William S. Burroughs lecture,July 20,1976,on paranormal,EVP,text+tape cut-ups,prognostication

This audio recording complements another Burroughs one uploaded to YT earlier (see: "William S. Burroughs lecture,writing class,June 25,1986,on paranormal,synchronicity,dreams" ): • William S. Burroughs l...
I've also uploaded an entertaining short (9 min.) reading by Burroughs entitled:
"The Cat Inside - William S. Burroughs,alternate early draft excerpts,1985 reading":
• The Cat Inside - Willi...
In this recording Burroughs covers the cut-up method of writing in some detail, & reads from his own cut-up writings, as well as some by Burroughs' sometime collaborator Brion Gysin. Burroughs describes how some cut-ups appear to be uncanny prognosticators, accurately predicting future events, according to Burroughs.
He also describes experiments with audio cut-ups using tape recorders. He had intended to play recordings of some of Gysin's tape experiments at this lecture, but the tapes had not arrived on time. Instead, Burroughs describes some of the cut-up tape experiments.
And he covers other tape experiments that interest him conducted by paranormal investigators & what today is commonly known as EVP (electronic voice phenomena), where tape recorders are supposed to record unexplained mysterious human voices though no such sound input is available to the recorder. Burroughs refers to these as "Paranormal Voices" experiments/phenomena.
Burroughs also makes reference to dreams, the last words of Dutch Schultz, Shakespeare, computers, Homer, Gertrude Stein, James Joyce, T.S. Eliot, & Carl Jung.
There's a long Q & A session with students at the end.

[@EvelStNemo]

I met Mr. Burroughs way back, on a bus to Eastwood, Nottinghamshire. Bill was a big fan of D. H. Lawrence. I was very young and Bill already old. This lecture is excellent. White noise...

[@midianpoet]

WOW, You meet him, lucky,lucky,lucky!

[@jazzmanchgo]

I've heard and read that Burroughs was usually very kind and polite to people he encountered, even strangers. I'm sure he had little patience for invasive "in-your-face" groupie types, but anyone who approahced him from a place of intelligence and respect was usually treated in a similar way. Folks in Lawrence considererd him a somewhat eccentric old man, but a good neighbor whom they were always glad to see on the street or in a public venue.

[@midianpoet]

Thanks for sharing !!!!!!!! Really thanks, greetings from Czech. Bill was....IS , still inspiration for all of us.

[@peterm.fitzpatrick7735]

You can't discount the role of Bryon Gysin in these ideas. They are more those of a painter than a writer. As Burroughs himself says, sound and vision are at two very different frequencies, with the sound being much "slower". Whether or not words are a "virus" or not is open to a healthy questioning, but I think Burrough's ideas help illuminate phenomena like synesthesia and other non-ordinary spectrums of perception. Surungama Sutra or perhaps Gysin and Burrough's familiarity with such thought in Scientology's Theta concept, which is strongly influenced by it, may have been his goal or "target". Burrough's extended these ideas about "clinging' to the illusory in terms of Addiction. Ultimately, all transitory phenomenon, even painting and language, are seen as illusory "dependencies" in this kind of philosophy, which has, of course, opened it up to charges of being a form of "nihilism", even in Eastern thought. Perhaps it is simply just one aspect of the spectrum of interpretations.

[@jeffstewart3342]

William Burroughs has always been an inspiration in my life, well at least since 1972 when I learned that Jim Morrison was into Burroughs

[@David-mv3zl]

If yall'd shutup.. and quit moving around... the man is speaking.... SILENCE

[@georgebethos7890]

A classic! Thanks 🙏calling Dr Benway

[@jazzmanchgo]

One person here asked Burroughs how he "organized" his books. Actually, he didn't, at least in a lot of cases. Naked Lunch was "organized" by Kerouac (who retyped most of it) and Ginsburg. Burroughs was typing pages and throwing them on the floor; they were scartterd all over his room in Tangier, in no order whatsoever. Allen gathered them up and put them in an order that seemed to reflect as coherent a narrative flow as he could fnid. I can't speak for the cut-up trilogy, but Cities of the Red Night was edited by Grauerholz, who re-arranged chapters and organized them in a way to make the book's three main plotlines weave together in a way that made as much sense as possible.

[@MrKmanthie]

Pure legendary genius!!!!

[@Docthal010]

thanks for posting this i love Burroughs

[@cassiewogsland9438]

If you're listening on headphones, it's mainly in the left speaker.

[@technomickdocumentalist2495]

Funny you say that, as even though I’ve checked out the speaker balance and it’s set to equal, my left earphone is always louder for everything I listen to.

[@jamescurtis46]

I was a functional junkie for 20years off junk for 10years don't know much about this Gye but the pins pupils in his young photos are very telling

[@SuperExponential]

They had flash photography back then

[@red_ford23]

He sounds like a disinterested snakeoil salesman. Correlian photography! EVP and voiceprint technology. I love it, thanks for the upload. I see fifty-year lags everywhere.

[@Add_Account485]

" DESIGNS FOR SPEACH SCRAMBLERS GO BACK TO 1881 _& THEN THE DESIRE TO MAKE TELEPHONE & RADIO COMMUNICATIONS UN-INTELIGABLE TO 3RD PARTIES HAS BEEN WITH US EVER SINCE! " ... I find just the thought* of that, fascinating! just thinking about all that & it coming about & it's flow on affect to us today , that most of us are not even aware of.. just fascinating.. Stopped my mind for a sec...

[@Bobjb999]

I've just upped a new, short (5 min.) Burroughs selection of interview & lecture excerpts on his fave "junkie lit" addict authors, here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/q2rKnXdtj5Kgi8k on Alex Trocchi, Jean Cocteau, & De Quincey. Plus, Burroughs talks about his own books Junky, & Naked Lunch.

