Synopses & Reviews
Cultural Writing. Interviews. Fiction. Essays. Updated with Vale's last interview with Burroughs on april 27, 1997, plus photos of burroughs, gysin, genesis p-orridge. This is a manual of ideas and insights. Strikingly designed, with rare photographs, bibliographies, discographies, chronologies and illustrations. Interviews with pioneering artists William S. Burroughs, Brion Gysin, and Throbbing Gristle proposes ground-breaking, radical cultural agendas, as noted by the London Observer. Topics discussed include self-defense, biological warfare, revolution, utopias, assassination, con-men, politicians, lost inventions, turning points in history, the killing of JFK, dreams, ideal education, Hassan I Sabbah, nuclear weaponry, cloning, the cut-up theory and practice in producing prophetic writing, Moroccan trance music, the Dream Machine, art forgeries, Manson, the media control process, prostitution, the possibilities of video, and what else??
Synopsis
In an inspired touch, RE/Search publisher V. Vale brought together the work of groundbreaking novelist William Burroughs and avant-garde painter Brion Gysin (already linked by their collaborations in the cut-up” method of artistic creation) with the founders of industrial music, Throbbing Gristle, for this seminal document of 80s underground culture. Originally published in 1982, the book combined primary source interviews,” in which subjects discuss advanced ideas involving the social control process, creativity, and the future; scarce essays; rare fiction excerpts; bibliographies; discographies; and biographies. The book quickly became a celebrated addition to RE/Searchs notorious list and to the canon of 80s subculture. This expanded edition contains previously unpublished interviews with Burroughs, Gysin, and Throbbing Gristle by V. Vale; a new article on Throbbing Gristle with photographs; unseen photographs of Burroughs; and much more to satisfy both the Burroughs, Gysin, and Gristle completist and anyone who wants to make sense of the kinds of cultural assaults they embodied.