lilly on Interspecies Communication. Language Log: Natural language and artificial intelligence. Natural Language Processing AI News.
posted by MetaMonkey on Dec 1, 2005 - 22 comments

A Thanksgiving Prayer. (QuickTime, 7.6 mb) From Reality Studio's excellent collection of Wm. Burroughs multimedia.
posted by insomnia_lj on Nov 24, 2005 - 10 comments

"Stray Prose" of Lee Ranaldo of Sonic Youth fame. Semicoherent Bob Dylan review, a paean to Kerouac, and an entertaining interview with William Burroughs. Pretentious, but, uh, you know, if you're into that sort of thing... There's some more stuff of his around his official site
posted by ITheCosmos on Apr 10, 2005 - 12 comments

William S. Burroughs demonstrates his cut-up method in this excellent film sequence.
(.swf, 10mb, related discussion)
posted by moonbird on Sep 27, 2004 - 19 comments

The Internet Archive just got beat. William Burroughs on wishing. Mystical audio by Harry Smith. Amiri Baraka (formerly LeRoi Jones) on "jism and jazz". Ginsberg reads "Howl." The most historically significant archive of Beat and post-Beat recordings is now free for the downloading. Lossless or lo-fi, saved or streamed -- the tape vault of Naropa Institute is unlocked on archive.org as the Creative Commons grows.
posted by digaman on Jun 22, 2004 - 25 comments