Kerouac Alley*

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www.kerouacalley.com
A Directory of the Beat Generation
and the Beat Related on the World Wide Web

*Jack Kerouac Alley (formerly Adler Alley or Adler Place) is a one-way alleyway in Chinatown, San Francisco, California that connects Grant Avenue and Columbus Avenue, running between "Vesuvio Cafe" (255 Columbus Ave.) and Lawrence Ferlinghetti's "City Lights Books" (261 Columbus Ave.).

William S. Burroughs 1914-1997

William S. Burroughs Quotes

"There is no line between the 'real world' and 'world of myth and symbol.' Objects, sensations, hit with the impact of hallucination." -William S. Burroughs

"The junk merchant doesn't sell his product to the consumer, he sells the consumer to his product. He does not improve and simplify his merchandise. He degrades and simplifies the client." -William S. Burroughs

"Faced by the actual practice of freedom, the French and American revolutions would be forced to stand by their words." -William S. Burroughs

"Madness is confusion of levels of fact...Madness is not seeing visions but confusing levels." -William S. Burroughs

"I have a strange feeling here of being outside any social context." -William Burroughs in Tangiers

“Most of the trouble in this world has been caused by folks who can't mind their own business, because they have no business of their own to mind, any more than a smallpox virus has.” -William S. Burroughs

"There couldn't be a society of people who didn't dream. They'd be dead in two weeks." -William S. Burroughs

"A paranoid-schizophrenic is a guy who just found out what’s going on." -William S. Burroughs

William Burroughs Multimedia Directory

William S. Burroughs in Lawrence home movies, part 1	William S. Burroughs in Lawrence home movies, part 2	BBC Arena program from 1998	William Burroughs cut ups
Allen Ginsberg, Anne Waldman, Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche and William S. Burroughs reading, August, 1976. August 7th, 1976. Audio	Anne Waldman lecture on William S. Burroughs's cut-up method, (2nd) Half) July, 1985. (July 23, 1985) Audio	Robert Creeley lecture on poetry in motion. (July 2, 1986) Lecture includes a discussion and reading of Basil Bunting, playing of jazz, and selections from Poetry in Motion by Amiri Baraka, Anne Waldman, William Burroughs, Michael McClure and others. Audio
Video of William S. Burroughs's grave in Bellefontaine Cemetery shot on 26 March 2006. It shows the obelisk marking the author's grandfather's burial site, and it also shows the minimal marker specifying the author's burial plot. Video	An interview with William S. Burroughs for Loka magazine with additional commentary by Allen Ginsberg and Anne Waldman. January 1st, 1975 Audio	Anne Waldman lecture on William S. Burroughs's cut-up method, July, 1985. (1st Half) (July 23, 1985) Audio

The Beat Generation Map of America Library of Congress

William S. Burroughs "The Electronic Revolution" (1970) [PDF, 836k] (Source: Biba Kopf, «Spreading the Virus», in: The Wire, Issue 164, 1997)

William S. Burroughs Biography

Burroughs was born to a prominent family in St. Louis, Missouri. His grandfather, also named William Seward Burroughs, founded the Burroughs Adding Machine company, which evolved into the Burroughs Corporation. Burroughs' mother, Laura Lee Burroughs, was the daughter of a distinguished minister whose family claimed to be descendants of Robert E. Lee. Burroughs’ parents ran an antique and gift shop, first in St. Louis, then in Palm Beach, Florida. Burroughs attended John Burroughs School in St. Louis, and The Los Alamos Ranch School in New Mexico, but was expelled from the latter because staff had found private journals concerning a budding erotic attachment to another boy. He kept his sexual orientation concealed well into adulthood. Burroughs graduated from Harvard University in 1936.

After leaving Harvard, Burroughs traveled to Europe, where he contracted syphilis. In Austria, Burroughs met Ilse Klapper, a Jewish woman fleeing the country’s Nazi government. The two were not romantically attached, but Burroughs married her in Croatia to allow her to gain a United States Visa. She made her way to New York City, and eventually divorced Burroughs, although they remained friends for many years. Burroughs enrolled as a graduate student of Anthropology at Harvard and later enrolled briefly at Medical School in Vienna, Austria. He was enlisted in the U.S Army in 1941 but was discharged for psychological reasons. Burroughs lived on a monthly trust account from his parents, and this provided him little need, or desire, to earn money. In New York, he met Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac.

In 1944, Burroughs began living with Joan Vollmer Adams in an apartment they shared with Kerouac and Edie Parker, Kerouac's first wife. Vollmer Adams was married to a GI with whom she had a young daughter, Julie Adams. Burroughs and Kerouac got into trouble with the law for failing to report a murder. Burroughs began using morphine and quickly became addicted. He eventually sold heroin in Greenwich Village to support his habit. Vollmer also became an addict but her drug of choice was the inhaled form of the amphetamine, Benzedrine. Because of her addiction and social circle, her husband immediately divorced her after returning from the war. Vollmer would become Burroughs’ common law wife. Burroughs was arrested for forging a narcotics prescription and was sentenced to return to his parents' care in St. Louis. He returned to New York, released Vollmer from the psychiatric ward of Bellevue Hospital and moved with her and her daughter to Texas. Vollmer soon became pregnant with Burroughs’ child. Their son, William S. Burroughs Jr. was born in 1947. The family moved briefly to New Orleans in 1948.

