Apparently following the seventh death, in Dundee this time.
The anthrax/heroin story has finally reached the evening news bulletin in Scotland...
The anthrax/heroin story has finally reached the evening news bulletin in Scotland...
Wednesday, 13 January 2010
William Burroughs's Stuff photographed by Peter Ross
Like estate sales or cat burglary, Peter Ross’s photographs of William Burroughs’s possessions provide a glimpse into the material world of someone we thought we knew. In the interview below, Ross explains how the pictures (see here for the complete collection) explore the myth of the man through a selection of weird, touching, and often unexpected possessions found in Burroughs’s windowless New York City apartment, preserved since his death in 1997.
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How did you end up photographing William Burroughs’s stuff?
William Burroughs lived for many years in the former locker room of an 1880s YMCA, on the Bowery in New York City. The almost windowless space was known as The Bunker. When he died in 1997, his friend and mine, John Giorno, kept the apartment intact, with many of Burroughs’s possessions sitting as they were. Part of the space is now used for Buddhist teachings, and the apartment is a wonderful mix of Buddhist wall hangings and pillows and carpets and Burroughs’ personal furniture and collections.
Is the room still intact?
His bedroom is as he left it, with all his stuff in place. Giorno looks after it, and occasionally houses visiting artists and friends and Buddhist teachers who come to teach in the main area of the space.
Did these objects go back to their home after being photographed?
I spent my day going through the room and removing items to photograph on a backdrop that was set up in the kitchen, on Burroughs’s dining table. I would then return the objects to his room.
How did you choose what articles you wanted to photograph?
Most of the items just jumped out at me. How could I pull a book titled Medical Implications of Karate Blows out of a stack and not photograph it? Or the typewriter with his name on it? The blow darts and board that hang on the wall in his bedroom?
Well, how did you decide on the angle for each photograph—why the bottoms of the shoes, for example, instead of the tops?
I challenged myself to try and find what was unique to the items. I was looking for something historical and specific to their owner, and short of that I was pushing for an off-kilter angle or placement.
Shoes are just shoes, but only one man wore the holes into the bottoms of this pair. Just think of where these shoes have been, the conversations they have witnessed. These shoes likely have met many of my heroes of New York’s 1970s and ‘80s culture.
Was photographing each piece out of context an attempt to separate the stuff from the man? Should the pieces tell their own story?
I think it’s interesting that I know where these items sit and what those rooms look like. I know the lighting, the stillness, and the thick concrete walls, but the viewer does not. The viewer’s imagination is put into play with each image. That might not have been the case if these pictures included their physical surroundings.
I’m trying to look at these photos and separate the stuff from what I already know or think I know about Burroughs. But, blow darts, nunchucks, The Magical Art of Karate—it does seem appropriate for a man who shot his wife playing William Tell. Were you surprised? Did the nature of the things Burroughs had in his possession at the end of his life make sense to you?
I never met the man, and so I have no way of knowing what these items meant to him. Many seem representative of the ‘‘myth” of the man, and seem appropriate to the public image we all have of him. But I have no idea if he was a lover of pinwheels, a collector of old quilts, or a compulsive shoe shiner. Maybe John Giorno knows. Maybe no one does.
I have a sense that this stuff couldn’t have existed at the same time as an iPhone or even a digital camera—it seems very much from another era. Do you feel like this is just because Burroughs was old, or is there something else going on?
Well, I bet I’ll go through half a dozen iPhones in the time it would have taken Burroughs to resole those shoes. That makes me feel greedy, wasteful, and self-indulgent. Maybe I’d be better off keeping the modern world out. Maybe we all would. Let’s all just grab our nunchucks, put on our shoes and hat and walk the streets of Manhattan.
“Stuff” really is the perfect word to describe this collection. But what makes this “stuff” rather than belongings, or possessions, or effects? What does our stuff say about us, or Burroughs for that matter?
“Stuff” seems appropriately random and irreverent, although I don’t really mind what we call it. I use my grandfather’s ‘stuff’ in my daily life to eat, to keep time, to store clothes. These acts keep him with me. But to you, it’s just stuff, not memories. These items certainly tell a portrait of what interested this man, although none of us can know to what extent. Maybe I chose items that just played to his public image, the one in my head? Why didn’t I shoot his couch, or bedside lamps, or dining chairs?
If you could walk away with one item of Burroughs’s stuff, what would you take?
The shoeshine kit. My shoes are a mess.
How does the work compare to other projects you’ve done—your portraits or your photographs of brains, for example? Could it be said that these are portraits of the objects?
