* (restored)

 

 

 

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Audrius Bučas & Valdas Ozarinskas Black Pillow (2012)
Black Pillow is a collaborative project by two Lithuanian architects and artists Audrius Bučas & Valdas Ozarinskas. The project features one main object—a huge inflatable black pillow. Impossible to be grasped in its entirety, the black pillow leaves spectators wondering about its real size, shape, and other material qualities.

 

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James Lomax Untitled [Me and My Friend] (2011)
In the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the preserved skins of exotic animals from faraway lands were brought back to Europe by explorers. The hides would be handed over to taxidermists whose job it was to prepare them for display by stuffing the skins and giving them a life-like appearance. However, the taxidermists often just had to guess at the shape and appearance of these unfamiliar animals based on crude sketches and descriptions, resulting in grotesque physical distortions which would appear unsettling to the modern eye. James Lomax’s Untitled [Me and My Friend] disturbs and captivates me in the same way that this kind of grotesque taxidermy does. Created as a haunting tribute to a close friend who passed away in tragic circumstances, the work is comprised of two latex casts of the artist’s body. The perpetually distorted figures inflate and deflate at random intervals, giving them an unpredictable life and death cycle accompanied by the menacing mechanical scream of the inflation device. Like the distorted animal skins, James’ deflated bodies are re-animated into bizarre caricatures of their former selves, reshaped into an uncomfortable state between living and dead.

 

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Schellekens & Peleman The Inflatable Refugee (2015)
Coinciding with the current migration crisis from East to West, Schellekens & Peleman have started work on The Inflatable Refugee. A large inflatable adult male figure that represents a seated refugee. The Inflatable Refugee gazes blankly into the distance. Has he arrived at a safe haven or will he be refused and be sent from whence he came? His sheer size allows him to look over and beyond us and keep watch on the horizon, not limited by borders or documents. It makes him inescapable, undeniably present. Do we see him as a human or as a problem? Is his presence an opportunity or a threat, devoid of human characteristics? Schellekens & Peleman proportionally enlarged the ‘Inflatable Refugee’ to match the extreme reactions his arrival in the Western world evoked. His size represents how we perceive him.

 

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Tom Dale Department of the Interior (2014)
Department of the Interior is a 6.5m high black leatherette bouncy castle that echoes the towers and crenellations of Parliament with an absurdity that mocks its claim for authority. It is a sculpture that is simultaneously seductive and repulsive; its form and the space within no longer the preserve of inclusive childish pleasures. They speak instead of adult power games and BDSM practices that are normally played out in spaces concealed from public view. In spite of the castle’s tactile allure, visitors are strictly forbidden to enter and bounce, forcing them instead to imagine who or what might have that privilege and why.

 

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Haus-Rucker-Co Oasis Nr. 7 (1972)
‘Oase No. 7 was created for Documenta 5 in Kassel, Germany. An inflatable structure emerged from the façade of an existing building creating a space for relaxation and play.’

 

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Paweł Althamer Self Portrait (1989/2013)
This unique take on a self-portrait floats in the Zacheta Gallery in Bruges, Belgium. In 2007, a version of this work floated over a park in Milan.

 

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Choi Jeong Hwa Breathing Flower (2012)
The piece is called “Breathing Flower,” and if you watch it move, you can see why.

 

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Momoyo Torimitsu Somehow I Don’t Feel Comfortable (2000)
A bunny is one of the stereotyped images of cuteness: an innocent, pure, small something that should be protected. I wanted to present this cute image distorted in a way that expresses my feelings when I face my own culture. This oversized bunny I created that looks down on you doesn’t seem cute anymore – it’s kind of disturbing. Another meaning of my bunny installation has to do with what we call “rabbit hutches” in Japan, which refers to our cramped housing situation in the big cities. It was originally coined by a French diplomat who visited Tokyo in early 70’s. This expression remains in Japanese culture today. I wanted visually illustrate Japan’s repressed lifestyle with my cute but cramped creatures. — MT

 

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Lee Boroson Deep Current (2014)
Deep Current, whose materials include inflated plastic balls, blowers, wood, pvc pipe, and fence, is a referential ode to Niagara Falls, the title of which serves as a subtle pun on the word “current,” referencing both water and electricity. What fascinates Boroson is the fact that Niagara Falls is considered a sublime example of nature’s grandeur despite it being a highly engineered and carefully controlled version of nature.