He was arrested after police searched his home and found letters between Burroughs and Ginsberg referring to a possible delivery of marijuana. Burroughs fled to Mexico to escape possible detention in Louisiana's Angola state prison. Vollmer and their children followed him. Burroughs planned to stay in Mexico for at least five years, the length of his charge's statute of limitations. In 1951, Burroughs accidentally shot and killed Vollmer in a drunken game of 'William Tell' at a party above an American-owned bar in Mexico City. He spent 13 days in jail before the killing was ruled accidental. Vollmer’s daughter, Julie Adams went to live with her grandmother, and William S. Burroughs, Jr. went to St. Louis to live with his grandparents.

After Vollmer's death, Burroughs drifted through South America for several months, looking for a drug called Yage, which could supposedly ease opiate addiction. He produced two novels during this time, Junky, exploring his heroin addiction, and Queer exploring his homosexuality. He also compiled correspondence with Allen Ginsberg about his search for and experiences with Yage as The Yage Letters. Ace Paperbacks published his first novel, Junky, in 1953 under the pen name William Lee. The Yage Letters and Queer were not published until 1963 and 1985 respectively.

Original Ace Double edition of Junkie (a.k.a. Junky) from 1953, credited to "William Lee". This was Burroughs' first novel publication.Burroughs went to Rome and then to Tangiers, Morocco, and began to write what would become Naked Lunch. Ginsberg and Kerouac helped Burroughs edit these episodes into Naked Lunch, an amalgam of experimental fiction and science fiction. Burroughs sold Naked Lunch to Olympia Press publisher Maurice Girodias. After the novel was published in 1959, it became infamous across Europe and was popular within countercultures of the 1960s. In countries where the book was banned, copies and even printing plates were smuggled across borders. Published in the United States, Naked Lunch was prosecuted as obscene by the state of Massachusetts, followed by other states. In 1966 the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court declared the work "not obscene" based on criteria developed, largely, to defend the book. The case against Burroughs's novel still stands as the last obscenity trial against a work of literature prosecuted in the United States. The trunk of manuscripts that produced Naked Lunch also produced The Soft Machine (1961), The Ticket That Exploded (1962), and Nova Express (1963).

In the 1970s he moved to New York City where Ginsberg helped him find work teaching writing at New York City College. Burroughs also associated with New York cultural players Andy Warhol, Patti Smith, Susan Sontag, Dennis Hopper, Terry Southern, and Mick Jagger. The 1970s also saw Burroughs join, then leave the Church of Scientology [1]. His subsequent critical writings about the church and his review of a book entitled Inside Scientology by Robert Kaufman led to a battle of letters between Burroughs and Scientology supporters that played out in the pages of Rolling Stone. By late 1980s, Burroughs was a counterculture giant and collaborated with performers ranging from Bill Laswell's Material and Laurie Anderson to Ministry, and in Gus Van Sant's 1989 film Drugstore Cowboy, playing a character largely based on himself. In 1990, he released the spoken word album Dead City Radio, with musical back-up from producers Hal Willner and Nelson Lyon, and alternative rock band Sonic Youth. He also collaborated with director Robert Wilson and musician Tom Waits to create The Black Rider, a play which opened at the Thalia Theatre in Hamburg in 1990, to critical acclaim, and was later performed all over Europe and the U.S.

In 1991, with Burroughs’ sanction, director David Cronenberg took on the seemingly impossible task of adapting Naked Lunch into a full-length feature film. The film opened to critical acclaim. Through the 1990s, Burroughs produced spoken word recordings, including collaborations with R.E.M.. Burroughs lived in Lawrence, Kansas through much of his later life. Burroughs died in Lawrence, at 6:50 p.m. on August 2, 1997 from complications of the previous day's heart attack. A few months after his death, a collection of writings spanning his entire career, Word Virus, was published. A collection of journal entries written during the final months of Burrough's life were published as the book Last Words.

Burroughs is often called one of the greatest and most influential writers of the 20th century, most notably by Norman Mailer whose quote on Burroughs, "The only American novelist living today who may be conceivably be possessed by genius", appears on many Burroughs publications. Others, however, consider him overrated. Others still consider his conceptual ideas more influential than his prose.

