User:TheOldJacobite/W.S.Burroughspopculture
Video, color laserprint by Christiaan Tonnis, 2006
William S. Burroughs has had a wide influence on late 20th and early 21st century popular culture. He is often called one of the most influential writers of his time, most notably by Norman Mailer, who referred to Burroughs as "[t]he only American novelist living today who may conceivably be possessed by genius."[1] Amongst his other admirers are Peter Ackroyd, J. G. Ballard, Lester Bangs, Charles Bukowski, Angela Carter, Jean Genet, William Gibson, Ken Kesey, and Alan Moore.
Literature edit
Burroughs impact on contemporary fiction has been noted by a number of critics. Barry Miles says, “In terms of literature, Burroughs' influence has been gradual and insidious.”[2]
Discussing Bob Dylan's writing, critic R. B. Morris states, “There's no doubt that he was greatly influenced by Burroughs' wild juxtaposing of images and scenes, as well as subject matter.” He cites Dylan's novel Tarantula:
Dylan's episodic series spinning off of “Black Nite Crash” evokes and emulates Burroughs' “Withdrawal Nightmares,” as well as many other examples of spitfire scenes surrealistically exploding left and right in rapid sequence. One could say Tarantula is something of a Dylan version of Naked Lunch, replacing Burroughs' underworld of madness and addiction with his own version of sixties terrain and structured in a very similar, semifragmentary layout of prose sketches and cut-up scenarios.[3]
In 1965, Dylan, referring to Burroughs, told Allen Ginsberg, “Tell him I’ve been reading him and I believe every word he says.“[4]
Burroughs was cited by Robert Anton Wilson as the first person to notice the "23 Enigma":
I first heard of the 23 Enigma from William S. Burroughs, author of Naked Lunch, Nova Express, etc. According to Burroughs, he had known a certain Captain Clark, around 1960 in Tangier, who once bragged that he had been sailing 23 years without an accident. That very day, Clark’s ship had an accident that killed him and everybody else aboard. Furthermore, while Burroughs was thinking about this crude example of the irony of the gods that evening, a bulletin on the radio announced the crash of an airliner in Florida, USA. The pilot was another Captain Clark and the flight was Flight 23.[5]
In his essay “King Junk,” Dennis Cooper wrote, "along with Jean Genet, John Rechy, and Ginsberg, [Burroughs] helped make homosexuality seem cool and highbrow, providing gay liberation with a delicious edge." Splatterpunk writer Poppy Z. Brite has also referenced this aspect of Burroughs's work.
Science fiction edit
Both the New Wave and cyberpunk schools of science fiction are indebted to him. Admirers from the cyberpunk milieu include William Gibson and John Shirley.[2] First published in 1982, the British slipstream fiction magazine Interzone paid tribute to him with its choice of name.
Fictional character edit
Burroughs was fictionalized in Jack Kerouac's autobiographical novel On the Road as "Old Bull Lee". In the 2004 novel Move Under Ground, Burroughs, Kerouac, and Neal Cassady team up to defeat Cthulhu.
Burroughs appears in the first part of Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson's The Illuminatus! Trilogy, during the riots at the 1968 Democratic National Convention, and is described as a person devoid of anger, passion, indignation, hope, or any other recognizable human emotion. He is presented as a polar opposite of Allen Ginsberg, as Ginsberg believed in everything and Burroughs believed in nothing. Wilson would recount in his Cosmic Trigger II: Down to Earth having interviewed both Burroughs and Ginsberg for Playboy the day the riots began as well as his experiences with Shea during the riots, providing some detail on the creation of the fictional sequence.
Music edit
Burroughs is cited as a major influence by musicians Laurie Anderson, Kurt Cobain,[6] Ian Curtis, Bob Dylan,[3] Genesis P-Orridge, Lou Reed, Patti Smith,[7] Tom Waits,[8] and Roger Waters.
He appeared on the cover of The Beatles' album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.
Burroughs participated on numerous album releases by Giorno Poetry Systems, including The Nova Convention (featuring Frank Zappa, John Cage, and Philip Glass) and You're the Guy I Want to Share My Money With (with John Giorno and Laurie Anderson). He is featured in a spoken word piece entitled "Sharkey's Night" on Anderson's album Mister Heartbreak. In addition, Burroughs provided vocal samples for the soundtrack of Anderson's 1986 concert film, Home of the Brave, and made a cameo appearance in it.
In 1990, Island Records released Dead City Radio, produced by Hal Willner and Nelson Lyon, a collection of readings set to a broad range of musical compositions by John Cale, Donald Fagen, Lenny Pickett, Chris Stein, Sonic Youth, and others. The remastered edition of Sonic Youth's album Goo includes a longer version of "Dr. Benway's House," which had appeared, in shorter form, on Dead City Radio.
