RealityStudio.org

On this link, http://www.netherworld.com/~mgabrys/william/prev.html the first quotation is about Marilyn Manson. Does anyone know when is this excerpt from? Is this really Burroughs and when did he read that?

Thank you.

That is definitely not Burroughs. I can do a better imitation than that myself.

The guy who makes that site more or less admits that these audio files are just a gag. Did you see this page?

http://www.netherworld.com/~mgabrys/william/why.html

Oh I see. I had not read this page. Thanks a lot. Somehow, I guess the voice was a bit young.

This makes me think of something. I don't know if any one of you has ever read "Manson in His Own Words", the autobiography of Charles Manson. But on the back cover of the book, there is a Burroughs' review. Here it is:

"Compulsively readable... Manson can't ever suceed in being paroled out of that cell, not as long as people with any sense at all can read this book."

Well, I think it would be interesting to know every review he made. I know he made another one for Imajica by Clive Barker.

Have you ever read that Manson book? It really is "compulsively readable." Charles Manson is just slightly to the crazy side of that thin line between madness and genius.

Burroughs also contributed a quote to the back cover of Hunter Thompson's Gonzo Letters Vol 1. But I don't know where a full review was ever published.

I'd presume that most of Burroughs' book reviews (and also introductions) are collected in The Adding Machine. Jacket blurbs -- like the bits on the Manson & Hunter Thompson books -- are just quotes that are provided to the author or publisher so that they can sell a few books.

Maybe we should start a collection of jacket blurbs?

There are numerous introductions from William S. Burroughs, but only two in The Adding Machine, "How to Stop Smoking" and "An Epitaph". He wrote introductions to :

John Giorno's "You got to burn to shine"
J.G. Ballard's "The Atrocity Exhibition"
Denton Welch's "In Youth Is Pleasure"
Bradbury Robinson's "William's Mix"
Jimmy De Sana's "Submission"
Jack Black's "You Can't Win"
Mary Beach's "A Two-Fisted Banana: Electric & Gothic"
Helnwein’s “Helwein’s Faces”
Dean Latimer & Jeff Goldberg’s “Flowers in the blood: the story of opium”
Mohamed Choukri’s “Jean Genet in Tangier”
Terry Southern’s “Flash & Filigree”
Bradford Morrow Bookseller Catalogue Number Five: Walter Reuben Collection of Jack Kerouac
George Condo: Recent Paintings. Pace Gallery, April 30- June 11, 1994
Larry Sloman’s « Reefer Madness : a History of Marijuana »
Richard Marshall’s « STRANGE, AMAZING AND MYSTERIOUS PLACES »
David Mairowitz’s « Some of « IT » »
Harold Norse’s « Beat Hotel »
Steven Johnson Leyba’s « Coyote, Satan, Amerika »
Ira Silverberg’s « Everything is Permitted : The Making Of Naked Lunch » (The movie)
Robert Walker’s « New York Inside Out »
Jurgen Vollmer’s « Sex Appeal »
Brion Gysin’s The Last Museum

If anyone has other titles, feel free to add it. Concerning the Jacket Blurbs, it would be a really good idea. But I only know two.

I forgot,

Terry Wilson's "Here To Go: Brion Gysin"

Ira Silverberg’s « Everything is Permitted : The Making Of Naked Lunch » (The movie)

That is also reprinted in the Naked Lunch DVD booklet.

Also, the introduction to the Collected Checkered Demon by S. Clay Wilson is credited as being written by William Burroughs and Leonardo DiCaprio. That has to top the list of unexpected pairings. I have not, however, gotten a copy of the book yet to check it out.

There's also a jacket blurb by Burroughs in a Spanish edition of the Nechronomicon.

Jorge (I tried to log in but it seems my account is not currently active)

I manually activated your acct. Normally the forum sends you an email and you just have to click a link to activate your acct.

Back to the discussion...

Maybe it's not that surprising, considering DiCaprio's work in that movie about Rimbaud "Total Eclipse" (I think that was the name, it's been awhile). Pretty good movie. Maybe there is more to him than "Growing Pains" and "Titanic" seem to indicate.

I agree that there is more to him then a lot of people want to allow. After the monsterous success of Titanc he became a super-heartthrob and a lot people seem to still think of him as that. The bulk of his work I think is great, What Eating Gilbert Grape, Total Eclipse, Gangs of New York, Basketball Diaries (another link to Burroughs), Romeo and Juliet. He is one of the best actors working today and he's only like 31 or 32. So I think there is great work ahead. That beign said, I was still surprised to see his name beside Burroughs in the intro to something as strange as a Checkered Demon collection.

As a result of the discussion here about blurbs, introductions, and reviews, I've begun a collection of book-jacket blurbs by Burroughs:

http://realitystudio.org/about/burroughs_blurbs

There are a few books to which I know Burroughs contributed blurbs but I couldn't get the text of them, e.g. Claude Pelieu's Kali Yug Express. But I accumulated as many as I could for this page.

If anybody knows of any others, please post them here or send them in. Thanks!

Thanks for this section, it's great, I did not know he had written so many.

He wrote one to Cliver Barker's Imajica:

"A book in the picaresque tradition that moves with tidal force and power." William S. Burroughs

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASI ... 07-4375843