 

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Chad Person Thirst (2010)
Laying here dying, the horse uses each gasping breath to beg for our attention. Having taken the form of a common advertising inflatable, its life-blood oozes, pooling a black slick into which it shall return. His constellation now obscured by air-pollution, and the memory of the mythic beast tarnished beyond repair; ExxonMobil’s reward is not to gift the icon an immortal legacy, but rather to usher it into a quiet oblivion.

 

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Ralph Lichtensteiger Ginkgo (2016)

 

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Kurt Perschke The RedBall Project (2015 – ?)
Perschke’s RedBall Project consists of a 15 ft inflated red ball wedged in different spaces in various cities around the world. The installations last 1-2 weeks, with each particular site lasting only one day. In August 2015, the giant, 250-pound red ball came loose during a rainstorm in Toledo, Ohio and started rolling down a street lined with parked cars. Watch below as minders race to catch it before it does any real damage.

 

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Penique Productions Inflatable balloon installations (2010 – ?)
Penique productions is a Spanish collective of artists of different disciplines focused on a common project which is based on the idea of making ephemeral installations. The starting point of each project is the selection of a location, which will be the place where to build a unique and customized piece. An inflatable balloon that expands and invades the space completely by itself. The balloon grows until it fills the whole space and becomes the part of the existing architecture. The air, acting like the structure, presses against the plastic that faces the outline of the solid limiting and shaping the final form. Conquered by the inflatable, the place is transformed through the new texture, light and monochrome color.

 

 

 

 

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Mark Leckey This Kolossal Kat, that Massive MOG (2016)
The artist’s giant inflatable Felix and his 2008 16mm film of the cat’s tail are showcased in the show. Felix takes on a number of roles in Leckey’s work, including as a motif for broadcasting, and as an avatar for the artist, for whom the idea of turning into a cat is something that incites both fear and desire.

 

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Oscar Oiwa Oiwa Island 2 (2016)
Housed within an 40-foot inflatable dome inside of a former soy sauce factory, Oscar Oiwa‘s Oiwa Island 2 is an immersive drawings that takes up the entirety of the circular space. The 360-degree drawing includes natural imagery, placing visitors in a black and white world with a detailed forest containing a cabin on the shore of a beach. The drawing is fairly realistic until one reaches the water, where the patterns of the waves become increasingly abstract. The door of the cabin in this elaborate mural doubles as the actual door for the dome, creating an even more immersive effect when you enter the gigantic space.

 

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Erwin Wurm The artist who swallowed the world (2006)

 

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Clive Murphy Trash Bag Inflatables (2005 – ?)
This is a an ongoing series of installation works dating from 2005 which comprise of site-specific architecturally orientated inflatable constructions created from adjoined black domestic trash bags. A number of these works have been kinetic, where the air blower has had an automatic timer attached which makes the structures rise and fall on a pre-set cycle. I wanted to make inflatables that didn’t look like inflatables, but closer to monumental minimalist structures. Trash bags ended up being the perfect material as they readily accesible, both in a logistical and conceptual sense. They are modular. A trash bag is a tube with one end sealed, open that end and add another and another you have an long tubular form. They have a weirdly metallic structural look to them when inflated. The real trick was working out how to make the geometric corners, right angles, multiple joints, etc. I had to adopted the mindset of both an architect and a tailor and create the structures as 3D auto-cad computer designs, then build actual physical models, and then patterns like those of a dress-maker. — CM

 

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Phillip Toledano Inflatable Guantanamo Bay prison cell (2008)
In 2008 when Bush and Cheney were still kicking around the White House and Phillip Toledano released his online installation, America the Giftstop. “We buy souvenirs at the end of a trip, to remind ourselves of the experience. What do we have to remind ourselves of the events of the last eight years?” Toledano said. An artist and photographer, Toledano’s satirical selection of souvenirs from the War on Terror included this life-sized inflatable Guantanamo bay bouncy prison cell.

