harikari.com

Listen to William Burroughs today…

Take a little time out today and read some William Burroughs.  Here’s are some quotes to get you started:

“How I hate those who are dedicated to producing conformity.”

“Silence is only frightening to people who are compulsively verbalizing.”

“In the magical universe there are no coincidences and there are no accidents. Nothing happens unless someone wills it to happen.”

“A paranoid is someone who knows a little of what’s going on.”

“Most of the trouble in this world has been caused by folks who can’t mind their own business, because they have no business of their own to mind, any more than a smallpox virus has.”

“Man is an artifact designed for space travel. He is not designed to remain in his present biologic state any more than a tadpole is designed to remain a tadpole.”

“Hustlers of the world, there is one Mark you cannot beat: the Mark Inside.”

“After one look at this planet any visitor from outer space would say ‘I want to see the manager.’”

“You know how old people lose all shame about eating, and it makes you puke to watch them? Old junkies are the same about junk. They gibber and squeal about the sight of it. The spit hangs off their skin, and their stomach rumbles and all their guts grind in peristalsis while they cook up, dissolving the body’s decent skin, you expect any moment a great blob of protoplasm will flop right out and surround the junk. Really disgust you to see it.” (from Naked Lunch)

William S. Burroughs, February 5, 1914 – August 2, 1997

[youtube]C7Z_08o108E[/youtube]

This prayer brought to you by Wiliam S. Burroughs.

I find myself thinking about him each and every Thanksgiving. If you are unfamiliar with him and enjoy his ‘Thanksgiving Prayer’, then give a listen to his spoken word cds, I like Dead City Radio and Spare Ass Annie and Other Tales. As far as books, The Portable Beat Reader is a great place to start, as you get to learn about him in the context of the Beat Generation. If you want to mainline a little Burroughs, dive right into his book Naked Lunch.

If for some reason the above video does not resonate with you, don’t even bother with him or the Beats, you must be a ‘Square’…

I will be on the road over the Thanksgiving holidays, so I may not be able to post much of anything until Sunday or Monday.

I leave you with this piece by William S. Burroughs:

A Thanksgiving Prayer

Thanks for the wild turkey and
the passenger pigeons, destined
to be shit out through wholesome
American guts. Thanks for a continent to despoil
and poison.

Thanks for Indians to provide a
modicum of challenge and
danger.

Thanks for vast herds of bison to
kill and skin leaving the
carcasses to rot.

Thanks for bounties on wolves
and coyotes.

Thanks for the American dream,
To vulgarize and to falsify until
the bare lies shine through.

Thanks for the KKK.

For nigger-killin’ lawmen,
feelin’ their notches.

For decent church-goin’ women,
with their mean, pinched, bitter,
evil faces.

Thanks for “Kill a Queer for
Christ” stickers.

Thanks for laboratory AIDS.

Thanks for Prohibition and the
war against drugs.

Thanks for a country where
nobody’s allowed to mind their
own business.

Thanks for a nation of finks.

Yes, thanks for all the
memories– all right let’s see
your arms!

You always were a headache and
you always were a bore.

Thanks for the last and greatest
betrayal of the last and greatest
of human dreams.