Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
Was this at one of Vimothy's infamous 'film nights'?
The Ticket That Exploded
- Thread starter Benny Bunter
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- a series of oblique references baggy bumhole due to heroin blue notes of pan can't even con can't even hustle cool mineral silence cuntsville usa diseased metal drumbeats of ghost people fish boy garden of delights hypnotizing chickens i wrote silences it's a sick picture b.j. knees up to the chin meme falling open shirt flapping picking up junkies for bum sex rectal mucus silence to say good bye smoke up the path something called love the final ape of history the happy cloak the japanese sandman the other half there are no good words what you need will hollywood never learn? word falling photo falling writing machine
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I had a similar suspicion of DFT, but ended up buying it anyway. Reading that article, I get the impression it has excerpts from the first Soft Machine, so might be more interesting than I'd thought.
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Allen Ginsberg: What’s the basic plot or theme of The Soft Machine?
William S Burroughs: The book takes place, to a large extent, in a mythical area which bears some resemblance to South America and also to the planet Venus. It concerns, I should say, a struggle between controllers and those who are endeavoring to throw off control.
AG: And Nova Express
WSB: The same
AG: What is the distinction between the two in terms of theme and plot or development of the theme?
WSB: Nova Express… is more directly concerned with the struggle. Soft Machine is more concerned with just description of the factors involved and the scene, which corresponds somewhat with the planet Venus.
AG: In Nova Express you give a more precise description of the battle or of actual tactics?
WSB: More actual battles, battle scenes, in Nova Express than in The Soft Machine. The Soft Machine is more concerned with the set.
[...]
AG: An what new preoccupation or theme, or symbolic set-up, is added in Venus? The whole concept of Venus?
WSB: Added in there after Naked Lunch. And also in The Soft Machine there’s a good deal of narrative material that’s concerned with reincarnation. This is the concept of The Street of Chance, not sure of what kind of reincarnation you’re going to have. It’s almost like a lottery was the allegory of the Street of Chance, people between birth and death, what chance they’re going to get in their forthcoming reincarnation.
AG: And the concept of Venus is Eros, or female Eros?
WSB: No, no. Venus, the actual landscape, etc. This has been a theme in science fiction for some time. And most writers have equated it with something like South America, a lush tropical scene teeming with poisonous exotic life forms. I would mention in this connection the novel Fury by Henry Kuttner, which takes place on Venus, and there are a number of descriptions in science fiction.
AG: The Ticket That Exploded, following Nova Express, brought it all to a climax. Did that conclude the…
WSB: No, it didn’t at all. I mean, it’s…
AG: A continuation of the battle?
WSB: Yes. Yes.
AG: Or a continuation of the description of the scene?
WSB: Well, both. I would say you could regard The Soft Machine and Nova Express as almost a continuation of the same book, so that anything you say about one, more or less applies to the other…
AG: I thought The Ticket That Exploded kind of concluded – that was the action of the Nova, or of the explosion itself – by dissolving into a vibrating soundless hum.
WSB: Yes, there is that. Shall we say that The Ticket That Exploded winds it up? After that, was, of course, The Job.
AG: Which is an attempt to regulate the ideas, and that gives them a linear exposition.
WSB: Yes, that was it.
[...]
AG: Is there some one paragraph summary of the basic theme of say, The Soft Machine, Nova Express?
WSB: The basic theme is that the planet has been invaded by Venutians and the book attempts to cope with invasion
AG: And the intention of the Venutians is planetary takeover?
WSB: Planetary takeover, probably not just enslavement but extermination. Shall we say that there conditions are different? And they want to reproduce conditions that would probably be fatal to the earth.
AG: So that they can live here?
WSB: Yes.
AG: In other words, they’re like the Reds, except from Venus.
WSB: Yes, like the White Man arriving in the New World
AG: How does it end though? It ends with the virus being exterminated by the realization of the situation.
WSB: It doesn’t really end.
AG: Well, the anxiety of the invasion seems at the end to be dispersed by the dissolution of space and time, or the dissolution of time.
WSB: Yes, it is. That dissolution was necessary in order to neutralize the conspiracy. From this comes the theme that the only future is to enter into a spirit, a completely spirit state.
AG: Grasping the matter? There is a notion that most conspiracies are actually spiritual conspiracies, in the sense of power takeovers involving people’s minds.