 

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Wang Yuyang Breathing Office (2009)
Chinese artist Wang Yuyang created an installation that is a life-size replica of an ordinary office, a ‘finance department’, complete with desktop computers, rolling chairs, telephones and other furnishings. The artwork is a piece of Wang Yuyang’s ‘breathing series’. In this case, Wang Yuyang breathes life into ordinary office objects such as garbage cans, fax machines and paper stacks, by recreating them out of silicone and animating them by installing a small motor, which inflates the objects and simulates the breathing.

 

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Ronald van der Meijs Transluminal Coronary Angioplasty (2009)
Despite the many problems in the construction of the new North / South metro line in Amsterdam, the city council said they had confidence in the technology, so the construction continues. The city, so the reasoning goes, must continue to evolve and grow. The therm ‘angioplasty’ is used as a metaphor for the underground operations and affairs of the North / South line. The spatial installation in the gallery at Waterloo underground station lies just below the “heart” of the city. The installation is a large, pulsating tube structure, in the form of an underground pipe and metaphor for the human angioplasty. to solve the blood vessel problem. The structure is made out of plastic bags – a symbol of consumerism that the economy is still increasing pumping. The installation generates a cracking sound because of the crispy plastic bags.

 

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Michio Koshino various (1987 – ?)
One of the most intriguing items renowned clothing designer Koshino marketed under her name was the first inflatable fabric.

 

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Corey Whyte Santa Wreath (Black, 2014)

 

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Michael Parekowhai Jim McMurtry (2006)
Jim McMurtry is an enormous, 12 metres long and 4.5 metres wide, cartoon rabbit. Jim McMurtry lies flat on his back with one eye closed and his tongue hanging out. Viewers feel unsure as to whether he is dead or is simply taking a nap. Here, Parekowhai reminds us of the rabbit’s considerable and destructive impact on New Zealand when it was introduced in the nineteenth century. It may have similarities to a cute Walt Disney or Beatrix Potter creation but Jim McMurtry raises questions about a particular point in New Zealand’s past and more specifically about Colonialism.

 

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Jimmy Kuehnle Wiggle, Giggle, Jiggle (2016)

 

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AZC Saut de Seine (?)
Instead of crossing bridges by walking or by riding a car, why can’t we bounce or flip our way across instead? This is what architecture firm AZC had in mind when they submitted a proposal to build an inflatable trampoline bridge for pedestrians to cross the Seine. The structure involves three inflatable doughnut-like rings with mesh trampolines stretched across each one, allowing pedestrians to bounce their way to the other side of the river. It also provides people two options upon reaching the end of the bridge: to exit by way of a staircase or by way of a slide.

 

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Rafael Lozano-Hemmer Last Breath (2012)
Last Breath is an installation designed to store and circulate the breath of a person forever. The piece consists of a small brown paper bag which inflates and deflates automatically thanks to motorized bellows similar to those found in artificial respirators in hospitals. The apparatus hangs on a wall and is activated 10,000 times a day, the typical respiratory frequency for an adult at rest, including 158 sighs. Each stroke of the machine advances a digital counter that beeps. The breath circulates between the bellows and the paper bag through a ribbed transparent plastic tube that emits a faint and hypnotic low sound. The tube can be as large as necessary to either hang the bag right beside the piece, on the same wall, or to create a labyrinth on the ceiling of the exhibition that ends with the bag suspended in the middle of the room. The brown paper bag makes a rhythmic crushing sound as it inflates and deflates. As a biometric portrait, the piece requires careful curation, and the question of who gets stored should be in itself an interesting debate. The portrait should work as a living memorial of a senior respected artist, ideally a poet, singer or dancer. A small video of the person blowing into the bag is exhibited beside the apparatus. The first copy of the piece stores the breath of Cuban singer Omara Portuondo. The piece is currently on tour but eventually will be exhibited by the National Museum of Music in Cuba: after she dies people will be able to visit her “Last Breath” there.

 

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Unknown Ba Di (2015)
Parents in China looking for a way to teach their children about the birds and the bees can now take them to a special sex education playground inside an enormous inflatable doll. The attraction also features a ball pit, slide and climbing area. The doll, which has green hair and pink lips and wears jeans and a white strap top, can be entered through the right heel and exited via the left. Cartoon images are displayed inside the legs to teach children about sex. The inflatable, nicknamed Ba Di, has appeared at Wanda Plaza commercial complex in eastern China’s Nanjing city.