William S. Burroughs Internet Directory

William S. Burroughs, Biography From "Literary Kicks"	William S. Burroughs, BiographyThe Ghost of William S. Burroughs Web Site	Interzone.org Burroughs Site in French and English
"A Review of the Film, "Naked Lunch" EUFS: the film society	Shooting Joan Burroughs From "Beats in Kansas".	Search the San Francisco Chronicle Archives for Burroughs Archives: 1995 1996 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010	A Drawing of Burroughs News Art, John Overmyer.
Western Lands An Outstanding Burroughs Web Site.	Narcotics Anonymous World Services	William S. Burroughs @ Wikipedia	William S. Burroughs A Biography
William S. Burroughs The Kindly Dope Fiend	Sliced Bardo Burroughs Memorial	William Burroughs Literary Outlaw	William Burroughs Audio and More
The Misadventures of Joan and Bill The Story of William & Joan Burroughs	William S. Burroughs - The Biography Project	RealityStudio, a William S. Burroughs Community	Audio Interviews with William Burroughs
William S. Burroughs A selection of vintage Burroughs book covers	William S. Burroughs A Guardian, UK bio	Burroughs, 4 Interviews BBC (Audio)	A Thanksgiving Prayer by Burroughs
The Paris Review - Interview - William Burroughs The Art of Fiction No. 36	The Paris Review - Interview - William Burroughs Complete Interview (PDF File)	William Burroughs Internet Database	William Burroughs @ Disinformation
Beatfootprints.com - A Photographic Essay of Beat Generation Landmarks in New York City A New Site!	Telegraph Hill Books, Etc. William S. Burroughs Books & More	This is the Beat Generation by John Clellon Holmes

Prose

• Junkie (1953)- (ISBN 0142003166) - novel
• Naked Lunch (1959) (ISBN 0802132952)- novel
• Minutes To Go (1960)
• The Exterminator (1960) (with Bryon Gysin)
• The Soft Machine (1961) (ISBN 0802133290) - novel
• The Ticket That Exploded (1962) (ISBN 0802151507) - novel
• Dead Fingers Talk (1963) - novel
• The Yage Letters (1963) (with Allen Ginsberg)
• Nova Express (1964) (ISBN 0802133304) - novel
• Valentine's Day Reading (1965)
• Roosevelt After Inauguration and Other Atrocities (1965; later republished 1979) - short stories
• Time (1965)
• APO-33 (1966)
• So Who Owns Death TV? (1967)
• The Dead Star (1969)
• The Job (1969) (ISBN 0140118829) (with Daniel Odier)
• The Last Words of Dutch Schultz (1969) (ISBN 1559702117)
• Jack Kerouac (1970) (with Claude Pelieu)
• "Ali's Smile" (1971)
• The Wild Boys (1971) (ISBN 0802133312)- novel
• Electronic Revolution (1971)
• Bryon Gysin Let the Mice In (1973) (with Gysin)
• Exterminator! (1973) (ISBN 0140050035) (a different book than the 1960 volume)- short stories
• White Subway (1973)
• Mayfair Academy Series More or Less (1973)
• Port of Saints (1973) (ISBN 0912652640) - novel
• The Book of Breething (1974)
• Sidetripping (1975) (with Charles Gatewood)
• Snack (1975)
• Cobble Stone Gardens (1976)
• The Retreat Diaries (1976)
• Colloque de Tangier (1976) (with Bryon Gysin)
• Letters to Allen Ginsberg 1953-1957 (1976)
• The Third Mind (1977) (with Gysin; first English printing in 1978)
• Ali's Smile/Naked Scientology (1978)
• Colloque de Tangier Vol. 2 (1979) (with Bryon Gysin, Gérard-Georges Lemaire)
• Blade Runner, A Movie (1979)
• "Dr. Benway" (1979)
• "Ah Pook is Here!" (1979)
• Streets of Chance (1981)
• Early Routines (1981)
• Cities of the Red Night (1981) (ISBN 0030539765) - novel
• Ah Pook is Here, Nova Express, Cities of the Red Night (1981) (ISBN 0312278462)
• "Sinki's Sauna" (1982)
• The Place of Dead Roads (1983) (ISBN 0312278659) - novel
• "Ruski" (1984)
• The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1984)
• The Burroughs File (1984)
• The Adding Machine: Collected Essays (1985) (ISBN 1559702109)
• Queer (1985) (ISBN 0140083898)- novel
• The Cat Inside (1986) (with Bryon Gysin) - novella
• The Western Lands (1987) (ISBN 0140094563) - novel
• The Whole Tamale (c.1987-88)
• Interzone (1987) (ISBN 0140094512) - short stories
• Apocalypse (1988) (with Keith Haring)
• Tornado Alley (1989) - short stories
• Uncommon Quotes Vol. 1 (1989)
• Ghost of Chance (1991; later reprinted 1997) (ISBN 1852424575) - novella
• "Seven Deadly Sins" (1992)
• Paper Cloud; Thick Pages (1992)
• Selected Letters (1993)
• My Education: A Book of Dreams (1995) (ISBN 0140094547) - novel
• Word Virus : The William Burroughs Reader (1998) (ISBN 0006552145)
• Burroughs Live : The Collected Interviews of William S. Burroughs, 1960-1997 (2000) (ISBN 1584350105)
• Last Words: The Final Journals of William S. Burroughs (2000) (ISBN 0802137784)
• Many of Burroughs' works were later republished with revisions made by the author, and/or censored material restored. Both
• Junkie/Junky and Naked Lunch were published in "restored" editions following Burroughs' death.

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