William S. Burroughs – “Last Words: 7/30/97” (1997)
The last words Burroughs ever wrote — from his private journal, 3 days before he passed away…
“There is no final enough of wisdom, experience- any fucking thing. No Holy Grail, No Final Satori, no solution. Just conflict.
Only thing that can resolve conflict is love, like I felt for Fletch and Ruski, Spooner, and Calico. Pure love. What I feel for my cats past and present.Love? What is it?
Most natural painkiller what there is.
LOVE.”William S. Burroughs
Fran Fried – “The Beat Patrol” (2010)
From Fran Fried’s blogsite, Franorama World (link in my blogroll), July 26th. This is the first “write-up” that The Beat Patrol has received (to my knowledge), and I appreciate Fran’s kind words. The only thing I would add is that I do write, but I am not a professional writer, by any means, and Fran and I did have a very brief meeting nearly twenty years ago in a Waterbury, CT record store (Brass City — link also in my blogroll) — other than that, Fran’s piece (part of a larger blog entry) is right on the money. Thanks Fran — for the write-up and for your passionate, and often eloquent articles and reviews all these years.
Thanks also for the suggestions...
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Jay Mucci is the one person on the Blogroll I haven’t met personally. He lives in Waterbury and found me online a couple years ago while I was still at The Fresno Bee. Turns out he was a fan of my music writing from my days at the most heinous Republican-American and wanted to know if I minded whether he put up some of my old stories and reviews on his site. So there are stories and reviews here from both my Waterbury and New Haven days that aren’t available electronically anywhere else. Read the rest of this entry »
Tom Jones – “Praise and Blame” (2010)
Stephen Holden’s July 25th review of the brand new Tom Jones album, taken from The New York Times…
Praise and Blame finds Tom Jones on his knees trembling before God. This studly Welsh baritone, now 70, certainly has the voice to make a lean, tough country gospel album. His baritone, gnarly textured when he sings softly, is still the roar of a Samson when he belts. Mr. Jones may not express the rock-bottom Christian fatalism of Johnny Cash, but he still conveys the contrition of a penitent sinner as he delivers a mixture of traditional spirituals and contemporary gospel songs tautly arranged for a small band. Read the rest of this entry »
The Byrds – “Younger Than Yesterday” (1967)
Another review from Mojo-Navigator‘s April 1967 issue, this time by co-editor David Harris…
With this album, the Byrds mark their progress into purely electronic, rather than electronic music. In 5th D one could see a synthesis of rock and Indian classical music; on this lp they are doing to Stockhausen and Varese what they previously did to Ravi Shankar and Jafa Khan. On “CTA 102” electronic effects are combined with electric instruments to simultaneously tell a little joke about space travel and scare the hell out of the listener. Read the rest of this entry »
Sarah Haynes – “An Exploration of Jack Kerouac’s Buddhism: Text and Life” (2005)
Taken from Contemporary Buddhism Vol. 6, No. 2 by Sarah Haynes…
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Jack Kerouac’s place in the literary world was secured in the 1950s with the publication of On the Road; however, his position as a Buddhist writer and practitioner was yet to be established. This paper examines his Buddhist life and texts, and explores two of his Buddhist books while focusing on his influences, their effects on his personal life and the impact these had on his writing and on Buddhism in America. Kerouac’s ‘Buddhist’ texts are not as well known as his others, although many of his more popular books include elements of Buddhism. The two Kerouac texts that are to be explored here are Some of the Dharma and The Scripture of the Golden Eternity. While the focus of this paper is on the exploration of these two texts, their content and structure, one cannot ignore the influencing factors that led Kerouac to write them and the aspects of his life that affected the way in which they were composed. Read the rest of this entry »
Kenneth Rexroth – “Disengagement: The Art of the Beat Generation” (1957)
A 1957 article by poet Kenneth Rexroth from New World Writing…
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Literature generally, but literary criticism in particular, has always been an area in which social forces assume symbolic guise, and work out — or at least exemplify — conflicts taking place in the contemporary, or rather, usually the just past, wider arena of society. Recognition of this does not imply the acceptance of any general theory of social or economic determinism. It is a simple, empirical fact. Because of the pervasiveness of consent in American society generally, that democratic leveling up or down so often bewailed since de Tocqueville, American literature, especially literary criticism, has usually been ruled by a “line.” The fact that it was spontaneously evolved and enforced only by widespread consent has never detracted from its rigor — but rather the opposite. It is only human to kick against the prodding of a Leopold Auerbach or an Andrei Zhdanov. An invisible, all-enveloping compulsion is not likely to be recognized, let alone protested against. Read the rest of this entry »
William S. Burroughs – Interview (Part 4)
The final part of this 1990s interview with WSB, by Kathy Acker. Very fascinating stuff…
William S. Burroughs – Interview (Part 3)
Part 3 of this 1990s interview with poet, novelist and playwright Kathy Acker… Burroughs discusses the writing of many of his books, and his brief involvement with Scientology and est. Very fascinating.
Note: Around the 6:30 mark the video stops. I’m not sure if I’m the only one that this has happened to…?
The Beat Patrol 