 

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Jim Green Whoopie Cushions (2010)

 

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Tam Wai Ping Falling into the Mundane World (2013)
After a fantastic fall, a cockroach and round-bottomed woman have landed headfirst on the promenade.

 

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Sabina Lang and Daniel Baumann Comfort #8 (2010)
Couple and artist team Sabina Lang and Daniel Baumann have been collaborating since 1990. They create large scale inflatable architecture and urban landscape installations frequently experimenting with gravity. This site-specific project, circumscribed by the architecture and tradition of Galeria Foksal, represented a sort of homage to a space that had been a center of the Polish avant-garde in the sixties and continues to function as an artist-run space to this day. Seven parallel air-filled tubes installed along the walls of the gallery traced the outline of the space and reproduced its contours. The soft and bulging textile surface of the walls and the glow of the color gold transformed the visitor’s sense of the space by distorting the dimensions and acoustics of this storied gallery.

 

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Kirsten Pieroth Inflated Dinghy (2009)
In Kirsten Pieroth’s work a rubber dinghy is gradually inflated by an accordionist playing a harmonica.

 

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Joshua Allen Harris Bears (2008)
On the streets of New York, Joshua Allen Harris creates inflatable animals by tying plastic shopping bags to the subway grates.

 

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Claire Ashley Various (2013 – 2016)
‘Ashley’s work investigates inflatables as painting, sculpture, installation and performance costume. These works have been exhibited nationally and internationally in galleries, museums, and site-specific installations, performances and collaborations.’

 

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Malena Barnhart Natural Skin Color Inflatable Love Doll (2018)
‘The type of blow-up doll Barnhart used for her piece is sold online as a sex toy. Its physical properties include exaggerated breasts and an oddly placed opening on the lower torso.’

 

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Alexsandra Mir Plane Landing (2003)
Plane Landing is an event: the production of the balloon, its travel to new destinations, the inflation, its ‘landing’ and the documentation of all these parts constitute the artwork.

 

 

*

p.s. Hey. ** Jamie, Hi, Jamie. If you think you actually want to come to the event, let me know. I think they said we would have a list to put guests on. It’s free with RSVP, and I’m not sure if it’ll fill up quickly or not. But I think there’ll be a way for you to see it otherwise eventually. It’s just still little too early to tell how. ‘Kindertotenlieder’s’ last performance is tomorrow night. ‘The Wild Boys’ is my favorite Burroughs. My Thursday half-sucked, for reasons I don’t want to go into, and was half-nice: saw friends, hung out, ate nachos. Of course I am naturally inclined to urge you towards that cartoon idea, but what do I know? I do, nonetheless. Ha ha, thanks for the wished for breezy and/or buffeting Friday. I’ll take either. I have my first virtual book launch thing tonight, so maybe I’ll hope for the breezy option. I hope your Friday sings to you like Tiny Tim or Gram Parsons, your choice. Love, me.** Dominik, Hi!!! Oh, cool, that I managed to light up your fave Burroughs. Such a good title too. Granted I’m a cheap date when it comes to haunted house attractions, but I would say go for it, and if I manage to find a less ‘professional’ one in my searching, I’ll hook you up. Oh, I love that ant plate too, it’s true. It was hard too choose between it and the scalp ripper. I might just join Instagram to be your love’s recipient. Thank you. Love starting a very popular TikTok channel devoted to his intricate Deleuzian analysis of every syllable of every bit of content in every issue of SCAB, G. ** David Ehrenstein, Hi. Yes, Allen had a moment of wisdom there, amazing. ** chris dankland, Hi, Chris! Excellence itself to see you, man! Aw, thank you so very much about ‘I Wished’. I’m completely thrilled to hear that. Questions, okay, I’ll do my best. George was 12 years old when I met him, and he was in 6th grade. The last section is dated 1976 just because I was channeling how I would have felt at that point. That was the year that he and I consummated our long standing more-than-friendship feelings for each other, and we mistakenly thought we would begin having a relationship at that point, as he had just graduated from high school and intended to go to the university that I was then attending, a plan which was then thwarted by his parents’ refusal to pay to let him enrol there due to their irrational fear of his and my friendship. So it was a fraught time. As for the Russian thing, because George was a fictional character in the Cycle, I wanted to start the novel with a section where I evolved him gradually from a fully fictional character into his real self. As best I can recall, I think I at least partly chose Russia, etc. because when I was in Russia, I was very interested by the overdubbing thing I mention in that section and wanted to work with that particular kind of obscuring, and probably other reasons I don’t recall. Thank you, Chris. That section you mentioned where he and I met is the only section in the novel that completely true and nonfictional, an exact and truthful recounting of our first meeting as best as my memory could reconstruct it. I know, Halloween! At long last! I hope you have some awesome Halloween stuff planned. If you need me to hunt down haunted house attractions in your area, say the word. Big love, me. ** Bill, Oh, cool. I’ll talk to Zac about that and see what he thinks. After this upcoming feature film, it would be nice to do something short and Hsuian. Bill Jones and I were quite good pals in the mid-late 90s, but I haven’t talked to him in ages for no good reason. Okay, I think I have to read that book and see how much of it rings true. Hmmmm. ** Okay. This seemed like a good post to restore, liking inflatables as I do, and assuming most people have at least some level of fondness for them. See you tomorrow.

