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William Seward Burroughs II was an American writer and visual artist. He is widely considered a primary figure of the Beat Generation and a postmodern author who influenced underground and popular culture and literature. Much of Burroughs's work is experimental and features unreliable narrators. Also noted as semi-autobiographical, his work often drew from his experiences with drug addiction, and…
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culture · American writer and visual artist (1914–1997) · writer · poet · novelist · essayist · painter · screenwriter · science fiction writer · prose writer · photographer · singer · also William S. Burroughs, William Seward Burroughs II, William Lee, William Burroughs, William Seward Burroughs, Willy Lee
Born 5 February 1914 · Died 2 August 1997 · Q188176
87 published statements · 0 followers
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I was standing outside myself trying to stop those hangings with ghost fingers. . . . I am a ghost wanting what every ghost wants—a body—after the Long Time moving through odorless alleys of space where no life is only the colorless no smell of death. . . . Nobody can breathe and smell it through pink convulsions of gristle laced with crystal snot, time shit and black blood filters of flesh
Dennis Cooper, God help him, is a born writer
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“I was standing outside myself trying to stop those hangings with ghost fingers. . . . I am a ghost wanting what every ghost wants—a body—after the Long Time moving through odorless alleys of space where no life is only the colorless no smell of death. . . . Nobody can breathe and smell it through pink convulsions of gristle laced with crystal snot, time shit and black blood filters of flesh”
“Dennis Cooper, God help him, is a born writer”
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Artnet news: William S. Burroughs
Artnet news: William S. Burroughs and David Bradshaw
Deadline.com: ‘Nova ’78’ Review: William S. Burroughs Takes Center Stage In An Immersive, Arty New York Time Capsule – Locarno Film Festival
Deadline.com: ‘Nova ‘78’ Teaser: Doc Featuring Never Before Seen Footage Of William S. Burroughs To Debut At Locarno
It emerged that Burroughs married a Mexican woman named María Lucrecia Barquera on November 23, 1949, probably for immigration reasons
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Released album “William S. Burroughs & Brion Gysin”.
Released album “The Acid Lands”.
Released ep “The Road To The Western Lands”.
Released album “Let Me Hang You”.
Released album “Curse Go Back”.
Released album “William S. Burroughs in Dub”.
And of Burroughs's more obscure collaborative poetic experiments of 1960 Minutes to Go: Redux and The Exterminator: Redux by Moloko Press in 2020
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Released album “Häxan: Witchcraft Through the Ages”.
Included notes and materials to reveal the care with which Burroughs used his methods and the complex histories of his manuscripts
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Hyperallergic: Searching for Guns, Hidden Signs, and Lemurs in the Art of William S. Burroughs
Released album “The Instrument of Control”.
Released album “Real English Tea Made Here”.
A re-edited version, The Yage Letters Redux, showed that the letters were largely fictionalised from Burroughs's notes
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Released album “Last Words: Qui Vivre Verra”.
Released album “Junky”.
Released ep “Selections From the Best of William Burroughs From Giorno Poetry Systems”.
Released album “Electronic Revolution”.
Released album “The Best of William Burroughs”.
Died 1997-08-02.
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“Strzeżcie się dziwek, które mówią, że nie chcą pieniędzy. Chrzanią. W rzeczywistości chcą więcej pieniędzy, znacznie więcej. To najdroższe dziwki, na jakie można natrafić.”
“You know, they ask me if I were on a desert island and I knew nobody would ever see what I wrote, would I go on writing. My answer is most emphatically yes. I would go on writing for company. Because I'm creating an imaginary — it's always imaginary — world in which I would like to live.”
“The hallucinogens produce visionary states, sort of, but morphine and its derivatives decrease awareness of inner processes, thoughts and feelings. They are pain killers; pure and simple. They are absolutely contraindicated for creative work, and I include in the lot alcohol, morphine, barbiturates, tranquilizers — the whole spectrum of sedative drugs.”
“A paranoid man is a man who knows a little about what's going on.”
“Człowiek z paranoją to taki, który wie trochę o tym, co się dzieje.”
“Jedzenie jest na pierwszym miejscu, moralność jest na drugim miejscu.”
“Jeśli robicie interesy z religijnym skurwielem, miejcie to na piśmie. Jego słowo jest gówno warte, sam dobry Bóg mówi mu, jak wyruchać was na tym interesie.”
“Language is a virus from outer space. (ang.)”
“Miłość? Co to jest? Najbardziej naturalny środek przeciwbólowy, jaki istnieje. MIŁOŚĆ.”