I’ve spent a lot of time trying to find the right balance between people’s inner and outer identities, their common peacefulness. And the anonymous decades-old brains are a shared portrait of all of us. But these items are very specific to one man, and a man with a public identity at that. His portrait has been made over and over, and it exists inside many heads: the man in the suit, in the city or the country, wearing a hat, serious, maybe holding a rifle, or talking to Mick Jagger. This is as close as I can ever get to that man.
I tried to find something unique in each object, regardless of its history or ownership or curation. I love the brittle paper of the magazines, the shapes of the various bullets, and the textures and colors of the quilt.
(Via 'Mogadonia' with thanx!)
RIP MASOUD ALI MOHAMMADI
Professor of Physics
Department of Physics
University of Tehran
North Kargar Avenue
Tehran
Iran
Tel (+98-21) 88.63.30.21
Fax (+98-21) 88.00.47.81
e-mail: alimohmd@ut.ac.ir
Downloadable PDF's of his science papers
HERE
From a comment left at another blog:
"I am a theoretical physicist.
As I have explained other places, his articles are all of very theoretical/mathematical nature (quantum groups, Yang-Mills theory on curved spacetime, dark matter and such). None of these are closely related to what is needed to build a nuclear reactor, that is a job for experimental physicists and mainly engineers. It not very likely that he could do anything of importance in a nuclear project. Not to mention he could not be trusted, being a supporter of Moussavi.
Downloadable PDF's of his science papers
HERE
From a comment left at another blog:
"I am a theoretical physicist.
As I have explained other places, his articles are all of very theoretical/mathematical nature (quantum groups, Yang-Mills theory on curved spacetime, dark matter and such). None of these are closely related to what is needed to build a nuclear reactor, that is a job for experimental physicists and mainly engineers. It not very likely that he could do anything of importance in a nuclear project. Not to mention he could not be trusted, being a supporter of Moussavi.
It is quit(e) convenient that a foreign agency has killed a physicist unimportant for the nuclear project and a political opponent, in a time the regime really needs stuff for propaganda."
Okkervil River team up with Roky Erikson for new album
Fourteen years after his last album of original material, psych-rock legend and onetime 13th Floor Elevators frontman Roky Erickson is readying a new record called True Love Cast Out All Evil, out April 20 via Anti-. And he got some top-shelf help to bring his songs to life: fellow Austinites Okkervil River back Erickson on the whole LP, and Okkervil frontman Will Sheff produces. The team-up isn't a surprise, since Erickson played with Okkervil River at SXSW in 2008 and 2009.
The album features songs written by Erickson throughout his life, as well as "found-sound and archival recordings culled from Erickson's home videos and recordings made in the Rusk State Hospital for the Criminally Insane," according to a press release. (Erickson spent several years in the hospital in the early 70s, after a drug possession arrest.)
Talking about the record in a press release, Sheff said, "When we started out, I was given sixty unreleased songs to choose from. There were songs written during business setbacks including the Elevators' painful breakup, songs written by Roky while he was incarcerated at Rusk, and a great deal of songs that reminded me of the sense of optimism and romanticism that I think sustained Roky through his worst years and ultimately reunited him, a few years ago, with his son Jegar and his first wife Dana."
Erickson has been plagued by mental illness for decades-- his plight was chronicled in the excellent 2005 documentary You're Gonna Miss Me.
UPDATE:
Assassinated professor's name among 420 Tehran Uni profs who supported Mousavi during #iranelection http://bit.ly/8hUTyI less than a minute ago from TweetDeck
It would also appear that the killed professor was not a nuclear physicist but a theoretical particle physicist
and was also a part of the SESAME Project.
It would also appear that the killed professor was not a nuclear physicist but a theoretical particle physicist
and was also a part of the SESAME Project.
Salman Sima Sentenced to Six-Year Jail Term #iranelection Ali Behzadian has been sentenced to 6 yrs, charged w spreading anti Gov news on Internet #iranelection half a minute ago from TweetDeck
Mohamad Reza Norbakhsh sentenced to 3 yrs, charged w operating the site Jomhoriat & spreading anti Gov news #iranelection
Hesam Tarmasi has been sentenced to 1 yr, charged with participating in illegal protests #iranelection less than a minute ago from Twubs
Mohamad Reza Norbakhsh sentenced to 3 yrs, charged w operating the site Jomhoriat & spreading anti Gov news #iranelection
Hesam Tarmasi has been sentenced to 1 yr, charged with participating in illegal protests #iranelection less than a minute ago from Twubs
Baidu hacked by 'Iranian cyber army'
A group claiming to be the Iranian Cyber Army redirected Baidu users to a site displaying a political message.
The site was down for at least four hours on Tuesday, Chinese media said.
Last year's attack on micro-blogging service Twitter had the same hallmarks, sending users to a page with an Iranian flag and message in Farsi.
