WILLIAM BURROUGHS: Out on the periphery

[RonPrice]

William Seward Burroughs II also known by his pen name William Lee(1914-1997) was an American novelist, poet, essayist and spoken word performer or performance poet. A primary figure of the Beat Generation and a major postmodernist author, he is considered to be "one of the most politically trenchant, culturally influential, and innovative artists of the 20th century."(1)

Burroughs was always far out on the periphery of my life associated as he was with the origins of Beat poetry from the mid-to-late ‘40s when I was but a child. But in my late middle age, the years from 50 to 60--1994 to 2004--when I began to turn to poetry in the constellation of my interests and activities, Burroughs started to appear in the backdrop of my reading. Today I saw a doco on Burroughs.(2)–Ron Price with thanks to (1)Penguin Modern Classics 2003 edition of Junky, and (2)William Burroughs, SBSONE TV, 9 June, 2:20-3:55 p.m., 9 June 2012.

You achieved fame and glory,
but at what a price with heroin
addiction, murder and goodness
knows what else under your belt.

You began writing when I was just
one year old, published your famous
Naked Lunch the same year I joined
the Baha’i Faith,1 and you graduated
from Harvard in 1936 right at the start
of the planning for the Baha’i teaching
Plan I’ve been part of some 60 years!!

You also received a $200/month sum from
your parents until you published The Ticket
That Exploded and Nova Express…...It was
then that I started travelling for the Canadian
Baha’i community in 1962…..You published:

Junkie: Confessions of Drug Addict at the start
of the Kingdom of God on Earth in 1953--little
did anyone know about either your book or that
Kingdom. I trust you are now enjoying some of
that freedom from those slings and arrows of an
outrageous fortune which plagued you on & on
during your life in that tempestuous 20th century.

1 In 1959. Burroughs wrote a total of 18 novels and novellas, six collections of short stories and four collections of essays. Five books of his interviews and letters have been published. He also collaborated on projects and recordings with numerous performers and musicians, and made many appearances in films. “The greatest satirical writer since Jonathan Swift,” he was sometimes called. Norman Mailer declared him to be: "the only American writer who may be conceivably possessed by genius."
Ron Price
10 June 2012

[Steve Plonk]

Dr. Benway, in NAKED LUNCH, was quite a diabolical character...

Yep, ole "Pistol Bill" was really out there writing in "third field". Moreover, I've read quite a bit of Burroughs stuff...not for the faint of heart...

[RonPrice]

Thanks for your response, Steve. Sounds like you are more acquainted with Burrough's writing than I am. He has just come onto my radar screen. The world is so full of writers and authors in so many disciplines of learning. I am just beginning, in the last year or so to learn about Professor Iain Stewart. I wrote the following this morning:
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BOTANY: AMAZING

Professor Iain Stewart(1964- ) is a Scottish geologist. As well as being professor of Geoscience Communication at the University of Plymouth, he has presented a number of television and radio series, such as Journeys From the Centre of the Earth, Earth: The Power of the Planet, Hot Rocks, 10 Things You Didn't Know About..., The Climate Wars, How Earth Made Us and How to Grow a Planet. He has a way of making all of those dull subjects I took at primary and high school sound a whole lot more amazing. Last night, as I was running out of my daily quota of energy, his subject was photosynthesis. He called it: “plants harnessing energy from outer space.” When you put it like that, you start to see plants in a whole new light. Literally.

Of course, the cinematography, the script-writing, Stewart’s enthusiasm and the organization of the material all helped to turn on my sensory and intellectual emporium on a cold night in Tasmania’s winter. I am in the early years of my retirement having been on an old-age pension for three years. I might have had an entirely different career trajectory if I had been in school for this kind of curricular content. Many of the sciences, the social sciences and the humanities are making use of television to bring their disciplines alive for a mass public. The process did not begin until I left school and became a teacher myself. I made extensive use of the electronic media as a teacher from the 1960s until my retirement at the turn of the millennium.