“Nie oferujcie współczucia chorym psychicznie. Powiedzcie im stanowczo: „Nie płacą mi za wysłuchiwanie tych bredni. Jesteście nieuleczalnymi durniami”. W przeciwnym razie zrobią z was takich samych wariatów jak oni.”
“Nie przeszkadza mi to, że ludzie mnie nie lubią. Pytanie brzmi: co mogą z tym zrobić?”
“Suicide is never good. "It is a cowardly vetch, O my brothers." (ang.)”
“Zabiłem jedyną kobietę, którą kochałem.”
Released album “Spare Ass Annie and Other Tales”.
Released album “Vaudeville Voices”.
To record "The 'Priest' They Called Him", based on a recording Burroughs sent Cobain of his short story "The Junky's Christmas"
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With Burroughs's approval, director David Cronenberg adapted Naked Lunch into a feature film, which opened to critical acclaim
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Released album “Dead City Radio”.
To critical acclaim, one that was later performed across Europe and the US
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Released the spoken word album Dead City Radio, with musical backup from producers Hal Willner and Nelson Lyon, and alternative rock band Sonic Youth
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Burroughs was honored with a star on the St
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Appeared with Matt Dillon in Gus Van Sant's film, Drugstore Cowboy
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Released album “Interviews + Readings”.
Released album “Uncommon Quotes”.
Released album “The Doctor Is on the Market”.
Released album “Break Through in Grey Room”.
Released ep “The Elvis of Letters”.
Was awarded the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by France
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Signed a seven-book deal with Viking Press after he signed with literary agent Andrew Wylie
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Burroughs was elected to the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters
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After several attempts by Allen Ginsberg to get him accepted
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Released album “Nothing Here Now but the Recordings”.
Taking up residence at 1927 Learnard Avenue where he would spend the rest of his life
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Released album “You’re the Guy I Want to Share My Money With”.
Billy Burroughs died in Florida
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In the style Burroughs would adopt at that time)
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And 1977 in Colorado, helping Billy through additional surgeries and complications
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Appeared in Rosa von Praunheim's New York documentary Underground & Emigrants
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Burroughs was having dinner with his son, William S
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Released album “William S. Burroughs / John Giorno”.
Concerned about his friend's well-being, Allen Ginsberg gained for Burroughs a contract to teach creative writing at the City College of New York
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Burroughs and Southern unsuccessfully attempted to adapt Naked Lunch for the screen in conjunction with American game-show producer Chuck Barris
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“Sit down on your ass, or what's left of it after four years in the navy.”
“s sentences, either written or spoken. He described”
Burroughs joined Jean Genet, John Sack, and Terry Southern in covering the 1968 Democratic National Convention for Esquire magazine
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The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court declared the work "not obscene" on the basis of criteria developed largely to defend the book
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Released album “Call Me Burroughs”.
When Naked Lunch was still looking for a publisher
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After Chicago Daily News columnist Jack Mabley called the first excerpt obscene
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Helped Burroughs type, edit, and arrange these episodes into Naked Lunch
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As part of an Ace Double under the pen name William Lee, retitling it Junkie: Confessions of an Unredeemed Drug Addict (it was later republished as Junkie, then in 1977 as Junky, and finally in 2003 as Junky: the definit
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In Mexico City; he was convicted of manslaughter in absentia and received a two-year suspended sentence
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Studying Spanish, as well as Mesoamerican manuscripts (codices) and the Mayan language with R
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Enrolled in Mexico City College under the GI Bill, which paid for part of his tuition and books and provided him with a seventy-five-dollar-per-month stipend
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Burroughs began living with Joan Vollmer Adams in an apartment they shared with Jack Kerouac and Edie Parker, Kerouac's first wife
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Befriended Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac while living in New York City
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Shortly after the bombing of Pearl Harbor brought the United States into World War II
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His mental health became a concern for his parents, especially after he deliberately severed the last joint of his left little finger at the knuckle to impress a man with whom he was infatuated
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Left home to pursue an arts degree at Harvard University, where he was affiliated with Adams House
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Born 1914-02-05.
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The younger of two sons born to Mortimer Perry Burroughs (June 16, 1885 – January 5, 1965) and Laura Hammon Lee (August 5, 1888 – October 20, 1970)
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You know, they ask me if I were on a desert island and I knew nobody would ever see what I wrote, would I go on writing. My answer is most emphatically yes. I would go on writing for company. Because I'm creating an imaginary — it's always imaginary — world in which I would like to live.
The hallucinogens produce visionary states, sort of, but morphine and its derivatives decrease awareness of inner processes, thoughts and feelings. They are pain killers; pure and simple. They are absolutely contraindicated for creative work, and I include in the lot alcohol, morphine, barbiturates, tranquilizers — the whole spectrum of sedative drugs.
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