In 1992 he recorded "Quick Fix" with Ministry, which appeared on their single for "Just One Fix." The single featured cover art by Burroughs and a remix of the song dubbed the "W.S.B. mix." Burroughs also made an appearance in the video for "Just One Fix." The same year he also recorded the EP The "Priest" They Called Him, reading the short story of the same name, while Kurt Cobain created layers of guitar feedback and distortion. Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic appears on the cover as the titular "Priest." In 1992 Burroughs worked with The Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy on Spare Ass Annie and Other Tales, with the duo providing musical background and accompaniment to spoken readings from several of Burroughs's books.
Burroughs appears in U2's music video Last Night on Earth, pushing a shopping cart with a large spotlight positioned inside it. The video ends with a closeup of his eyes. He recites the lyrics of R.E.M.'s song "Star Me Kitten" for a version featured on the Songs in the Key of X: Music from and Inspired by the X-Files soundtrack.
In 2000, Spring Heel Jack released the album Oddities, on which appears the band's remix of Material's Road to the Western Lands, featuring Burroughs, which had originally appeared on the remix album Seven Souls.
The band Showbread titled one of their songs "Naked Lunch" in their 2006 release Age of Reptiles. The lyrics to the Bomb the Bass track "Bug Powder Dust" makes numerous references to Naked Lunch. The instrumental rock band Tortoise song "Benway" appears on their 2001 album Standards. Joy Division's debut album Unknown Pleasures featured a song called "Interzone." In 2006, the British electronic band Klaxons released a track titled "Atlantis to Interzone."
Band names edit
Numerous band have taken their names from Burroughs's novels. As critic Spencer Kansa put it: “His cosmic yobs, hipster jargon, drug induced visions and novel titles have been inspiration to a slew of bands....[4]
Steely Dan is named after a dildo in Naked Lunch. Barry Miles says,
[I]n 1972, when Donald Fagen and Walter Becker were looking for a name for their new band, they flipped through the pages of The Naked Lunch: “Mary is strapping on a rubber penis: 'Steely Dan III from Yokohama,' she says, caressing the shaft. Milk spurts across the room.” (77) Walter Becker, interviewed in 1974, said, “There always used to be a Beatnik corner in the bookshop – Ginsberg, Corso, Snyder and so on, and that's where I first came across Naked Lunch. Naming ourselves from something in the book shouldn't be taken too literally, though. […] but we have certainly picked up on some of his world view. I admire Burroughs a lot.[9]
The Mugwumps and The Insect Trust also derived their names from the novel.[4] The Mugwumps were formed by John Sebastian, Zal Yanovsky, Cass Elliott, and Denny Doherty in 1963. Miles says, “The book had been published in the States the previous year; it was to provide rock and rolls with numerous band names and words: 'A Near East Mugwump sits naked on a bar stool covered in pink silk' (63).[9]
British band Soft Machine took its moniker from the Burroughs novel of the same name, as did Dead Fingers Talk, a protopunk band from Hull, England; their only album was titled Storm the Reality Studios, after a quote from Nova Express. British post-punk band The Soft Boys took their name from Soft Machine and The Wild Boys.[4] Alt-country band Clem Snide is named for a Burroughs character. Thin White Rope took their name for Burroughs's euphemism for ejaculation.[10][4] The American extreme metal band Success Will Write Apocalypse Across the Sky took their name from the 1989 text "Apocalypse,"[11] in which Burroughs describes "art and creative expression taking a literal and physical form."[12]
Film edit
Burroughs played Opium Jones in the 1966 Conrad Rooks cult film Chappaqua, which also featured cameo roles by Allen Ginsberg, Moondog, and others. In 1968, an abbreviated—77 minutes as opposed to the original's 104 minutes—version of Benjamin Christensen's 1922 film Häxan was released, subtitled Witchcraft Through The Ages. This version, produced by Anthony Balch, featured an eclectic jazz score by Daniel Humair and narration by Burroughs.[13] He also appeared in a number of short films in the 1960s directed by Balch.[14]
Burroughs narrated part of the 1980 documentary Shamans of the Blind Country by anthropologist and filmmaker Michael Oppitz.[15] A documentary titled Burroughs, directed by Howard Brookner, was released in 1984. It included footage of Burroughs and many of his friends and colleagues.
Burroughs subsequently made cameo appearances in a number of other films and videos, such as David Blair's Wax: or the Discovery of Television among the Bees, in which he plays a beekeeper, in an elliptic story about the first Gulf War, and Decoder by Klaus Maeck. He played an aging junkie priest in Gus Van Sant's 1989 film Drugstore Cowboy. He also appears briefly at the beginning of Van Sant's Even Cowgirls Get the Blues (based on the Tom Robbins novel), in which he is seen crossing a city street; as the noise of the city rises around him he pauses in the middle of the intersection and speaks the single word "ominous". Van Sant's short film "Thanksgiving Prayer" features Burroughs reading the poem "Thanksgiving Day, Nov. 28, 1986," from Tornado Alley, intercut with a collage of black and white images.
In the 1984 Alex Cox film, Repo Man, there is a hospital scene in which Dr. Benway and Mr. Lee are paged. The two are also paged in a hospital scene in Alex Proyas' 1998 film Dark City.
