Tag Archives: literature

How To Make Word Dust

Posted on April 4, 2017 by Lee

Besides being a science fiction novel, Nova Express is a how-to book.  It tells us how to make cut-ups and create “word dust”. For example, Burroughs has a character called “The Subliminal Kid” use tape recorders to create cut-ups: “‘The … Continue reading →

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William S. Burroughs: Vision and Intuition

Posted on April 3, 2017 by Lee

Reading Queer by William S. Burroughs, I’m struck not just by the sharp clear quality of the prose, but also by the insights themselves, the things Burroughs can see and points out to us. If he had been a worse … Continue reading →

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The Myth of Burroughs

Posted on March 7, 2017 by Lee

It’s no use trying to cut through the myth of William S. Burroughs to get to the truth of the man himself. The truth of Burroughs is found in the myth: “the idea of Burroughs has its own realities, its … Continue reading →

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Beat Freedom

Posted on December 12, 2016 by Lee

Gregory Corso’s Variations on a Generation, exploring what it means to be “beat.” First it’s about how to write poetry: beat writers use “spontaneity ‘bop prosody’ surreal-real images jumps beats cool measures long rapidic vowels, long long lines, and, the … Continue reading →

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Beat Attitude

Posted on November 23, 2016 by Lee

In Go, John Clellon Holmes sketches some of the leading figures of the Beat Generation. We get a picture of their different attitudes, in every sense of the word: the way they talk, the way they carry themselves, the way … Continue reading →

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Some notes on Spengler as I read him

Posted on October 5, 2016 by Lee

I’ve been slowly reading The Decline of the West by Oswald Spengler with a couple of friends. We meet online once a week to discuss the pages we’ve read. What follows is an explanation of Spengler as I understand him … Continue reading →

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Cloud Mind Shadow

Posted on September 21, 2016 by Lee

“I believe that only a dreamer who has fear neither of life nor death will discover this infinitesimal iota of force which will hurtle the cosmos into whack – instantaneously.” What do you do when you have no fear of … Continue reading →

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Kathy Acker on William Burroughs

Posted on June 8, 2015 by Lee

As I prepare to talk about William S Burroughs at the end of the month, I’ve been re-reading Kathy Acker’s essay “William Burroughs’s Realism”. You can find her essay in Bodies of Work (Serpent’s Tail, 1997). The following is a … Continue reading →

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William S. Burroughs and Scientology

Posted on February 8, 2014 by Lee

I’ve been reading Scientologist! William S. Burroughs and the ‘Weird Cult’ by David S. Wills.  (Beatdom Books, 2013)  It’s an excellent book, that describes in clear and engaging prose the development of William Burroughs’s ideas and beliefs, particularly his shifting … Continue reading →

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