MetaFilter posts tagged with Burroughs

Cut-ups, op art and book design

mediareport — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 16:42:23 -0800

The Art of Fontana Modern Masters James Pardey, the mind behind The Art of Penguin Science Fiction, has just put up another site telling the story of the cover art on the Frank Kermode-edited "Modern Masters" Fontana Books series, inspired by the Op Art of Victor Vasarely and the cut-ups of Brion Gysin and William Burroughs. [via, via] Victor Vasarely's (needlessly complex) official site Vasarely on Wikipedia 2006 Guardian Kermode interview The "next page" button at the top moves you past the blank folder covers at the Fontana site.

Naked Lunch turns 50

Houyhnhnm — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 21:23:16 -0800

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.

Bosch as background for scenes taken from Mayan codices and transformed into modern counterparts

filthy light thief — Sat, 02 May 2009 20:41:39 -0800

"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 Malcolm Mc Neill had used Burroughs' words to create The Unspeakable Mr. Hart comic series, which ran in a British publication called Cyclops, starting in during my last semester of art school in 1970. Burroughs' contacted Mc Neill because Burroughs was impressed with how much the artwork for Mr. Hart resembled himself, though Mc Neill had never met Burroughs and didn't know much of the man. The two artists met, and began working on Ah Puch. Mc Neill was 23, Burroughs was 56, and their collaboration would extend 7 years. Burroughs produced about 60 pages of text, and Mc Neill had created more than a hundred pages of artwork. But due to the unique nature of the collaboration and the high costs of full color printing, no publisher was able or willing to print the work as intended. In 1979 Burroughs finally decided to publish the text by itself as Ah Pook Is Here And Other Texts, combined with the previously released The Book of Breeething and Electronic Revolution. William S. Burroughs read parts of the story live, which was made publicly available on a 4CD set in 1998. Burroughs also recorded some of his spoken word in studio, which was then edited and music backing provided by various artists on the Dead City Radio album in 1990. Philip Hunt, of STUDIOaka, used selections of Dead City Radio to create the short video A Pook Is Here in 1994, for which he won two awards. Malcom Mc Neill had a gallery show of The Lost Art of Ah Pook (previously), first at the Salomon Art Gallery in New York, from November 14, 2008 to January 17, 2009, then April 4 through May 2, 2009 at Track 16 in Santa Monica, CA. Mc Neill recently completed Observed While Falling, providing insight into the work behind Ah Pook Is Here and other collaborations with Burroughs.

Helium, as depicted in wood

hifiparasol — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 01:07:51 -0800

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. It's quite different from what we've come to expect of Barsoom-inspired art, but there's also no shortage of nifty stuff. Some of these NSFW.

It was Christmas Day and Danny the Car Wiper hit the street junksick

fearfulsymmetry — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 03:07:26 -0800

'Junky's Christmas' by William S Burroughs (Part 1, Part 2) More Christmas themed short films courtesy of Cyber Cinema ('the best short films on the web') at The Guardian

I know who they are. They are French people.

Artw — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 17:44:38 -0800

William Burroughs recites from the last words of Dutch Schultz, set to the music of The Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy

Beat Generation Cover Scans

dhammond — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 15:52:17 -0800

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. CDN: Burroughs, Kerouac, Cassady, Holmes

Wax or the Discovery of Television Among the Bees

juv3nal — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 16:25:20 -0800

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. spoiler: garden of eden cave = vengeance for the dead

J. Allen St. John: Grandmaster of Fantasy

marxchivist — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 07:33:05 -0800

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.

Burroughs

carsonb — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 16:47:42 -0800

Burroughs
A 1983 documentary by Howard Brookner on William S. Burroughs. 89 mins, G-vid, a bit more inside...

The Unpublished Illustrated Mind of William S. Burroughs

harlanpepper — Mon, 30 Oct 2006 12:58:55 -0800

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)

20th C. avant-garde films

Blazecock Pileon — Sun, 02 Jul 2006 02:56:18 -0800

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.

LanguageFilter

MetaMonkey — Thu, 01 Dec 2005 12:55:41 -0800

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.

A Thanksgiving Prayer.

insomnia_lj — Thu, 24 Nov 2005 09:07:53 -0800

A Thanksgiving Prayer. (QuickTime, 7.6 mb) From Reality Studio's excellent collection of Wm. Burroughs multimedia.

hipper than you

ITheCosmos — Sun, 10 Apr 2005 11:13:56 -0800

"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

"Are these the words of the all powerful boards and syndicates of the Earth?"

moonbird — Mon, 27 Sep 2004 13:24:54 -0800

William S. Burroughs demonstrates his cut-up method in this excellent film sequence.
(.swf, 10mb, related discussion)

Voices from Naropa

digaman — Tue, 22 Jun 2004 00:05:22 -0800

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.