 

‘We call our program the Burroughs Extended Abstience Technique (BEAT). It draws on the briliant insights of William S. Burroughs (1914-1997), a Harvard-trained anthropologist who outlined the BEAT approach in a series of innovative books and lectures. His research involved extensive empirical testing in Mexico City, London, Berlin, Morocco and Paris, and earned him a number of honors and awards, as well as a conviction on manslaughter charges (Mexico City, 1951).

‘We have tested several of these books in classroom settings, including The Naked Lunch (1959), The Soft Machine (1961) and Nova Express (1964). But we have found that the most successful results are obtained via The Ticket That Exploded (1962, revised 1967).

‘As Mr. Burroughs himself wisely tells us at the outset of his book: “inoculation is the weapon of choice against virus and inoculation can only be effected through exposure…exposure to the pleasures offered under enemy conditions.” [p. 10] To this end, Burroughs developed an indoctrination program built on taped repetitive messages. “Anyone with a tape recorder controlling the sound track,” he reminds us, “can influence and create events.” [p.207] These recordings, he noted, can be “cut into short sections and spliced in together. This produces a strong erotic reaction.” [p. 18]

‘Fortunately for us, technology has advanced since Burroughs developed his BEAT technique, and we no longer need rely on cumbersome tape  splicing and bulky equipment. The BEAT program can now be implemented anywhere—via your child’s phone or other handheld device. We are in the process of designing a series of apps that will make access to BEAT as simple as the click of a mouse or stroke of a finger.

‘But first, the trigger warning…..Many students have found the Burroughs abstinence program distasteful and shocking. But their objections must be overruled, because the efficacious application of the method draws on precisely these elements. If students persist in their complaints, ask the troublemakers whether they want to turn into what Burroughs describes as “orgasm addicts stacked in rubbish heaps like muttering burlap”? [p. 8]

‘Of course not!

‘We begin each class session by group repetition of Mr. Burroughs’ definitions of terms. To whit, his astute descriptions of the essence of sexual union. These are recited by teacher and students in the form of questions and answers.’ — Ted Gioia

 

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Gallery: Covers History

 

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Further

The Ticket That Exploded @ Wikipedia
The Ticket That Exploded @ goodreads
Cutting-Up
The Soft Machine, The Ticket That Exploded, and Nova Express: William Burroughs’s Ugly Spirit
Burroughs, Berrigan, and The Ticket That Exploded
Arabic Music and Burroughs’s The Ticket That Exploded
The Science-fiction of William Burroughs
Texte itératif et stéréotypes chez William Burroughs : de l’intertextualité à l’autostéréotypie
The Long Last Goodbye: Control and Resistance in the Work of William Burroughs

 

____
Extras

James Ilgenfritz – The Ticket That Exploded [An Ongoing Opera] (first half)

Excerpt from “The Ticket that Exploded” as read by Aaron Runyon

The Ticket that Exploded @ the library

 