[@rickyrambo8465]

Thank you for the uploads good sir or madam. I really appreciate and enjoy these talks. This is the end, but thanks again, my good friend, dearly and sincereley, andy apple anderson

[@vollsticks]

I second @ Ricky Rambo's sentiment. Thank you very much! This stuff is fucking gold. W.S.B really did not think like the majority of people. His thought processes were wholly original and unprecedented. I know he had a great interest in "the paranormal" but I've never heard him expound on the matter at such length. THANK YOU!

[@paul4199-e7e]

Maybe

[@pjr5913]

trocchi

[@jerrydonquixote5927]

@@vollsticks and our second and third those motions!

[@RioGrandeHenderson]

Hey I wonder if anyone's came upon the following lecture?

[@octemberfury]

There's no way those cut-up samples were randomly arranged. If so, they weren't cut up down to the word, but down to the phrase. If you randomly arrange words, the grammar falls apart completely. Also, such a process would not be equivalent to montage (synthetic cubism) in painting, because that wasn't random, either.

[@Bobjb999]

The raw material of Burroughs cut up method was randomly created by cutting pages of text, but the end results of the method were NOT created randomly, nor did Burroughs ever intend them to be assembled randomly. His method was always to consciously choose and assemble pieces of text together based on what pieces Burroughs liked the sound of when joined. It became a creative activity via conscious selection and assemblage of cut up pieces. The raw material was created accidentally, but the end results, not, as they were based on creative, conscious selection and combining.

[@octemberfury]

5:15 "Rearranged the fragments at random." But, I missed the part where he says 'copied out phrases'

[@Add_Account485]

@@Bobjb999 can someone please explain to me how to do this cut up experiment? I wanto try it

[@Add_Account485]

@@octemberfury PS.. at 15min or so or just before that when he's talking about the taperecorder he mentions the subject of randomness"..

[@Bobjb999]

@@Add_Account485 You might try google researching something like "instructions on using William Burroughs' cut-up method"

[@markstubington8730]

Behind the iron curtain idk why in the context of the point he was postulating over made me laugh.. Like hey you over there are you getting the message ha.

[@chrisjoyce8962]

William S Burroughs everybody's wierd uncle.😊

[@trans-amtrucking6754]

4:36 This must be where Mad Libs comes from

[@jgmartinezmd6867]

does anyone have a transcription?

[@spiroskoufos5412]

GREAT!

[@ericsimon5314]

I'm sorry but I plan to bring madhonaydew some contradiction : my project is to create the first University of the forgotten writers and other artists. It will be based in Paris, France, and the best specialists and teachers on the matters such as psychedelia, drugs, censored writings and activities and underground culture on a more general level will be recruited - Research work will be done and supervised in order for this black information and knowledge to be collected and gathered in books and data bases. The students of this university will be able to pass diplomas and this garden will be taken care of by anyone who wants to enroll -

[@vollsticks]

I'd enrol in that in A SECOND if I could overcome all the attendant logistical issues!

[@poltergeistfm]

how's the academia planning going? paris - if i may so interject - is one of the most expensive rental areas on the fucking planet - why build anything there whose survivial chances would be entirely dependent on some non-profit system? how would alternative culture students and profs alike accommodate themselves? how'd they eat?

[@urskaskerl9273]

Yes, so this university was only an idea, or is there really something going on? It would be a good one. Would enroll, as a gardener.

[@Finduskkk]

Would you read a book of poems in Italian to publish and translate ?

[@motherthirteen]

I'm in love William s Burroughs.

[@ericamartinen6527]

he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters...

[@joeyscott4299]

❤

[@richardlitwin4046]

Why leave to the masters what their disciples left behind?

[@spartacvs8]

37:51

[@Guminyourhair]

"The Lair of the bear is in Chicago"

[@jazzmanchgo]

Soldier FIeld?

[@Guminyourhair]

@@jazzmanchgo More like a hive of scum and villainy.

[@jazzmanchgo]

@@Guminyourhair I live in Chicago and I would never describe my city that way. As an afficionado of blues, jazz, soul music, and gospel, I consider it a vital and still thriving nexus of American culture.

[@Guminyourhair]

@jazzmanchgo I lived in Chicago for 9 years. I think I know what I'm talking about. I lived New Orleans for 6 I lived in Chicago for 7. I have family on the police force in Chicago. Kind of a shithehole and not because of the buildings or the culture that used to have jazz, which is now dead. but because of the people. The sheer volume of people who move from Chicago to Wisconsin mostly to Kenosha because of the crime end high expense of living. But don't feel bad. Most cities around the world are now shitholes.

[@jazzmanchgo]

@@Guminyourhair Jazz in Chicago is not dead. The Jazz Showcase continues to book world-class acts every week, neighborhood jazz festivals (e.g., the Bronzeville Jazz & Music Festival, which I attended last weekend) are alive and well; the internationally feted Chicago Jazz Festival kicks off next weekend. Saxophonist Ernest Dawkins has his annual Englewood Jazz Festival every September (yeah, Englewood -- one of those "BAD" neighborhoods that people like to stereotype); he books nationally known artists, as well as alumni of his ongoing Live the Spirit Residency jazz education program which he operates out of the Hamilton Park Fieldhouse in Englewood, which has already nurtured some of our most promising, up-and-coming young artists (see below). The spirit is alive and well. kzbin.info/www/bejne/mXm2YXehi9tpo5I And, contrary to your assertion, "the people" of Chicago are among the most soulful, diverse, and vibrant to be found anywhere.

[@tltz72]

L

[@corypeacock556]

Remember me for i am the number 666 to hit the thumbs up.