William S. Burroughs R.I.P. by Charles Overbeck Matrix Editor easterisle@aol.com It's really hard to believe that Bill Burroughs is dead. It's easier to imagine him fading off into the gray shadows of an October dusk, quietly sloughing off the last coils of a reality he had little to do with anyway. A heart attack? Sounds like a cheap made-for-TV ending, mediocre, insubstantial and unsubstantiated. But everybody's gotta go, one way or the other. 1914 - 1997: He was here for a long damned time, longer than you might expect a life-long heroin addict to survive. The junk opened a window, and Burroughs climbed through, treading without fear or reservation through the nod of reason. He went there, and he brought something back. Most folks couldn't make any sense of it, you know, the flatlander thing. Burroughs' writings were held at arms length by those who knew he was doing something significant, but who couldn't figure out exactly what it was. Burroughs was one of the old school hackers, and he was hacking the scariest system of all: reality itself. What happens when you take a piece of it, slice it into oblivion, and then paste it back together? What happens when you reject the pattern which rejected you and drift free of the buoy of mental conformity? What happens when you realize that there's no difference between a Burroughs cut-up and "accepted" reality, save that accepted reality is accepted? His work broke through the perceived boundary of existence and gave form to the inconceivable. Or perhaps through him, the inconceivable bled through into our reality, offering a rare glimpse of what lies beyond the constricted clogged valve of consciousness. Burroughs blazed trails where we didn't even know there was wilderness, laying out thorny paths for anyone who dared to follow. And there were plenty who dared to follow. Although his death was virtually unnoticed by the mainstream media (blip on CNN, some old fuck died, who knows who what whatever), Burroughs' influence on art and literature cannot accurately be gauged, save by the innumerable writers and artists who cite Burroughs as a major influence. His later years, though more profitable, were not his best; Burroughs' greatest work was composed in the hazy spaces between nods in Tangiers, before anyone considered him a writer, including himself. The Nike commercial was especially dismal. But at that point, Bill didn't need to prove himself to anyone. If he needed to do a Nike commercial to pay the damn rent, more power to him. In a hundred years, no one will give a damn what Nike was. But they'll remember William S. Burroughs. "Nothing is true. Everything is permitted." In a way, maybe he didn't die, maybe he did just fade off into the cold gray mist. Burroughs' passing was so unnoticed as to be irrelevant, but his discoveries inevitably remain in the spaces between words and images and thoughts. His books gather dust on obscure library shelves, but the ideas they contain are very much alive in the minds and work of countless individuals who have sought inspiration from his explorations. Do some exploring of your own. Many of Burroughs' writings are already on the Web, as well as photo galleries documenting his life and work. You can even try your own cut-up experiments with the Big Table Cut-up Machine. Or you could just head for the local copy shop and go berserk with a vintage Xerox. If you look close enough, somewhere between the smudged toner stains and rigid pulp, you might even see the old junky gazing back at you. Compiled by Ashley Overbeck QUICK JUMP: Burroughs Pages | Photo Galleries | Burroughs' Writings | Other Resources | Top Burroughs Pages The Big Table William S. Burroughs Explorer http://www.bigtable.com/ Highlights of this page include a gallery, sound files, links to the Burroughs memorial service program and an excellent Burroughs primer for those less familiar with Uncle Bill and his work. Bohemian Ink's Last Words of Dr. Benway Page http://www.levity.com/corduroy/burroughs.htm An excellent Burroughs tribute with tons of links to other resources around the Net. Burroughs.net http://www.burroughs.net/ While the original structure of this site has been scrapped indefinitely in light of Burrough's death, the current page offers an unbelievable wealth of Burroughs