This softly spoken, but engaging geologist traced our planet’s evolution through rocks and volcanoes; he explained how plants turned the Earth from a barren, hostile, purple rock surrounded by toxic gases, into a planet we could call home. He’s had some very cool, if slightly hair-raising, experiments to show us what he’s talking about. I will mention but one: he extracts oxygen from a lump of iron ore and tells us that: “I’m breathing oxygen that was created two and a half billion years ago.”-Ron Price with thanks to “How To Grow a Planet,” ABC1, 8:30-9:30 17/6/’12.

[Steve Plonk]

Yep, as they say "down east", we're all stardust of one variety or another.
I don't see a contradiction between evolution & creation. God knows the
world or "the watch" he made, to use a metaphor, & occasionally fine tunes
the thing...We breathe the same air as the dinosaurs, etc., who were "tuned out".

Around here, we have a bunch of folks who want "creative design" taught in
the classroom. I think God did & still does have an ongoing design, but it
is still unknown to us...It's like the fable of the six blind men and the elephant.
Everyone gets part of the elephant & until they put it together, they can't
see it as a whole...

So, I feel that religion & science should remain separate.
The two don't mix very well for those "fundamentally inclined". Teaching religious theory in Biology is "junk science". The church
& state should remain separate also. I'm not in favor of a theocracy...

[RonPrice]

For my own view of the subject of religion & science, Steve, go to this link: http://info.bahai.org/article-1-5-3-1.html ....there may/will be many areas in which you and I will disagree, but there is no need for either of us to invoke the fires of dissention due to any of the absolutes which we espouse.-Ron

[Steve Plonk]

How long is G-d's day? I say G-d's day is about a billion & a half years.
We're living on a used Earth, on borrowed time. The clock is ticking...
Folks around here look at me incredulously...Oh well...

Yes, there may be a focal point between science & religion, but no one
is seeing clear enough to see what it is...Everyone must make up their own
mind & do what they think is best. There is room for improvements & compromise, yet we shouldn't be fooled by the dogma of the day.
Fundamentalists take all the FUN out of religion, in my opinion, & I have
"an axe to grind" about it. They are making it hard on the rest of us...

[RonPrice]

As you say, Steve, "there is room for improvements & compromise," I would add to the words you included: "we shouldn't be fooled by the dogma of the day," "....nor should we be fooled by the dogmas of yesterday." As one of my friends told me recently 'we must not beat our dogmas with stigmas.' Australians love to play with words and are always punning around with words---in this case, dogs with sticks.-Ron

[Steve Plonk]

I'm rambling like a rose & not staying on subject...Check out Swami Beyondananda, & then tell me about it...The world spins, regardless...I don't know nothin', my heads full of stuffin'... Hey, the press spins on in the tabloids, too...
But ole "Pistol Bill" got down to the brass tacks of the matter in "THE WESTERN LANDS". Tongues will wag & stomachs will sag. Sometimes life's a drag...
Ron, I'll get you the link in a minute...Here's the quote:

Ten Guidelines to Enlightenment

By Swami Beyondananda

1. Be a FUNdamentalist. Ensure that the FUN always comes before the MENTAL. Realize that life is a situation comedy that will never be cancelled. A laugh track has been provided and the reason we are put in the material world is to get more material from that track. Have a good laughsitive twice a day, which will ensure regularity.



2. Remember that each of us has been given a special gift just for entering, so you are already a winner!



3. The most powerful tool on the planet today is Tell-A-Vision. That's where I tell a vision to you and you tell a vision to me. That way, if we don't like the programming we're getting, we can change the channel.



4. Life is like photography -- you use the negative to develop. No matter what adversity you face, be reassured: of course God loves you. . .



