Some excitment yesterday as I was strolling past the bookstall at All Saints when I spied a slightly bedraggled copy of William Burroughs Naked Lunch for a quid, having lost my original copy to the on going circles of booklending amongst friends and/or know associates some years ago I jumped on it feeling mighty pleased especially when the bookseller tried to overcharge me “what i thought it was really worth”. I held firm though and managed to charm his Greek friend with my hideous chewing up of his language. Delving into the text at random (always the most satisfying way to read this book) and hopping through a few pages here and there I was struck again by the way Burroughs creates a totally fragmentary text bursting apart but through his use of image and ‘mood’ shall we say, there is an over all coherence the book. This lead me to start working on thinking how to apply these ideas into forms relating to improvisation and music: maybe these were the elements of Burroughs that really soaked into my brain as an over exicted college student… More to come im sure x
David Birchall 