post mortem articles from every imaginable source. Revolutionaries: William S. Burroughs http://www.disinfo.com/rev/rev_burroughs.html disinformation's excellent William S. Burroughs page. Lots of links. The InterNetWebZone http://www.hyperreal.org/wsb/index.html Looking for Burroughs trivia? You'll find plenty in the William S. Burrouhgs Files, along with bibliographies, biographies and tons of links to other resources. Literary Kicks http://www.charm.net/~brooklyn/People/WilliamSBurroughs.html Brief, thoroughly hyper-annotated biographical sketch of Burroughs, along with a comprehensive bibliography of his works and news updates on his recent passing. The site also includes a touching farewell tribute. The Unofficial Burroughs Homepage http://www.peg.apc.org/~firehorse/wsb/wsb.html Look here for plenty of short pieces and excerpts from the Burroughs collection, plus interviews, Burroughs performance art, gopher links and more. The William S. Burroughs Files http://www.hyperreal.org/wsb/index.html Thorough reference guide and resource compilation. QUICK JUMP: Burroughs Pages | Photo Galleries | Burroughs' Writings | Other Resources | Top Photo Galleries William S. Burroughs Photos A small image gallery from Ghent University, with photos spanning from the 1950s to the 90s. http://studwww.rug.ac.be/~fvcauwel/WSBimage.html Ari Frankel's William S. Burroughs Photo Gallery http://www.inch.com/~ari/wb1.html Features images borrowed from Ted Morgan's definitive Burroughs biography, Literary Outlaw R. Crumb Portrait of William S. Burroughs http://host.interloc.com/~iliadbks/graphics/wsbscan.jpg Burroughs Writings Online "The Electronic Revolution" http://www.peg.apc.org/~firehorse/wsb/electrrev.html Transcript of Burroughs' 1970 essay on the media virus extermination program. "I suggest that the spoken word as we know it came after the written word. In the beginning was the word and the word was God and the word was flesh... human flesh... In the beginning of WRITING." Another version of "The Electronic Revolution" from the Electronic Frontier Foundation http://www.eff.org/pub/Publications/Misc/ William_S_Burroughs/electronic_revolution.burroughs "They Do Not Always Remember" http://www.emf.net/~mal/wsbnew.html "Sects and Death" http://sunsite.unc.edu/subgenius/bigfist/ classic/classictales/SectsandDeath.html "The Man Who Taught His Asshole to Talk" http://www.eff.org/pub/Publications/Misc/ William_S_Burroughs/did_i_ever_tell_you.burroughs "Quick Fix" http://www.eff.org/pub/Publications/Misc/William_S_Burroughs/quick_fix.burroughs "Lee's Journals" http://www.peg.apc.org/~firehorse/wsb/lee.html For other Burroughs texts, interviews, articles, essays and reviews, see Bohemian Ink's "words" link. http://www.levity.com/corduroy/burroughs/words.htm QUICK JUMP: Burroughs Pages | Photo Galleries | Burroughs' Writings | Other Resources | Top Other Resources The Big Table Cut-up Machine http://www.bigtable.com/cutup/ Make your own William S. Burroughs-style cut-ups -- just input the text you want to use and click the magic button (with or without random chunks of Naked Lunch interspersed). Trial of "A Book Named Naked Lunch By William S. Burroughs" http://www.lib.siu.edu/cni/b411.html Partial transcript of the famous 1965 trial of Naked Lunch, including the testimony of Allen Ginsberg and Norman Mailer. RealAudio Burroughs recordings on Yeast Radio http://yeast.thmc.org/ An article in Post Modern Culture on Burroughs-inspired music http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/postmodern_culture/v005/5.2r_wood.html Burroughs entry in the St. Louis Walk of Fame http://www.st-louis.mo.us/st-louis/walkofame/inductees/burroughs.html BEAT-L, a beat generation listserv gopher://dept.english.upenn.edu:70/00/Lists/20th/beat-l A Burroughs gopher server gopher://fido.wps.com:70/11/william_s_burroughs Which is the Fly and Which is the Human? http://www.eff.org/pub/Publications/Misc/William_S_Burroughs/1992_burroughs.interview Transcript of Lynn Snowden's 1992 Esquire interview with William S. Burroughs and David Cronenberg. More Links http://www.levity.com/corduroy/burroughs/links.htm QUICK JUMP: Burroughs Pages | Photo Galleries | Burroughs' Writings | Other Resources Matrix: Conspiracies, Crimes & Coverups Message Boards: Share Your Views!