Misplaced Pages

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 23skidoo (talk | contribs) at 14:54, 4 November 2005 (→Questioning Recent Edits). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Removed reference to Ridley Scott buying rights to title 'Bladerunner' from Burroughs. Scott purchased title from Alan Nourse who wrote an earlier novel with that title.

Isn't Burroughs thanked during the closing credits of the film? -- Gyrofrog (talk) 02:10, 29 May 2005 (UTC)

And can you provide a source for this information as there are numerous reference works on Burroughs that indicate the title came from him, not from Nourse. I'm reverting however will added a note indicating this is disputed. PS. this site indicates that it was specifically a copy of the Burroughs book (which was based upon Nourse's novel) that inspired Scott to name his film Blade Runner. 23skidoo 02:12, 29 May 2005 (UTC)

I (Camembert) removed:

"Perhaps his great legacy has been in the creative inspiration he has offered to writers, musicians and those in the visual arts."

(yes, and maybe it's in his books, or in his dress sense, or, or...)

"Nothing is true. Everything is permitted."

(this is Bill quoting the final words of Hassan i Sabbah)

Moved this Greg Godwin

"If you like Burroughs, or if you almost like Burroughs but he's a little strong for you, you may also want to take a look at Philip K. Dick."

And now I've removed this:

Most famous for his 'Thanksgiving Prayer' and the verse "Kill a Queer for Christ".

Because, well, he isn't - if he's "most famous" for anything, it's probably Naked Lunch. Besides which, "Thanks for 'Kill a Queer for Christ' stickers" is a line in "Thanksgiving Prayer", not a separate piece (and yes, he was being ironic, just in case anybody thinks all those drugs made him go a bit funny in his old age...). I suppose the Prayer could be mentioned somewhere in the article, but I could't see a simple way to fit it in, so I've just taken it out - I don't think it's a great loss, because it's really quite obscure as far as I'm aware (I'm not sure it's even been published in print, it was just a track on his Dead City Radio record, I think). --Camembert

"Thanksgiving Prayer" is included in the Burroughs short-story collection, Tornado Alley. 23skidoo 00:05, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)

You can read "Thanksgiving Prayer" in this webpage:

http://www.inter-zone.org/thanks.html

Removed - where he lived for the next twenty-four years as it is completely false. Burroughs lived in Paris, the UK and New York AS WELL as in Tangiers during the aforementioned period (1952-1976). vudu 20:02, 1 Dec 2003 (UTC)

--Markhadman 14:16, 25 Apr 2004 (UTC) Added 'Word Virus' to the bibliography since it contains previously unpublished material. Added some notes about Junky/Junkie that could be tidier - not clear which edition the ISBN refers to.

also...

It's 'Naked Lunch', not 'The Naked Lunch'. The latter (correct me if I'm wrong) is the title of the film by David Cronenberg. If someone with more time and experience could move the page and all references?

Actually, I think they both lack a "The". I'll see about moving stuff around now. --Camembert

Done (more or less). --Camembert

--Markhadman 17:17, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC) I'm considering revising and expanding this page. There are a few inconsistencies and errors that I've spotted, and I for one would like Misplaced Pages to contain more info on "The only American novelist who may conceivably be possessed by genius" (quote by Norman Mailer). Were he alive today, there's a fair chance that the old bugger'd be an enthusiastic Misplaced Pages user.

Who's up for helping? I'd rather have an edit war than go it alone.

The Definitive (?) article on The Definite Article

--Sstrong 06:40, 16 Jun 2004 (UTC) Well (deep breath) off the top of my head (without checking the massive WSB archive) this is how I understand it -

It depends where you are - It was 'The Naked Lunch' on first publication in Paris (by Maurice Girodias) - When Barney Rossett bought it for Grove Press, they suppressed the definite article and did some minor typo revisions and then appended 'Deposition' and 'postscript' to make the work more overtly anti-drugs. The dropping of the definite article may have been to obfuscate legal proceedings (Girodias claimed foreign language rights) or it may have been to frustrate customs authroities (who were wont to sort stop-lists with leading articles - a practice any librarian could've told them was dumb - could've but didn't!

Later, when John Calder put out NL in the UK he used the article (I believe he always got on better with Girodias than Rossett, and that his edition was (originally at least) 'by arrangement').

When Cronenberg made his travesty of film (no worse than any of his others) he used the US title of the book in all territories inna kinda culture-imperialist stylee.

So what do we have : Film in all countries: NO article | Book in France: YES (but only in english language - french language editions drop it!) | Book in US : NO | Book in UK : YES |

quite simple really... more info in: Naked Lunch : The Restored Text (NY:Grove Weidenfeld, 2001)

Of course, the contents of the book have remained constant (front and end matter only being varied) - the next two of the 'paris' trilogy (The Soft Machine and Ticket significantly vary contents across editions, but keep constant titles).

So, a case can be made that: aside from his massive acknowledged influence on music, William Burroughs also invented remixology.

PS no endorsement of WSB should be assumed - I don't like the dude so much.