5. It is true: as we go through life thinking heavy thoughts, thought particles tend to get caught between the ears and cause a condition called "truth decay." Be sure to use mental floss twice a day, and when you're tempted to practice 'tantrum yoga', remember what we teach in the Swami's Absurdiveness Training Class: don't get EVEN, get ODD.



6. If we want world peace, we must let go of our attachments and truly live like nomads. That's where I no mad at you and you no mad at me. That way there will surely be nomadness on the planet. Peace begins with each of us. A little peace here, a little peace there. Pretty soon all the peaces will fit together to make one big peace everywhere.



7. I know, great earth changes have been predicted for the future, so if you're looking to avoid earthquakes, my advice is simple: when you find a fault, don't dwell on it.



8. There's no need to change the world. All we have to do is toilet train the world and we'll never have to change it again.



9. If you're looking for the key to the Universe, I've got some good news, and some bad news. The bad news: there is no key to the Universe. The good news: it was never locked.



10. Finally, everything I've told you is 'channeled'. That way, if you don't like it, it's not my fault. But, remember: enlightenment is not a bureaucracy, so you don't have to go through channels.



Copyright 2001, by Steve Bhaerman. All rights reserved.



To find out about the Swami's schedule on the "outernet," hire him for a performance, or buy his books or tapes, call 1-800-SWAMI-BE or visit Swami's website at http://www.beyondananda.com.



Please note: the author of this article may not be certified as a licensed psychotherapist -- please consult professional assistance as your situation dictates.

[RonPrice]

Coincidental, or what; just yesterday I wrote a piece drawing on a historian Johan Huizinga(1872-1945). The piece went like this:
------------------------------
WHAT IS PLAY?

"Activity that proceeds within certain limits of time and space, in a visible order, according to rules freely accepted, and outside the sphere of necessity or material utility. The play mood is one of rapture and enthusiasm, and is sacred or festive in accordance with the occasion. A feeling of exaltation and tension accompanies the action, mirth and relaxation follow."1 This is the definition of play by the Dutch historian Johan Huizinga(1872-1945) in his book 1Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play Element in Culture, Boston: Beacon Press, 1950(1944), p. 132.

I have had, according to this definition, a lifetime of play beginning as far back as I can remember, as far back as my first memory, with those Meccano toys in the snow in a late winter day in Ontario’s Golden Horseshoe. The year was 1948, the year of the formation of the NSA of the Baha’is of Canada which I have been associated with now for nearly 60 years.-Ron Price, Pioneering Over Five Epochs, 17 June 2012.

You wanted to write, Johan;
indeed, you had to write, as
you said. Writing is playing,
is creative….it creates order
between the poles of frivolity
and ecstasy…..It functions as
a play-ground for the mind in
a world of its own and creates,
civilization which arises in and
as play.…do I play too much by
writing all this prose and poetry?1

1 Huizinga sees the essence of play as it is found in the ancient Greeks. “Plato understood creativity as play,” he asserts. Aristotle’s had another, simpler and more popular view. According to Aristotle music had a very definite function technically, psychologically and above all morally. It belonged to the mimetic arts, and the effect of this mimesis was, he stated, to arouse ethical feelings of a positive or negative kind.

1 Huizinga’s most famous work was The Autumn of the Middle Ages, or The Waning of the Middle Ages published in 1919. In this work he reinterpreted the later Middle Ages as a period of pessimism and decadence rather than rebirth.

Ron Price
17/6/’12

[Steve Plonk]

I've read some "goliardic" poetry & appreciate that time period...
Modern satire & parody was "born" during that period...
My favorite satire, etc. was "Gargantua & Pantagruel"...

Burroughs does the same thing for the 1950s & early 60s.
His "cut outs" method of writing was a hoot...

[RonPrice]

I must say that "goliardic" poetry is a new term to me. Modern satire & parody was "born" during that period, you say; I'll have to check that out and your favorite satire: "Gargantua & Pantagruel." Thanks, Steve, as we move past the solstice for winter/summer 2012.-Ron