Near the end of his life, recordings of Burroughs reading his short stories "A Junky's Christmas" and "Ah Pook is Here" were used on the soundtracks of two highly acclaimed animated films.
Filmmakers Lars Movin and Steen Moller Rasmussen used footage of Burroughs taken during a 1983 tour of Scandinavia in the documentary Words of Advice: William S. Burroughs on the Road.
Television edit
He gave a reading on the November 7, 1981 episode of Saturday Night Live, hosted by Lauren Hutton.
The track "Seven Souls" by the band Material, which featured Burroughs reading from his novel The Western Lands, was used in the opening scene and in the closing credits of The Sopranos Season 6 episode, "Members Only".[16]
A November 2004 episode of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation included an evil character named Dr. Benway.[17]
On the "Master Ninja I" episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000, Joel and his robot sidekicks show their newest invention: pop-up books based on classic literature. Crow tries to show his contribution, a pop-up version of Naked Lunch, but no one wants to open it.
Comedy edit
On The Firesign Theatre album Waiting for the Electrician or Someone Like Him, the track "Le Trente-Huit Cunegonde" features a story in which the 1960s counterculture has become mainstream, and a bomber drops a load of hardcover copies of Naked Lunch on the last "un-hip" stronghold in the world in Nigeria. The track features a character named Dr. Benway.
References edit
- ^ Birmingham, Jed (14-10-2009). "William Burroughs and Norman Mailer". Reality Studio. Retrieved 29-01-2011.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|accessdate=and|date=(help) - ^ a b Miles, Barry (2009). "The Naked Lunch in My Life". In Oliver Harris (ed.). Naked Lunch @ 50: anniversary essays. Ian MacFadyen. Carbondale, Illinois: Southern Illinois University Press. p. 119. ISBN 0-8093-2916-6. Retrieved 26-12-2011.
{{cite book}}: Check date values in:|accessdate=(help) - ^ a b Morris, R. B. (2009). "I Am No Doctor". In Oliver Harris (ed.). Naked Lunch @ 50: anniversary essay. Ian MacFadyen. Carbondale, Illinois: Southern Illinois University Press. p. 110. ISBN 0-8093-2916-6s.
{{cite book}}:|access-date=requires|url=(help); Check|isbn=value: invalid character (help); Check date values in:|accessdate=(help) - ^ a b c d e Kansa, Spencer (2010-08-24). "William Burroughs – Heavy Metal Guru". Beatdom Vol. 7. Dundee: Mauling Press.
- ^ "The 23 Phenomenon". Fortean Times. 2007-05. Retrieved 2008-09-25.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|date=(help); Unknown parameter|name=ignored (help) - ^ "William S. Burroughs and Kurt Cobain: A Dossier". Reality Studio. 18-02-2007. Retrieved 29-01-2011.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|accessdate=and|date=(help) - ^ Miles, Barry (2009). "The Naked Lunch in My Life". In Oliver Harris (ed.). Naked Lunch @ 50: anniversary essays. Ian MacFadyen. Carbondale, Illinois: Southern Illinois University Press. p. 120. ISBN 0-8093-2916-6. Retrieved 26-12-2011.
{{cite book}}: Check date values in:|accessdate=(help) - ^ Wills, D. (2007). "Modern Beats: Tom Waits". Beatdom Vol. 3. Dundee: Mauling Press.
- ^ a b Miles, Barry (2009). "The Naked Lunch in My Life". In Oliver Harris (ed.). Naked Lunch @ 50: anniversary essays. Ian MacFadyen. Carbondale, Illinois: Southern Illinois University Press. p. 118. ISBN 0-8093-2916-6. Retrieved 26-12-2011.
{{cite book}}: Check date values in:|accessdate=(help) - ^ Jason Ankeny. "Thin White Rope biography". All Music Guide. Retrieved 2012-01-13.
- ^ Murphy, Timothy S. (1998). "Nothing Is True, Everything Is Permitted". Wising Up the Marks: The Amodern William Burroughs. Berkeley, California: University of California Press. p. 6. ISBN 0520209516. Retrieved June 23, 2009.
- ^ G., Richard (April 2009). "Success Will Write Apocalypse Across the Sky interview". Lords of Metal. Retrieved June 23, 2009.
- ^ Mark Bourne (2001). "Häxan / Witchcraft Through the Ages: The Criterion Collection". DVD Journal. Retrieved 2008-10-24.
- ^ U B U W E B : William S. Burroughs Films
- ^ Ausgewählte Publikationen von Michael Oppitz from the website of the Ethnographic Museum of the University of Zürich
- ^ Morris, R. B. (2009). "I Am No Doctor". In Oliver Harris (ed.). Naked Lunch @ 50: anniversary essays. Ian MacFadyen. Carbondale, Illinois: Southern Illinois University Press. p. 108. ISBN 0-8093-2916-6. Retrieved 26-12-2011.
{{cite book}}: Check date values in:|accessdate=(help) - ^ "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation Ch-Ch-Changes, Season 5, Episode 8, Aired 11/18/04". tv.com. Retrieved 29-01-2009.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|accessdate=(help)