"A book so intense can only be adored or hated & no-one who reads it is ever the same again" - I'm concerned this is just an opinion of a single user, can we remove this line? --Greg Godwin 06:07, 12 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I tried bringing the contributions added in that edit to a neutral point of view. What do you think of the text now?

Acegikmo1 13:29, 13 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Much better. This line also bugs me = "His hobbies included guys". Is that a legitimate hobby :)? I'm sure the humourist in Burrough's would say so, but it doesn't quite read correctly.

--Greg Godwin 13:57, 13 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Well, I don't think it's illegitimate. But I agree that it's not worded properly for an encyclopaedia. Do you have any suggestion for improvement?

Acegikmo1 14:04, 13 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Some Edits

--Modemx 19:04, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC) Added considerably more about Burroughs's drug rehabilitation as this was a major part of this life and work, deleting a line about him being on methadone his entire life, which I can find absolutely no reference to in any of my sources.

Added more about the sources of the Naked Lunch movie.

Added a bit more about the literary opinion regarding Naked Lunch, the novel.

Added a bit about the William Gibson influence.

Added a bit about the common criticisms of his work.

Added another note on a cameo in the recordings section.

Rorschach567's Headings I changed since New Orleans is not part of the American Southwest; it is part of the south, or deep south, and I think people outside of the U.S. may not understand what 'Southwest' means to people inside the U.S., namely the region of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, maybe California in some categories. --Mikerussell 04:04, 28 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Wiki like a cut-up

The Misplaced Pages article on Burroughs looks a little like a Burroughs cut-up itself. Perhaps I'll take it on myself to improve it. Can I beg some feedback from people on the strong, weak, and missing aspects of the current article from your perspective? --Modemx 06:18, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Considering the multiple-user nature of Misplaced Pages, that's inevitable, especially when you have editors with different opinion (or knowledge) of how the English language works. I don't think you need to ask permission if you want to reorganize the article, as long as the facts stay in. I think the booklist could be divided into "short stories", "novels", and "autobiographical" sections, perhaps with the use of the prettytable function. 23skidoo 15:52, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I think there should be more references to Burrough's influences: Korzybski(sp?--Science and Sanity, Spengler, Celine, Denton Welch.Golden Eternity

Thanks, what do people think of removing or modifying the reference to the Kurt Kobain collaboration? I got the full recording of this session a while ago and it's not really what one would describe as a collaboration, its a forty-five minute chat between Burroughs and Cobain while Cobain jams on the guitar. There was no product of this conversation except for the recording itself as far as I can tell. Does anyone know better? --Modemx 20:38, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Novel articles

For anyone interested, I've started a few stub articles on a number of Burroughs' books (see the booklist in the main article). Although I'm a fan I have to admit I'm not well versed enough to go into detail about plots, etc. for a few of them such as Dead Fingers Talk. I invite fans to check them out and expand the articles. I'll be starting more articles in due course, beginning with the novels, but also including some of the shorter works like Cat Inside, Tornado Alley, etc. (though please don't wait for me to do it if anyone wants to hop in!) 23skidoo 22:20, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

Trivia

Am i the only one who thinks the 'trivia' is a little too trivial? Prometheus912 00:57, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

Please sign your comments. I'm not a big fan of including information like height and weight but apparently it's done with a number of biographical articles. If someone were to delete it, I don't think it would be missed. 23skidoo 14:45, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

Naked Lunch and Civil Rights

Are you sure Naked Lunch is the "only" Beat work that addresses the Civil Rights movement? I thought Howl did as well, along with some of Burroughs' later novels. 23skidoo 14:54, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

Questioning Recent Edits

The old article was patchy, but the recent edits have condensed it to the point of obsurity. It was good to see some of the speculative and otherwise pointless sections removed, but now the reduction to 'just facts' as the editor has put it, has made all of the events of Burroughs life, and certain attributes of his work meaningless, because they go almost completely without a context. There was a lot to be said about the dodginess of the article beforehand, but I believe it gave a certain degree of depth to Burroughs writings, which can easily be misunderstood. Thus I think some integration of old and new is required - that is to say, a synthesis of the present one's structure with the older one's content, rather than a 'reversion'. Do I have any support on this? Prometheus912 08:52, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

I agree with you. My impression from reading the edit summaries on this is the editor felt it necessary to get the article below the 34K threshold which I have been told is not a Misplaced Pages policy. Also Misplaced Pages is not paper so we can go into more obscure details if we want. Due to the many, many edits made within a single day I was reluctant (but tempted) to revert back to the original, however as you suggest, many of the edits were good ones. So far all I have done is put back the image of the Junkie book cover. I oppose the deletion of the image of Joan because she is an important part of this article. I'm unlikely to have time myself to do a detailed comparison of the pre- and post-chop versions but anyone who wants to put in the effort has my support. 23skidoo 12:54, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

I have gone ahead and put back a few things that were cut, such as the notes under the bibliography and discography and IMO the vital Influences section (though I did remove a bit of POV that had snuck in). I think we need to add back in more parts of the main biography and I hope to do that on the next pass. 23skidoo 14:54, 4 November 2005 (UTC)