RealityStudio.org

There is a good article this morning in the Lawrence Journal World about Barry Miles. Here's a quote:

And here's the link ya lazy bastirt!

http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2010/mar/1 ... ationship/

Thanks for adding the link. I meant to but was rushing.

Excuses excuses....

I have mixed feelings about Miles' inclusion into the whole thing... yes, his work (on Burroughs) is somewhat valuable -
though loaded with errors, but if Grauerholz was going to opt out and get a writer, it would be advantageous to get one without so obvious a chip on his shoulder (his Communist/Socialist apologist fetish)...

But I guess it could be worse, I hear that if Miles turned him down, James was going to go with Germaine Greer.

I hope that this was a joke.

Anyway, I'm disappointed that Miles will be the author. His El Hombre Invisible read more like the dribbling of a giddy fanboy than credible biography. I think that I'll stick to Literary Outlaw.

Before you rush to judgement, bear in mind that, in addition to providing research, Mr Grauerholz will doubtless be offering input on the composition of the book. And as anyone can see from his "Death of Joan" text, JG will pay careful attention to the facts as he sees them.

Personally I think there are a lot of advantages to this arrangement. JG has a ton of research material, Miles has the ability to get the book done, and hopefully they'll correct each other's biases in approaching the project.

This is probably the right moment to repost Andre Perkowski's picture of JG and Miles at a NY NL@50 event:

I was very impressed by Grauerholz's account of Joan's death, which is why I hoped that he would be the author of the official Burroughs' biography.

Barry Miles seems like a decent enough guy, but he writes like a typical groupie.

well i for one am looking forward to it!

Here is an excellent interview with Miles:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/ma ... -interview

Thanks to John Coulthart for the link.

http://www.johncoulthart.com/

Hopefully there will be no bias towards the importance of the late works which JG had a huge hand in, Cities of the Red Night aside. There is good work there but it is far overshadowed by his groundbreaking work of the 60s and early 70s, in other words before JG came on the scene. I have to add though that I AM most emphatically not in the "JG came along and ruined everything" camp, on the contrary. In general, I feel that his work after his return to the U.S. was just not as compelling. I guess that is why I haven't really cared whether a "definitive" biog is ever published. Thought Ted Morgan did a great job, all things (not being properly "an insider") considered.

I think that fact that Morgan wasn't an insider actually improved the quality of his Burroughs biography. The people who know you best can't write about you "objectively."

That's a really good point, Ed.

Double-edged sword. Insiders can get info that nobody else can get, whereas outsiders may be a bit more objective, but not necessarily so. I read an outsider bio of Iggy Pop where it was clear that the writer hated his subject and was just into tearing him to shreds (for some reason). It's not like the WSB bio is protecting the life and rep of somebody who led a spotless existence and whose rep needs to be protected. And judging from the 'Death of Joan' bit, I would say that it doesn't appear that the bio will gloss over anything to make WSB seem more sympathetic. We'll just have to wait and see; I'll certainly buy it. But even outsiders are generally writing bios about people they like in the first place - after all why spend so much time and effort and energy on somebody whom you hate - so even their view isn't going to be strictly 'objective' (if there even is such a thing) anyway.

i love that Guardian interview - "not even his wife calls him Barry" *lolz

and the image of Miles taking Burroughs and Ginsberg round to Paul McCartney's house is.... strangely cool and i have no idea why (im not exactly a Beatles nut)