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    therealdealjohnnyscarecrowKen Layne
    2/05/14 11:42am

    I'm just here to say Junky's Christmas is my favorite holiday song.

    And before you ask....when I drink during the holidays, yes, I do indeed recite the entire thing...

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      Ken Laynetherealdealjohnnyscarecrow
      2/05/14 12:08pm

      And here is my favorite Thanksgiving poem, which I posted every Thanksgiving on Wonkette for six or seven arduous years:

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    Cherith CutestoryKen Layne
    2/05/14 11:56am

    The liberal principles embodied in the French and American revolutions and later in the liberal revolutions of 1848 had already been codified and put into practice by pirate communes a hundred years earlier.

    -Cities of the Red Night is my favorite Burroughs novel.

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      toothpetardCherith Cutestory
      2/05/14 11:58am

      Pretty fun read, in support of this statement of his...

      http://www.amazon.com/Under-Black-Fl…

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      Cherith Cutestorytoothpetard
      2/05/14 12:08pm

      I have a snow day so I'll download it now!

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    Cam/ronKen Layne
    2/05/14 12:34pm

    I have many mixed feelings about WSB. Back in college, I was a big fan of his cut-up techniques and experiments with dream machines, but I later grew to resent how he fed the fetish for the "beauty" and "romance" of urban decay and people who hit rock bottom in their lives. I noticed that so much art, literature, and music that progressives champion fall within that aesthetic. It's popular to mock trustfundfarians but Burroughs was one to the T - he lived off a monthly allowance from his rich parents for over 25 years while he slummed it in the underground.

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      Cherith CutestoryCam/ron
      2/05/14 1:43pm

      But whether someone has a trust fund is irrelevant to whether their work is good. Of course, a lot of popular artists had them because, sadly, they can afford to devote time to their craft. But his wealth has been overstated, partially because of Bull Lee in On the Road. Burroughs's father sold off the remaining share of his grandfather's company before 1929 and got about $266,000 dollars for it which would be about 3.6 million today. A lot but not enough to support your kid's every whim and live well yourself. It is true that he did get an allowance until he was fifty. But it was not enough to live on unsupplemented unless he lived in very very cheap places (which is how he ended up living in Mexico with poor Joan. He wasn't just "slumming it" he could not have lived on his allowance alone in New York, where he had a variety if jobs and lived off his friends.

      I don't think many people here would have liked Burroughs as a person if they knew him. He literally destroyed lives and at his very best was by all accounts exhausting. But that doesn't really say much about his art. And if you agree with everything an author says then I think that is a bad thing. They aren't challenging you they are just telling you what you think.

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    YantudaKen Layne
    2/05/14 11:51am

    Surprised to see this on Gawker, which is such a beacon of social justice lately. You know Burroughs' life revolved around "boys," right? You know he and the other Beats loved Tangier in part because child prostitution was so wonderfully affordable there—right? Allen Ginsberg didn't join NAMBLA for nothing.

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      Ken LayneYantuda
      2/05/14 12:02pm

      Hooray, the robots turned on the nova mob flow.

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      SuffersfoolsgladlyYantuda
      2/05/14 12:19pm

      Of course they know. There is a little part about murder in there too, if you read carefully. Doesn't mean Gawker condones pedophilia or murder.

      Mostly what I see when these stories are posted, is the huge huge gap between a person's public persona and their art, or what they may be like as a human being in private life.

      Most of us want our admired artists and performers to also be wonderful human beings,so we can keep them on a pedestal as role models.. but they are often not. At best, they are human, like us, with all the grey areas ands flaws that that implies. It's messy.

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    zombiepandaKen Layne
    2/05/14 12:16pm

    There was a neat piece on NPR this morning about his latter years in Lawrence, Kansas; how he adapted to "small town" life and how much people there accepted him and appreciated his creative presence. It was actually pretty touching, considering Burroughs' general reputation.

    http://www.npr.org/2014/02/05/271…

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      Ken Laynezombiepanda
      2/05/14 12:20pm

      Oh this is good, thanks for posting it. If you're an ornery old writer and want an acceptable place to retire, a college town like Lawrence is not a bad place. (That he was born and raised neighboring Missouri probably made Lawrence familiar.)

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      south2ndzombiepanda
      2/05/14 1:22pm

      I used to love seeing him puttering around town and it made me happy and giddy in a way I never felt when I saw celebrities in L.A. I haven't really been back since I finished school, but Lawrence was a fantastic little town, and we really did feel enormous pride that a great artist seemed to love it as much as we did.

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    toothpetardKen Layne
    2/05/14 11:48am

    Nothing here now but the recordings. Shut them off, they are as radioactive as an old joke.

    Fun read:
    http://www.newdawnmagazine.com/articles/willi…

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      MataroKen Layne
      2/05/14 11:55am

      "The basic Nova Mechanism is very simple: Always create as many insoluble conflicts as possible and always aggravate existing conflicts. This is done by dumping life forms with incompatible conditions of existence on the same planet."


      Sounds like the perfect description of London to me—oh wait, you say he was inspired by Islamic North Africa, hmmm.

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        Ken LayneMataro
        2/05/14 11:57am

        Oh he lived in London throughout the 1960s. The Nova trilogy is basically Nightmare London (and other realms).

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        OasisMataro
        2/05/14 12:07pm

        Shades of Albert Camus w/ a firearm fixation.

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      IAmNotADamnWriterKen Layne
      2/05/14 1:14pm

      "Life is maddening and dull. People are treacherous. " So true, Ken. This is all one needs know.

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        EldritchKen Layne
        2/05/14 12:05pm

        That picture makes Burroughs look like Lovecraft. So many tentacles. That must be the Burroughs they teach in Night Vale.

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          hellaciousEldritch
          2/05/14 3:06pm

          Burroughs was a Lovecraft fan.

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        SteakasaurusRexKen Layne
        2/05/14 11:46am

        Also, read Junky. It's a great novel—you can knock it out in about a day.

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          indiansummerSteakasaurusRex
          2/05/14 4:13pm

          Junky is an absolute bore.

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          SteakasaurusRexindiansummer
          2/05/14 4:50pm

          That's what makes horse races, bro.

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