The Ticket That Exploded

[Benny Bunter]

@WashYourHands Finished the book I've been reading, so I was thinking of starting it properly this weekend. Don't want to start commenting on it till everyone who wants to join in gets a copy though.

 

[Benny Bunter]

Monday's child is fair of face,
Tuesday's child is full of grace,
Wednesday's child is full of woe,
Thursday's child has far to go,
Friday's child is loving and giving,
Saturday's child works hard for a living,
But the child who is born on the Sabbath day,
Is lucky and happy and good and gay.

 

[Benny Bunter]

 

[Benny Bunter]

Where have I seen this before in Burroughs? Is it the soft machine or nova express? Or somewhere else? @version ?

 

[Benny Bunter]

 

[Benny Bunter]

One of the things that I suppose disturbs me about Burroughs on addiction is the abdication of personal responsibility and free will. Everything's given over to the controllers. But he maps out the phenomenon so well, the conversion of want to need, and it's become so prevalent in society, it's essential reading on how it plays out.

 

[Benny Bunter]

I believe in personal responsibility and free will more than I do in addiction, but i still want to hear what Burroughs has to say about it cos he does provide a method of resistance and a way out.

 

[Benny Bunter]

Cutting up, folding in, breaking the word lines, radio static turned up to full volume

 

[Benny Bunter]

It's a cool idea, but maybe it doesn't really work?

 

[Benny Bunter]

Hassan I sabbah apparently invented the method of inoculation against the virus - a genius - but he's not to be trusted. Does it really work, or does it end up sucking us back in?

This is why in one of the other threads about Burroughs I said reading him made me want to get off the internet, move to the country to grow my own vegetables, cut off the connection completely. But obviously that's not possible.

 

[Benny Bunter]

No drugs, no television, no internet, no crap food, no porn, no temptation - that's the dream.

 

[Benny Bunter]

No pop music either

 

[Benny Bunter]

The difference between 'happiness' and' pleasure' - no-one's ever happy in Burroughs but there's plenty of pleasure - the irony of the 'happy cloak' and the 'sex skin' makes it clear. But it runs throughout everything he writes.

 

[IdleRich]

No drugs, no television, no internet, no crap food, no porn, no temptation - that's the dream.

Sounds like a nightmare.

Hassan I sabbah apparently invented the method of inoculation against the virus - a genius - but he's not to be trusted. Does it really work, or does it end up sucking us back in?

This is why in one of the other threads about Burroughs I said reading him made me want to get off the internet, move to the country to grow my own vegetables, cut off the connection completely. But obviously that's not possible.

Virus wasn't so sophisticated all-pervading as it is now.

I believe in personal responsibility and free will more than I do in addiction, but i still want to hear what Burroughs has to say about it cos he does provide a method of resistance and a way out.

Giving up heroin is easy, done it loads of times!

 

[Benny Bunter]

The concept of 'addiction' as it's popularly understood nowadays is a load of bollocks really

 

[Benny Bunter]

We all use the word in different ways to mean different things in different contexts, so it's become more or less meaningless.

 

[IdleRich]

The concept of 'addiction' as it's popularly understood nowadays is a load of bollocks really

I know loads of people considered addicts but I wouldn't be able to have a stab at it really.

We all use the word in different ways to mean different things in different contexts, so it's become more or less meaningless.

That's true of lots of words though, I don't think they all lose their meaning through that. When some wealthy housewife says they're addicted to reading Chick Lit or whatever we understand that's different from a scratching sick homeless person telling you they're addicted to castana or cavalo etc

 

[Benny Bunter]

Yeah, obviously people pick up harmful habits that are extremely hard to break, but if you call it 'addiction' it suggests that they have no personal control or free will at all, like it's completely out of their hands. Not very helpful.

 

[Murphy]

Junky nailed it and how old is that and I don’t subscribe to disease allusions, it’s escaping from emotional scarring and trauma at a basic, fundamental level of existence

If Burroughs had pstd from either childhood sexual abuse, or unintentionally killing a wife, I mean the Ugly Spirit metaphor is beyond accurate and Sheffield put the title to work too

You can see it, partially, with the dianetics flirtation, the need to self-audit/edit out something

 

[Murphy]

the sweat lodge rite, I dunno what the shaman said but he clearly didn’t enjoy the encounter at all

cultural frameworks and ibogaine go a long way