WSB: The people conspired against.
AG: Oh, yes. Yes.
WSB: Just as we destroyed the Indians by destroying their spiritual life.
AG: I’m still a little fuzzy on the last part. My point was that most conspiracies are mental anyway.
WSB: They are. But usually if you want to destroy people, destroy their Gods. Destroy their Maker.
AG: Except that then the Gods being destroyed are, say, Christ or Baptist visions of Christ.
WSB: On the contrary, those are the Gods being used. In other words, these are concepts that are very useful for the invaders because they are spiritually empty.
AG: Actually, it’s a very good statement on it. Is there some passage…that could be cited, for summing it up in a nutshell, in either Nova Express or The Soft Machine?
WSB: I would say that Nova Express would probably have the clearest statement.
William S Burroughs: The book takes place, to a large extent, in a mythical area which bears some resemblance to South America and also to the planet Venus. It concerns, I should say, a struggle between controllers and those who are endeavoring to throw off control.
AG: And Nova Express
WSB: The same
AG: What is the distinction between the two in terms of theme and plot or development of the theme?
WSB: Nova Express… is more directly concerned with the struggle. Soft Machine is more concerned with just description of the factors involved and the scene, which corresponds somewhat with the planet Venus.
AG: In Nova Express you give a more precise description of the battle or of actual tactics?
WSB: More actual battles, battle scenes, in Nova Express than in The Soft Machine. The Soft Machine is more concerned with the set.
[...]
AG: An what new preoccupation or theme, or symbolic set-up, is added in Venus? The whole concept of Venus?
WSB: Added in there after Naked Lunch. And also in The Soft Machine there’s a good deal of narrative material that’s concerned with reincarnation. This is the concept of The Street of Chance, not sure of what kind of reincarnation you’re going to have. It’s almost like a lottery was the allegory of the Street of Chance, people between birth and death, what chance they’re going to get in their forthcoming reincarnation.
AG: And the concept of Venus is Eros, or female Eros?
WSB: No, no. Venus, the actual landscape, etc. This has been a theme in science fiction for some time. And most writers have equated it with something like South America, a lush tropical scene teeming with poisonous exotic life forms. I would mention in this connection the novel Fury by Henry Kuttner, which takes place on Venus, and there are a number of descriptions in science fiction.
AG: The Ticket That Exploded, following Nova Express, brought it all to a climax. Did that conclude the…
WSB: No, it didn’t at all. I mean, it’s…
AG: A continuation of the battle?
WSB: Yes. Yes.
AG: Or a continuation of the description of the scene?
WSB: Well, both. I would say you could regard The Soft Machine and Nova Express as almost a continuation of the same book, so that anything you say about one, more or less applies to the other…
AG: I thought The Ticket That Exploded kind of concluded – that was the action of the Nova, or of the explosion itself – by dissolving into a vibrating soundless hum.
WSB: Yes, there is that. Shall we say that The Ticket That Exploded winds it up? After that, was, of course, The Job.
AG: Which is an attempt to regulate the ideas, and that gives them a linear exposition.
WSB: Yes, that was it.
[...]
AG: Is there some one paragraph summary of the basic theme of say, The Soft Machine, Nova Express?
WSB: The basic theme is that the planet has been invaded by Venutians and the book attempts to cope with invasion
AG: And the intention of the Venutians is planetary takeover?
WSB: Planetary takeover, probably not just enslavement but extermination. Shall we say that there conditions are different? And they want to reproduce conditions that would probably be fatal to the earth.
AG: So that they can live here?
WSB: Yes.
AG: In other words, they’re like the Reds, except from Venus.
WSB: Yes, like the White Man arriving in the New World
AG: How does it end though? It ends with the virus being exterminated by the realization of the situation.
WSB: It doesn’t really end.
AG: Well, the anxiety of the invasion seems at the end to be dispersed by the dissolution of space and time, or the dissolution of time.
WSB: Yes, it is. That dissolution was necessary in order to neutralize the conspiracy. From this comes the theme that the only future is to enter into a spirit, a completely spirit state.
AG: Grasping the matter? There is a notion that most conspiracies are actually spiritual conspiracies, in the sense of power takeovers involving people’s minds.