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Allen Ginsberg Interviews William Burroughs

 

Allen Ginsberg: What’s the basic plot or theme of The Soft Machine?
William S Burroughs: The book takes place, to a large extent, in a mythical area which bears some resemblance to South America and also to the planet Venus. It concerns, I should say, a struggle between controllers and those who are endeavoring to throw off control.
AG: And Nova Express
WSB: The same
AG: What is the distinction between the two in terms of theme and plot or development of the theme?
WSB: Nova Express… is more directly concerned with the struggle. Soft Machine is more concerned with just description of the factors involved and the scene, which corresponds somewhat with the planet Venus.
AG: In Nova Express you give a more precise description of the battle or of actual tactics?
WSB: More actual battles, battle scenes, in Nova Express than in The Soft Machine. The Soft Machine is more concerned with the set.
AG: The material from both those books is overflow from Naked Lunch?
WSB: There is some overflow from Naked Lunch in both of them, yes.
AG: And also there is material that was generated out of the whole cut-up experience of that time.
WSB: Absolutely.
AG: An what new preoccupation or theme, or symbolic set-up, is added in Venus? The whole concept of Venus?
WSB: Added in there after Naked Lunch. And also in The Soft Machine there’s a good deal of narrative material that’s concerned with reincarnation. This is the concept of The Street of Chance, not sure of what kind of reincarnation you’re going to have. It’s almost like a lottery was the allegory of the Street of Chance, people between birth and death, what chance they’re going to get in their forthcoming reincarnation.
AG: And the concept of Venus is Eros, or female Eros?
WSB: No, no. Venus, the actual landscape, etc. This has been a theme in science fiction for some time. And most writers have equated it with something like South America, a lush tropical scene teeming with poisonous exotic life forms. I would mention in this connection the novel Fury by Henry Kuttner, which takes place on Venus, and there are a number of descriptions in science fiction.
AG: The Ticket That Exploded, following Nova Express, brought it all to a climax. Did that conclude the…
WSB: No, it didn’t at all. I mean, it’s…
AG: A continuation of the battle?
WSB: Yes. Yes.
AG: Or a continuation of the description of the scene?
WSB: Well, both. I would say you could regard The Soft Machine and Nova Express as almost a continuation of the same book, so that anything you say about one, more or less applies to the other…
AG: I thought The Ticket That Exploded kind of concluded – that was the action of the Nova, or of the explosion itself – by dissolving into a vibrating soundless hum.
WSB: Yes, there is that. Shall we say that The Ticket That Exploded winds it up? After that, was, of course, The Job.
AG: Which is an attempt to regulate the ideas, and that gives them a linear exposition.
WSB: Yes, that was it. It also contains some narrative material which was possibly a mistake. I think it is a mistake to mix essay and narrative, fictional material because it slows down the narrative, and then everybody thinks that the essays are fictional rather than being factual.
AG: So the next thing is what?
WSB: More or less immediately after The Job was The Last Words of Dutch Schultz.
But The Job, you might say, overlapped The Wild Boys because I realized it started to be one book. And then I realized that I had two books, and that they should not be mixed…
AG: So the fantasy material, or the fictional material of The Job, overlaps with The Wild Boys?
WSB: That’s right.
AG: And actually in both, there is a significant theme, because The Job is the most outright or outrageous statement about the occlusion of women.
WSB: Yes.
AG: And so The Wild Boys is an exemplification of the world.
