Talk:William S. Burroughs/Archive 1

message: Removed reference to Ridley Scott buying rights to title 'Bladerunner' from Burroughs. Scott purchased title from Alan Nourse who wrote an earlier novel with that title.
: Isn't Burroughs thanked during the closing credits of the film? -- Gyrofrog  (talk) 02:10, 29 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: And can you provide a source for this information as there are numerous reference works on Burroughs that indicate the title came from him, not from Nourse. I'm reverting however will added a note indicating this is disputed. PS. this site indicates that it was specifically a copy of the Burroughs book (which was based upon Nourse's novel) that inspired Scott to name his film Blade Runner. 23skidoo 02:12, 29 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Has this been restored, because I cannot find it.  It should be listed under the Hollywood section, which needs to be rewritten just in general.  The title for the Ridley Scott film came from the Burroughs book "Blade Runner: A Movie", which was based on the novel by Nourse.  I believe, if memory serves correctly, they were paid $20,000 for the title.--Charles 18:37, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hollywood 

message: "Nothing is true. Everything is permitted."
(this is Bill quoting the final words of Hassan i Sabbah)
:I doubt that. Burroughs/Gysin made up quotes and attributed to others (the entirely fictional Doktor Kurt Unruh von Steinplatz for example is quoted with many sayings), this one may just as well be made up. Do you have a real source reference that ties this quote to the real Hassan and not the fictional one appearing in Burroughs' prose?
::Actually I think it looks more like a paraphrase of Aleister Crowley's famous quote "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law". Nixdorf 13:31, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This quote should be restored, though I do not know where it was originally.  The quote has been attributed to Sabbah by a number of authors, and Burroughs was not the first or the only one to quote it.  It was of great importance to WSB, and deserves a place in the article.--Charles 05:02, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Very much agreed. For WSB it was almost a catchphrase, however the quote is genuine and has been attributed to Hassan in a number of sources. 23skidoo 12:20, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Can you restore it?  I do not know where it was, and cannot find it in the history.--Charles 16:27, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hassan i Sabbah quote 

message: --Modemx 19:04, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Some Edits 

message: For anyone interested, I've started a few stub articles on a number of Burroughs' books (see the booklist in the main article). Although I'm a fan I have to admit I'm not well versed enough to go into detail about plots, etc. for a few of them such as Dead Fingers Talk. I invite fans to check them out and expand the articles. I'll be starting more articles in due course, beginning with the novels, but also including some of the shorter works like Cat Inside, Tornado Alley, etc. (though please don't wait for me to do it if anyone wants to hop in!) 23skidoo 22:20, 23 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Novel articles

message: Am i the only one who thinks the 'trivia' is a little too trivial? Prometheus912 00:57, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Please sign your comments. I'm not a big fan of including information like height and weight but apparently it's done with a number of biographical articles. If someone were to delete it, I don't think it would be missed. 23skidoo 14:45, 2 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Trivia 

message: Are you sure Naked Lunch is the "only" Beat work that addresses the Civil Rights movement? I thought Howl did as well, along with some of Burroughs' later novels. 23skidoo 14:54, 2 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Naked Lunch and Civil Rights

message: The old article was patchy, but the recent edits have condensed it to the point of obsurity. It was good to see some of the speculative and otherwise pointless sections removed, but now the reduction to 'just facts' as the editor has put it, has made all of the events of Burroughs life, and certain attributes of his work meaningless, because they go almost completely without a context. There was a lot to be said about the dodginess of the article beforehand, but I believe it gave a certain degree of depth to Burroughs writings, which can easily be misunderstood. Thus I think some integration of old and new is required - that is to say, a synthesis of the present one's structure with the older one's content, rather than a 'reversion'. Do I have any support on this? Prometheus912 08:52, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with you. My impression from reading the edit summaries on this is the editor felt it necessary to get the article below the 34K threshold which I have been told is not a Wikipedia policy. Also Wikipedia is not paper so we can go into more obscure details if we want. Due to the many, many edits made within a single day I was reluctant (but tempted) to revert back to the original, however as you suggest, many of the edits were good ones. So far all I have done is put back the image of the Junkie book cover. I oppose the deletion of the image of Joan because she is an important part of this article. I'm unlikely to have time myself to do a detailed comparison of the pre- and post-chop versions but anyone who wants to put in the effort has my support. 23skidoo 12:54, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  I have gone ahead and put back a few things that were cut, such as the notes under the bibliography and discography and IMO the vital Influences section (though I did remove a bit of POV that had snuck in). I think we need to add back in more parts of the main biography and I hope to do that on the next pass. 23skidoo 14:54, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Questioning Recent Edits

message: Regarding the following statement:
:"[Burroughs] is also popular with many hip-hop artists, as his cut-up technique was a forerunner of mixing and sampling."
This should specify which hip-hop artists name Burroughs and/or the cut-up technique as an influence, and a reference would be helpful as well. Otherwise, I'd consider this to be original research. See also Talk:Cut-up technique, particularly the Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite and Literacy of hiphoppers sections. -- Gyrofrog  (talk) 02:24, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I've removed the assertion, it's been a couple of weeks since I posted my previous comment. -- Gyrofrog  (talk) 07:43, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Musical influence 

message: Does anyone know in which novel Burroughs writes "F--k 'em all, squares on both sides. I am the only complete man in the industry." ? I have a recording of him sayin this and he's reading from something, but I don't know what. Maybe Nova Express? It would be a great quote to cite here. 23skidoo 14:59, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Naked Lunch. & it is, properly quoted: "Fuck 'em all. Squares on both sides. I am the only complete man in the industry." LaC9187 11:12, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I knew that. I was just trying to be polite! ;) 23skidoo 17:10, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, it's from Naked Lunch, from the Bradley The Buyer sequence, a recording of which can be found on the CD Call Me Burroughs.--Charles 05:11, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Quote question

message: I'm thinking of adding a short paragraph regarding drugs.  That is, Burroughs' own use, his beliefs re the drug war, effects on those he was close with, etc.  This is important for several reasons: 1) Burroughs' addiction to various chemicals greatly influenced his work. In fact, the theme of addiction ( to drugs, sex, control, etc.) is probably the single most prevalent theme, and is woven into the vast majority (all?) of his fictional work; 2) it is a topic that he wrote, and spoke about, exhaustively, and 3) there is nary a mention of it currently. My reticence, and the reason I am posting this to elicit discussion, comes from a reluctance to distract from his literary accomplishments by adding detail that is, by nature, sensational.  However, since drugs are the fulcrum on which many of his personal battles, and fictional themes, turn, it seems odd to leave them out of the article. Thoughts?Levi P. 04:02, 12 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Master Addict?

message: It seems to me, and obviously this is my own opinion, that this whole discussion page needs to be cleaned up.  Proper formatting has not been followed, there are spelling and grammatical errors everywhere, many posts have no title, and 1/3rd of the posts are not signed.  Some of the comments do not even make sense.  A discussion page like this is simply not very helpful.--Charles 03:08, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Talk page cleanup 

message: I think it should be noted whether Burroughs is related in any way to John Burroughs. I think he was but I can't put my finger on a source to support that. 23skidoo 19:26, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: John Burroughs School

message: I just noticed that Burroughs is listed under the category "Chaos magicians". While that sounds kind of cool, there is nothing in this article to support this (I checked the articles linked to the category and I couldn't find anything on this). If we're going to have such an odd category, there needs to be something in the article to support it, otherwise it should be removed. All we need is a single line and a source. 23skidoo 04:50, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Chaos magician?