I know that I'm skipping ahead by more than a few chapters, but there is a direct lineage from the music of the Velvet Underground to Thurston Moore's Chelsea Light Moving, and in honor of my Thanksgiving tradition, I want to post CLM's Burroughs.
A little William S. Burroughs goes a long way, of course, but this being Thanksgiving and all makes me want to indulge in a just a little more. Director Gus Van Sant cast Burroughs as a character in his brilliant 1989 movie Drugstore Cowboy, but the role was really more of a elegiac tribute to the man than any element of the film's plot. Someone stitched all of his scenes together into one clip, presented below. With his Kansas accent and odd cadence and rhythms, Burroughs talked like almost no one else before or after, but he was also about the most honest, direct, and insightful individual you'd ever want to meet. Just listen to his prophesy starting at about the 3:56 mark in the Drugstore Cowboy clip, and the wisdom evident in an excerpt from an interview with journalist Jurgen Ploog after the Cowboy clip.
Finally, here's a fascinating clip in which Burroughs explains not only his cut-up technique but also hints at possibilities for time travel and also foreshadows Steve Reich's early phasing experiments. There's a direct path from this spoken word piece to Reich to My Life In The Bush of Ghosts and to all of hip-hop.
Finally, here's a fascinating clip in which Burroughs explains not only his cut-up technique but also hints at possibilities for time travel and also foreshadows Steve Reich's early phasing experiments. There's a direct path from this spoken word piece to Reich to My Life In The Bush of Ghosts and to all of hip-hop.
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