Bockris on Burroughs and Warhol

 

Publication day today for a much-anticipated Beatdom book – The Burroughs-Warhol Connection by Victor Bockris (with an interview by Leon Horton)

See also Bockris’ introductory message to the reader – here 

Read Jonah Raskin‘s early (and enthusiastic) review of the book – here 

As Raskin informatively points out:

“Victor Bockris’s The Burroughs-Warhol Connection – which has just appeared in print in English in a lavish new edition – has enjoyed several earlier, somewhat different global, incarnations. First published in France in 2012 under the title William Burroughs and Andy Warhol Conversations, it was reissued in Spain and in Japan in 2014 as The Burroughs-Warhol Affair.”

“Part collage, part montage and part a cultural history of rock‘n’roll, experimental film and avant-garde art, this 204-page volume brings together a large cast of unforgettable characters, from Mick Jagger and Patti Smith to Allen Ginsberg and Lou Reed, all clustered around those two multi-media mega stars of the twentieth-century: William Burroughs, the master of the cut-up, and Andy Warhol, the master of Pop Art.”

Raskin notes the invaluable first-hand nature of the reporting:

“By living up close and intimate time after time with Burroughs, Warhol, Jagger, Ginsberg and others, Bockris was on the scene to hear and record quotable quotations that no reporter on a short leash, a tight-deadline and with a limited word-length would likely hear and record. This committed observer put in the time and it paid off.”

So “Ginsberg talks about Warhol’s ‘strangeness’, ‘mysteriousness’ and ‘mindfulness’. Burroughs says, ‘there’s no such thing as the unconscious any longer’. On the subject of Mick Jagger, the Naked Lunch author comments, ‘There’s something about him that arouses great antagonism…to be able to stand up to that and to be cool is quite something.’”

He (Raskin) comments on the purposefully eclectic nature of the book’s construction:

“Untidy and made-up of bits and pieces in both words and photos, The Burroughs-Warhol Connection follows no clear chronology or obvious themes but does pursue the orbits of the stars whose careers the author follows with meticulous detail.”

As David S Wills, the publisher, notes:

“Bockris has collected the interviews he recorded…. mixed them with excerpts from his journals, and gathered one hundred photographs and collages. There are also reflective essays from Bockris and (Burroughs scholar) Jed Birmingham. The book is a collage, a cut-up, a constellation. It is a vital and beautiful document of the connection (and missed connections) between two of the most important minds of the last century.”

and don’t miss (an essential component) Leon Horton’s revealing and candid interview with the author (included in the volume).

Raskin again:

“Bockris, who was born in Britain and raised in England and the USA, has, for decades, rubbed shoulders with the famous and the infamous. He has also devoted his life to the recording and documenting of the lives and the works of celebrities, while he has remained largely in the background and less well known…Perhaps The Burroughs-Warhol Connection will provide Bockris with the recognition that he has long-deserved and has not yet received. One hopes so.”

“For all his acumen as a photojournalist and interviewer, Bockris is way more than just a machine taking pictures and recording voices and sounds. He’s a thinker of the first order.”

“..especially” (Raskin notes) “when he goes into extended riffs on the similarities and the differences between Burroughs and Warhol.”

Victor was, of course, the author of  With William Burroughs – A Report From The Bunker (1981 – revised edition 1996) – “collected into a cogent whole the man’s most brilliant moments of conversation, thinking, and interview repartee”

Here‘s he is being interviewed about the book on, the Burroughs site, Reality Studio, back in 2010
Here‘s Jed Birmingham, on the same platform, on Burroughs and Warhol, from the year previous

Sunday – if you’re reading this on a Sunday. Here’s Andy and friends at The Chelsea having Sunday brunch

The Burroughs-Warhol Connection is the definitive account. Go out and buy it.