more sick than dirty
more dead than alive
Morris Louis, Number 99, 1959–60
* From a 1961 interview of Corso, Ginsberg and Burroughs. excerpt:
Gregory Corso: What say you about political conflicts?
William Burroughs: Political conflicts are merely surface manifestations. If conflicts arise you may be sure that certain powers intend to keep this conflict under operation since they hope to profit from the situation. To concern yourself with surface political conflicts is to make the mistake of the bull in the ring, you are charging the cloth. That is what politics is for, to teach you the cloth. Just as the bullfighter teaches the bull, teaches him to follow, obey the cloth.
Gregory Corso: Who manipulates the cloth?
William Burroughs: Death
Allen Ginsberg: What is death?
William Burroughs: A gimmick. It's the time-birth-death gimmick. Can't go on much longer, too many people are wising up.
Gregory Corso: Do you feel there has been a definite change in man's makeup? A new consciousness?
William Burroughs: Yes, I can give you a precise answer to that. I feel that the change, the mutation in consciousness, will occur spontaneously once certain pressures now in operation are removed. I feel that the principal instrument of monopoly and control that prevents expansion of consciousness is the word lines controlling thought, feeling and apparent sensory impressions of the human host.
...
Gregory Corso: What kind of advice you got for politicians?
William Burroughs: Tell the truth once and for all and shut up forever.
Gregory Corso: What if people don't want to change, don't want no new consciousness?
William Burroughs: For any species to change, if they are unable and are unwilling to do so — I might, for example, have suggested to the dinosaurs that heavy armor and great size was a sinking ship, and that they do well to convert to mammal facilities — it would not lie in my power or desire to reconvert a reluctant dinosaur. I can make my feeling very clear, Gregory, I fell like I'm on a sinking ship and I want off.
...
Allen Ginsberg: What about control?
William Burroughs: Now all politicians assume a necessity of control, the more efficient the control the better. All political organizations tend to function like a machine, to eliminate the unpredictable factor of affect — emotion. Any machine tends to absorb, eliminate, Affect. Yet the only person who can make a machine move is someone who has a motive, who has Affect. If all individuals were conditioned to machine efficiency in the performance of their duties there would have to be at least one person outside the machine to give the necessary orders; if the machine absorbed or eliminated all those outside the machine, the machine will slow down and stop forever. Any unchecked impulse does, within the human body and psyche, lead to the destruction of the organism.
Allen Ginsberg: What kind of organization could technological society have without control?
William Burroughs: The whole point is, I feel the machine should be eliminated. Now that it has served its purpose of alerting us to the dangers of machine control. Elimination of all natural sciences — If anybody ought to go to the extermination chambers, definitely scientists. Yes, I'm definitely antiscientist because I feel that science represents a conspiracy to impose as the real and only universe, the universe of scientists themselves — they're reality-addicts, they've got to have things so real so they can get their hands on it. We have a great elaborate machine which I feel has to be completely dismantled — in order to do that we need people who understand how the machine works — the mass media — unparalleled opportunity.
Allen Ginsberg: Who do you think is responsible for the dope situation in America?
William Burroughs: Old Army game, 'I act under orders.' As Captain Ahab said, 'You are not other men but my arms and legs —' Mr. Anslinger [then head of FBI] has a lot of arms and legs, or whoever is controlling him. Same thing as the Eichman case: he's the front man who has got to take the rap. Poor bastard, I got sympathy for him.
According to Maynard & Miles, this is the first published interview with William Burroughs. It appeared in the 1961 issue of Journal for the Protection of All Beings, a periodical edited by Lawrence Ferlinghetti and published by City Lights Books in San Francisco.
* Democrats also will control Senate.
* Top 20 Iraq oversights.
more dead than alive
Morris Louis, Number 99, 1959–60
* From a 1961 interview of Corso, Ginsberg and Burroughs. excerpt:
Gregory Corso: What say you about political conflicts?
William Burroughs: Political conflicts are merely surface manifestations. If conflicts arise you may be sure that certain powers intend to keep this conflict under operation since they hope to profit from the situation. To concern yourself with surface political conflicts is to make the mistake of the bull in the ring, you are charging the cloth. That is what politics is for, to teach you the cloth. Just as the bullfighter teaches the bull, teaches him to follow, obey the cloth.
Gregory Corso: Who manipulates the cloth?
William Burroughs: Death
Allen Ginsberg: What is death?
William Burroughs: A gimmick. It's the time-birth-death gimmick. Can't go on much longer, too many people are wising up.
Gregory Corso: Do you feel there has been a definite change in man's makeup? A new consciousness?
William Burroughs: Yes, I can give you a precise answer to that. I feel that the change, the mutation in consciousness, will occur spontaneously once certain pressures now in operation are removed. I feel that the principal instrument of monopoly and control that prevents expansion of consciousness is the word lines controlling thought, feeling and apparent sensory impressions of the human host.
...
Gregory Corso: What kind of advice you got for politicians?
William Burroughs: Tell the truth once and for all and shut up forever.
Gregory Corso: What if people don't want to change, don't want no new consciousness?
William Burroughs: For any species to change, if they are unable and are unwilling to do so — I might, for example, have suggested to the dinosaurs that heavy armor and great size was a sinking ship, and that they do well to convert to mammal facilities — it would not lie in my power or desire to reconvert a reluctant dinosaur. I can make my feeling very clear, Gregory, I fell like I'm on a sinking ship and I want off.
...
Allen Ginsberg: What about control?
William Burroughs: Now all politicians assume a necessity of control, the more efficient the control the better. All political organizations tend to function like a machine, to eliminate the unpredictable factor of affect — emotion. Any machine tends to absorb, eliminate, Affect. Yet the only person who can make a machine move is someone who has a motive, who has Affect. If all individuals were conditioned to machine efficiency in the performance of their duties there would have to be at least one person outside the machine to give the necessary orders; if the machine absorbed or eliminated all those outside the machine, the machine will slow down and stop forever. Any unchecked impulse does, within the human body and psyche, lead to the destruction of the organism.
Allen Ginsberg: What kind of organization could technological society have without control?
William Burroughs: The whole point is, I feel the machine should be eliminated. Now that it has served its purpose of alerting us to the dangers of machine control. Elimination of all natural sciences — If anybody ought to go to the extermination chambers, definitely scientists. Yes, I'm definitely antiscientist because I feel that science represents a conspiracy to impose as the real and only universe, the universe of scientists themselves — they're reality-addicts, they've got to have things so real so they can get their hands on it. We have a great elaborate machine which I feel has to be completely dismantled — in order to do that we need people who understand how the machine works — the mass media — unparalleled opportunity.
Allen Ginsberg: Who do you think is responsible for the dope situation in America?
William Burroughs: Old Army game, 'I act under orders.' As Captain Ahab said, 'You are not other men but my arms and legs —' Mr. Anslinger [then head of FBI] has a lot of arms and legs, or whoever is controlling him. Same thing as the Eichman case: he's the front man who has got to take the rap. Poor bastard, I got sympathy for him.
According to Maynard & Miles, this is the first published interview with William Burroughs. It appeared in the 1961 issue of Journal for the Protection of All Beings, a periodical edited by Lawrence Ferlinghetti and published by City Lights Books in San Francisco.
* Democrats also will control Senate.
* Top 20 Iraq oversights.
posted by hackmuth at
9:21 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home