Where Can an Old Junky Get Some Good Balls These Days?
February 27, 2008 8:22 AM   Subscribe

Suddenly a warm flood pulsed through his veins and broke in his head like a thousand golden speedballs. William S. Burrough's A Junky's Christmas. Warning: The color scheme will make you turn to heroin to stop the pain.

Link to a download of the video.
posted by John of Michigan (9 comments total) 6 users marked this as a favorite
 
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You're welcome.
posted by CitrusFreak12 at 8:27 AM on February 27, 2008 [2 favorites]


Thank you, CF12!
posted by steef at 9:17 AM on February 27, 2008


It's my legs, senor. Cramps. And now I am without any medicine.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 9:44 AM on February 27, 2008


That was fun--I've never seen this iteration on the Burroughs ur-narrative. And now I want me some morphine.
posted by everichon at 10:25 AM on February 27, 2008


PMcD --you, like me, were confusing A Junky's Christmas with "The Priest" They Called Him, another great hit for your Christmas comps.
posted by Ogre Lawless at 10:30 AM on February 27, 2008


Shit...maybe not.

Youtubery: one, two.
posted by Ogre Lawless at 10:34 AM on February 27, 2008


Deliberately so, Ogre, because Burroughs re-writes this same story over and over again. I'm pretty sure that this phrase made its first appearance in Dead Fingers Talk -- which was, in its turn, compiled highlights from Soft Machine and Nova Express along with a bunch of other half-finished stuff he had hanging around.

It's actually one of the things I like most about him.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 11:08 AM on February 27, 2008


I highly recommend the album linked to on that page (the "hip-hop version" link).

Also, if you can find it, the game The Dark Eye, which features Burroughs reading Poe's "The Masque of the Red Death".

There's just something about that gravelly, crusty old voice that I've always loved.
posted by rifflesby at 5:32 PM on February 27, 2008


When I discovered Burroughs, I told my parents (this was long ago! 1972.) and my mother said something along the lines of "Oh, that horrible man!"

Turns out the author and I grew up in the same wealthy St. Louis suburb of Ladue, and my grandparents were friends with Wm. Burroughs' parents.

My mom knew him as a homosexual heroin addict who had killed his wife. Not a good resume, I guess.

I don't read him much now, but he totally rocked my aesthetic world for a while, and made me who I am now as an artist, in some ways. And it is a kick reading his novels and recognizing the names of the streets we both grew up on.
posted by kozad at 6:10 PM on February 27, 2008


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