WSB: The people conspired against.
AG: Oh, yes. Yes.
WSB: Just as we destroyed the Indians by destroying their spiritual life.
AG: I’m still a little fuzzy on the last part. My point was that most conspiracies are mental anyway.
WSB: They are. But usually if you want to destroy people, destroy their Gods. Destroy their Maker.
AG: Except that then the Gods being destroyed are, say, Christ or Baptist visions of Christ.
WSB: On the contrary, those are the Gods being used. In other words, these are concepts that are very useful for the invaders because they are spiritually empty.
AG: Actually, it’s a very good statement on it. Is there some passage…that could be cited, for summing it up in a nutshell, in either Nova Express or The Soft Machine?
WSB: I would say that Nova Express would probably have the clearest statement.
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That BATTLE INSTRUCTIONS thing Oliver Harris put together has the questionable marketing strategy of a blurb proclaiming it "as virulently anti-Semitic as The Protocols of the Elders of Zion."
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Arabic Music and Burroughs's The Ticket That Exploded
In his article "Arabic Music and Burroughs's The Ticket That Exploded" David Holzer discusses how the experience of hearing Arabic music in Tangier and being exposed to the healing music of the Master Musicians of Joujouka, a remote village in the foothills of the Ahl Srif mountain range in...
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
I can't help but see a similarity between these Nova criminals - disincarnate alien entities or sentient viruses that possess or parasitize human hosts - and the "body thetans" of Scientology. I know he was briefly involved with those shysters because they apparently had good rates of success in treating addiction, but he left after he realised that their "deprogramming" (or rather, brainwashing) techniques could be a stronger form of control than the morphine and heroin he'd been addicted to. But all I can get from his Wikipedia entry is that he was involved with them "in the 1960s", which could be before, during or after he wrote the Nova Trilogy.
Anyone got any more details on the chronology here?
Anyone got any more details on the chronology here?
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
I guess it goes without saying that ideas about a sinister They who walk among us undetected, have the means to control our minds and desires, and who mean us no good at all can very easily shade into antisemitism. You only have to look at the circles David Icke moves in.
Murphy
cat malogen
Arabic Music and Burroughs's The Ticket That Exploded
In his article "Arabic Music and Burroughs's The Ticket That Exploded" David Holzer discusses how the experience of hearing Arabic music in Tangier and being exposed to the healing music of the Master Musicians of Joujouka, a remote village in the foothills of the Ahl Srif mountain range in...docs.lib.purdue.edu
Ghost at No9, the Antony Balch piece with Gysin, is riddled with music and radio static cut-ups
it seeps in everywhere eg The Process where you can almost smell hash and its sparkling hazy time dilations too
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Scientology in the Novels of William S. Burroughs – RealityStudio
by David S. Wills William S. Burroughs at the Saint Hill Scientology Bookstore, 1968 In Ted Morgan's ...
realitystudio.org
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Last section might be the best. Interesting seeing him jump between the different formats too. The cut-ups/fold-ins with the em dashes I associate with the Nova material whereas the ellipses he starts to introduce are the way he does it in The Wild Boys. The next novel materialises as the previous fades out.
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So disinterest yourself in my words. Disinterest yourself in anybody's words . . In the beginning was the word and the word was bullshit. The beginning words came out on the con clawing for traction — Yes sir, boys, its hard to stop that old writing arm — more of a habit than using — Been writing these RXs five hundred thousand years and sure hate to pack you boys in with a burning down word habit — But I am of course guided by my medical ethics and the uh intervention of the Board of Health — no more — no mas — My writing arm is paralyzed — ash blown from an empty sleeve — do our work and go — Here comes the old knife sharpener in lemon sunlight blue eyes reflected from a knife blade —- blood on white steps of the sea wall — afternoon shadow in dying eyes — ay, good bye Meester —
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Benny Bunter
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There were several times I thought of corpsey reading this - "Masturbating afternoons"
Plus "Jack Law" is the most Nova criminal name ever
Plus "Jack Law" is the most Nova criminal name ever
Murphy
cat malogen
Brion Gysin artwork to be shown at Tate Modern | Brion Gysin
There are plans to display two Brion Gysin artworks as part of Tate Modern's Electric Dreams exhibition in London, UK.
www.briongysin.com