WSB: Absolutely, yes.
AG: Then the next work is…
WSB: The Wild Boys. Then a direct overflow from The Wild Boys was Exterminator! and Port of Saints.
AG: Now I haven’t read Port of Saints yet. I’ve read Exterminator! and The Wild Boys. How do those two books differ and what’s their progression?
WSB: There isn’t very much difference. I found the material for The Wild Boys when I had to make, at some point, a more or less arbitrary choice. Sometimes you realize that the things you left out are better than what you’ve put in. So three books came from that block of material.
AG: Is there any progression, or any thematic distincton between them?
WSB: Yes. For example, Port of Saints is, I think, more structured like a musical composition. In fact, there are musical leads for each chapter.
AG: And Exterminator!
WSB: Exterminator! is more episodic and perhaps not as structured as Port of Saints, or even The Wild Boys.
AG: Well, how can you expect anybody to read through all this if you don’t make big categorical distinctions? It’s like reading one large series of prose poems that have no end.
WSB: No, no, no, no. It’s quite comprehensible and as accessible as any book you pick up at the airport? People are demanding less and less in the way of plot and structure, I find. So I don’t think there’s any difficulty in understanding.
AG: Actually, The Wild Boys is very clear because it’s divided into very definite themes and chapters
WSB: Yes, so is Port of Saints
AG: Exterminator!, though has some elements being mixed with essay, like “Do Easy”
WSB: What easy material?
AG: Exterminator! Isn’t “Do Easy” in Exterminator!?
WSB: Oh yes! Yes, I did feel that Exterminator! was possibly too much, too miscellaneous. The first pieces in The Wild Boys, actually, should have been in Exterminator! That was not really in sequence there. Uh, that’s true.
AG: Is there some one paragraph summary of the basic theme of say, The Soft Machine, Nova Express?
WSB: The basic theme is that the planet has been invaded by Venutians and the book attempts to cope with invasion
AG: And the intention of the Venutians is planetary takeover?
WSB: Planetary takeover, probably not just enslavement but extermination. Shall we say that there conditions are different? And they want to reproduce conditions that would probably be fatal to the earth.
AG: So that they can live here?
WSB: Yes.
AG: In other words, they’re like the Reds, except from Venus.
WSB: Yes, like the White Man arriving in the New World
AG: How dies it end though? It ends with the virus being exterminated by the realization of the situation.
WSB: It doesn’t really end.
AG: Well, the anxiety of the invasion seems at the end to be dispersed by the dissolution of space and time, or the dissolution of time.
WSB: Yes, it is. That dissolution was necessary in order to neutralize the conspiracy. From this comes the theme that the only future is to enter into a spirit, a completely spirit state.
AG: Grasping the matter? There is a notion that most conspiracies are actually spiritual conspiracies, in the sense of power takeovers involving people’s minds.
WSB: The people conspired against.
AG: Oh, yes. Yes.
WSB: Just as we destroyed the Indians by destroying their spiritual life.
AG: I’m still a little fuzzy on the last part. My point was that most conspiracies are mental anyway.
WSB: They are. But usually if you want to destroy people, destroy their Gods. Destroy their Maker.
AG: Except that then the Gods being destroyed are, say, Christ or Baptist visions of Christ.
WSB: On the contrary, those are the Gods being used. In other words, these are concepts that are very useful for the invaders because they are spiritually empty.
AG: Actually, it’s a very good statement on it. Is there some passage…that could be cited, for summing it up in a nutshell, in either Nova Express or The Soft Machine?
WSB: I would say that Nova Express would probably have the clearest statement.

