By: Daniel Odier & William S. BurroughsPublished: Penguin Books; Reissue edition (March 4, 1989)
Softcover 224 pages
“I advance the theory that in the
electronic revolution a virus is a very small unit of word and image. I have
suggested how such units can be biologically activated to act as communicable
virus strains. Let us staring with three tape recorders in the Garden of Eden.
Tape recorder one is Adam. Tape recorder two is Eve. Tape recorder three is
God, who deteriorated into the Ugly American. Or to return to our primeval
scene: tape recorder one is the male ape in a helpless sexual frenzy as the
virus strangles him. Tape recorder two is a cooing female ape who straddles
him. Tape recorder three is DEATH.”
The book begins with the sort piece
“Playback from Eden to Watergate”, originally published by Harpers in 1973. In it he describes the concept of the word virus.
As per Genesis, the word came first.
Burroughs interprets this as the written word which infested man and evolved
into perfect symbiosis with him, manifesting as human speech. He goes on into
his playback reality manipulation method involving three tape recorders and/or
a camera (this was written in the early 70s remember, cutting edge stuff then).
By splicing various sounds from an area from the first two devices and then
adding an idea with the third, one can manipulate an effect where you aim the
playback, like a high tech voodoo curse. He claims that he has used this to
start fires on buildings and shut down restaurants with health care violations
and so on. Whether he believes this to be true, it is just wishful thinking, or him mixing up
correlation with causation is anyone’s guess.
I can never tell how much Burroughs
believes his theories (to misuse the term). Are they exultations of a true
believer or an intellectual exercise penned with a sardonic smirk? He has
always come across as rather intelligent, but susceptible to various weird
alternate scientific and therapeutic ideas. His involvement with Scientology
and adherence to Wilhelm Reich’s orgone chamber being a few examples.
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| William S. Burroughs |
“Translate the Mayan control calendar
into modern terms. The mass media of newspapers, radio, television, magazines
form a ceremonial calendar to which all citizens are subjected. The “priests”
wisely conceal themselves behind masses of contradictory data and vociferously
deny that they exist. Like the Mayan priests they can reconstruct the past and
predict the future on a statistical basis through manipulation of media. It is
the dates preserved in newspaper morgues that makes detailed reconstruction of
past dates possible. How can modern priests predict seemingly random future events?”
The interviews in The Job take place in 1968 and as such several of his views are out
of date. For example all of the technology he describes in his splicing
technique are obsolete, replaced long ago by smartphones and PCs. Well before
the silicon revolution, computers at the time were wall sized monstrosities
operating on punch cards and magnetic tape. Your phone now has more computing
power than the most sophisticated machine of the day. But don’t knock it, they
put a man on the moon with this tech.
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| Daniel Odier |
For those who are Burroughs aficionados
there isn’t must new here. The book may well have been called a William S. Burroughs’s
primer as he primarily reiterates all of his previous philosophical and
sociological opinions from previous writings. In fact several times he simply
substituted passages from the Nova
Trilogy as his answers.
He makes several good points, as the
second quote above demonstrates, on the manipulation of the media to create a
false reality and the reshaping of history through images. However again he is
out of date. He envisioned one right-wing message (whom he was afraid would use
the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy as an excuse to take away our guns)
tapered across all mediums, controlled by hidden masters. He didn’t foresee the
YouTube age with its constant multiple manipulative narratives overlapping and
conflicting where one can create their own narrative and illusionary image of the
world. At the time, the masses were only a group of receivers, he did not
envision a day where everyone could input as well, thus becoming their own
illusionary master. I think he would have approved.
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| First English Translation of The Job |
But there is a lot in here that many
would disagree with, his praise of Reich and Hubbard being mentioned earlier. He
asserts that the concept of a nuclear
family should be ended and that all children should be raised by state run institutions-
the same institutions he describes as essentially amoral and evil a few pages
earlier. As we all know, this idea worked out so well in its real life applications. The Khmer Rouge in Cambodia
and their Killing Fields and the Romanian orphanages under Ceaușescu that
festered with AIDS and mental disorders, being a few instances. Burroughs
practiced what he preached however, having abandoned his own son at the age of
six.
He continues on by stating all prisons
should be abolished, with no more reasons given than they don’t really do
anything more than punish. And eventually wraps up his criticism of the “American
Nightmare” by stating that all institutions of Western Civilization must be
destroyed. Ho-hum.
He is most eloquent on the subject of
drugs. Advocating a general legalization of all drugs. Heroin, cocaine, and so
on should be back to being over-the-counter medications as it was in the early
20th century before the Harrison Narcotics Act. However he believes
that this is impossible due to the media’s scare and the money making industry
that has sprung up around incarceration and treatment of addicts.
Drugs are not addictive, according to
him, but the exposure to them is, if you can tell the difference. He deconstructs
a bit here, by saying that the lifestyle associated with it. The clarity, the
lack of responsibility, the absolute focus of your life on the next high means
that your life will always have focus.
However if one wants to kick the habit
he devotes fifteen pages to the apomorphine treatment, which he claims is a metabolic
stabilizer and reduces the desire for the drug. In 1968 Apomorphine was
primarily used to treat erectile dysfunction and, briefly, as a psychiatric cure
for homosexuality. At a private clinic Burroughs and several others were
administered the drug and said it was the best cure he ever experienced. There
have been no clinical trials of the drug ever made. Currently it is used
primarily to combat the symptoms of Parkinson’s Disease.
Burroughs writes here with his characteristic
fluid style, though rarely becoming as hallucinogenic as in other works. He
truly is a master of the word and is certainly one of the most poetic writers I
have ever read, even when I am shaking my head at nearly all of his arguments. On
reflection, I have never more enjoyed reading a person’s opinion that I almost completely
disagreed with more.
For more readings, try my collection of books.
For more readings, try my collection of books.
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