 

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Book

William S Burroughs The Ticket that Exploded
Grove Press

‘Inspector Lee and the Nova Police have been forced to engage the Nova Mob in one final battle for the planet. This is Burroughs’s nightmare vision of scientists and combat troops, of Johnny Yen’s chicken-hypnotizing and green Venusian-boy-girls, of ad men and conmen whose destructive language has spread like an incurable disease; a virus and parasite that takes over every human body.

‘One of Burroughs’s most approachable works, The Ticket That Exploded is the climax of his innovative ‘cut-up’ Nova trilogy – following The Soft Machine and Nova Express – and is an enthralling and frightening image of the future.’ — Grove Press

Excerpt

 

 

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p.s. Hey. ** Jamie, Hey, hey. Okay, that makes sense about the stress being exasperating to your stomach, health. I had acid-reflux really bad in my early 20s, and I’m sure it was anxiety related. If the ‘cure’ is enjoying yourself, well, score! We’re presenting the haunted house thing on the 27th. It’s a guided tour thing, at least for now. The audience watches us guide them through it, so it’ll be a little watching someone else play an old fashioned video game with commentary. And we’re doing an illustrated history of the home haunt phenomenon talk beforehand. Ideally, we’ll either tour the event or make it interactable and upload it somewhere. My day was good. Very fruitful meeting with the just mentioned haunt/game’s designers and then I saw the first night of the current run of Gisele’s and my piece ‘Kindertotenlieder’ at the Pompidou, which was great to see again. I’m happy you’re enjoying Broomer’s work. Oh, I’ve been really into experimental film since I was a teenager, so I make it a point to search out newer practitioners, mostly by watching for festivals and venues that show them then trying to investigate the filmmakers I don’t know. Ari sounds like a human with very promising tastes. Thanks about my Thursday, and I hope both our days end at a confetti strewn finish line. ** Misanthrope, Hi, G. That’s so nice about your friend and “I Wished’. You’re not the only one who needs to get to the current blog day via social media, and I have no fucking clue why that problem exists, and neither does my hosting site, so eternal wtf. Ultra-best of luck to David on both of those fronts. I send him (and you) seriously great vibes. ** Ian, I think they would only find great enhancement on a grandmother’s mantlepiece. Great man gift idea for the fat wallet crowd. Bleak sounds about right, ha. Hump day? Happy post-hump day to you? ** _Black_Acrylic, We have Antique Roadshow in the US too, and it’s a big non-guilty pleasure. And, yes, presenting their analysts with one of those babies would at very least get you on the air, guaranteed. ** Dominick, Hi!!!! Here’s the only haunted attraction I’ve found in Budapest so far, but I’ll keep looking. I’ll happily accept yesterday’s love from you. I know pleasure when I read about it. Oh, I get to pick? Hm, tough, although I’ve always liked that Maria Rubinke piece of the the girl tearing the top of her head in half, so maybe that one? What’s your dream porcelain horror? Love tearing the top of his head in half while screaming, ‘This is how much I love you!’, G. ** David Ehrenstein, Ah, you found your way back in. Good. This blog’s tech is so weird. ** Jeff J, Hi, Jeff. Thanks, man. Great talking with you too. And, oh no, yet more Jeff-centric challenges? Dude, you’re due a serious bliss fest. Good, I’m glad my little caveat about ‘Annette’ helped you stay the course. I wasn’t aware of that intended restriction re: ‘Memoria’. I’m seeing a screening of it on the 24th. Strange, or kind of lovely but inconvenient. Huh. ** Steve Erickson, I’m surprised Antiques Roadshow doesn’t do a special Halloween episode of that very nature. I haven’t read ‘Cleanness’, So … how is it? Tick tick … your EP. ** Bill, Very happy you dug the show, my friend. Those Ben Hirshkoff pieces are cool. I didn’t know his stuff. And you have the blue one? Very nice. Oh, I think if Zac and I ever do a horror/.porn — not entirely impossible — one scene is about as big as we’d go for, so you’ll be the perfect collaborator! Watch this space. But not too quickly. ** Johnny Paul, Hi. Oh, yeah? You think? I guess I think not? ** Andrew, Hi, Andrew. I saw Paul K last night and your ears were burning even if you didn’t notice. Good about 11:11 going nowhere (else). It’s balance, right? When I was doing Little Caesar Press way back in the day, which was a one-man operation even, I somehow managed to write my head off and get my stuff published a bit at the same time, although I don’t how I managed. I was mostly writing poetry though. That probably made a difference. Point is, it’s totally possible. If the fiction itch is out of control, you gotta scratch it, man. To not do that … well, you know what un-itched itches feel like, I’m sure. I’m cheerleading re: you/it over here. Thank you so much for sending that book! You’re very generous, and I am very enhanced as a result. And thanks for the video link. Very cool. Everyone, Andrew Wilt, writer and head of one of the world’s best presses, 11:11, shares a video trailer for one of their new books, Logan Berry’s ‘R̵U̵N̵-̵O̵F̵F̵ ̵S̵U̵G̵A̵R̵ Crystal Lake’, and it was devised by the fantastic writer Maggie Siebert no less. Hence, watching seems pretty key. Thanks, man. Have a swell Thursday. ** Okay. I haven’t turned the blog’s spotlight on old William Burroughs in a long time, so I thought I would illuminate one of his least-read novels. Personally, I’m only a fan of his books from the ‘Naked Lunch’ -> ‘Wild Boys’ period, and ‘TTTE’ is from the latter part of that killer phase, the last of his mostly cut-up based novels. If you like Burroughs’ stuff, the book up there is a prime example. See you tomorrow.