"This morning, Baidu's domain name registration in the United States was tampered with, leading to inaccessibility," Baidu said in a statement.
Visitors to the site were greeted with the message: "This site has been hacked by Iranian Cyber Army".
The message was accompanied by a picture of the national flag of Iran.
"In China, Baidu outranks Google as the search engine of choice, receiving millions of visits every day. That makes it an extremely attractive target for cybercriminals," said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at security firm Sophos.
Political graffiti
It is not yet clear whether the site itself was compromised or its so-called DNS records.
DNS records are like a telephone book, converting website names like baidu.com into a sequence of numbers understandable by the internet.
"It's possible someone changed the lookup, meaning whenever surfers entered baidu.com into their browsers they were instead taken to a website that wasn't under the search engine's control," explained Mr Cluley.
It seems as if the hackers used the attack as an opportunity to create political graffiti rather than inflict real damage.
"If that third party website had contained malware then millions of computers could have been infected and identities stolen," said Mr Cluley.
"Attacks like this are a reminder to everyone that you always need to have security scanning every webpage you visit, even if it's a well-known legitimate website," he added.
UPDATE
A terrorist group, whose radio station broadcast from the United States, took responsibility Tuesday for the fatal attack on an Iranian nuclear scientist in Tehran.
The Iran Royal Association, an obscure monarchist group that seeks to reestablish the Pahlavi reign in Iran, announced in a statement that its “Tondar Commandos” were behind the assassination of Masoud Ali-Mohammadi.
Israel and US behind blast that killed physicist says Tehran
Iranian state media have accused Israel and the US of being involved in a bomb attack which killed an Iranian physicist in Tehran.
State broadcaster Irib quoted Iran's foreign ministry spokesman as saying there were signs of Israeli and US involvement "in the terrorist act". Masoud Ali Mohammadi - described as a "devoted revolutionary professor" - was killed by a remotely-controlled bomb.
Israel and the US have so far made no comments about Tuesday's blast.
 | ANALYSIS  Jon Leyne, BBC Tehran correspondent The original story seemed straightforward. According to Iranian media, Masoud Ali Mohammadi was a nuclear scientist, assassinated by counter-revolutionaries, Zionists and agents of the "global arrogance". The implication was clear - it was a Western plot to sabotage Iran's nuclear programme. But as so often in Iran, there was more to it. According to British academics, Mr Mohammadi is an expert in another branch of physics, and highly unlikely to be involved in nuclear research. At the same time, the reformist movement issued what it said was evidence that Mr Mohammadi supported their presidential candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi in last year's election. It all added to suspicions created by the unusually prompt and thorough coverage of his death in the Iranian media. Whatever actually happened, the opposition will certainly fear this killing will be used as an opportunity for a new crackdown. |
There was also confusion as to whether the attack had any political overtones.
One university official said Mr Mohammadi was not a political figure. But other reports said his name appeared on a list of academics backing opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi before the 2009 presidential election.
Tensions have been high in Iran since the disputed election led to mass protests against the government.
Mr Mohammadi, who worked at Tehran University, "was killed in a booby-trapped motorbike blast" in the city's northern Qeytariyeh district, state-run Press TV reported earlier.
It showed pictures from the scene of the blast, saying windows in the nearby buildings had been shattered by the force of the explosion.
'Triangle of wickedness'
Local media reports say the bomb was attached to a motorcycle parked outside Mr Mohammadi's home, although one agency said it had been planted in a rubbish bin.
 Professor Mohammadi was killed as he was leaving his home, media say |
Press TV quoted security officials at the scene as saying that the equipment and system of the bomb used in the attack had been related to a number of foreign intelligence agencies, particularly Israel's Mossad.
In its earlier report, Irib said Mr Mohammadi "was martyred this morning in a terrorist act by anti-revolutionary and arrogant powers' elements".
The BBC's Tehran correspondent Jon Leyne, who is in London, says Iran usually refers to its enemies in the West as "the arrogant powers".
The opposition in Iran will fear that Tuesday's blast will be used against it as part of a crackdown, our correspondent adds.
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Some conservatives have suggested that the People's Mujahideen Organisation - a banned militant group opposed to the Tehran government - was involved. The group denied the accusation.
No-one has claimed responsibility for the blast and at this stage there could only be speculation as to possible motives for the attack, correspondents say.
There has been much controversy over Iran's nuclear activities.
Tehran says its nuclear programme is for peaceful energy purposes, but the US and other Western nations suspect it of seeking to build nuclear weapons.
In December, Tehran accused Saudi Arabia of detaining an Iranian nuclear scientist and handing him over to the US.
Saudi Arabia denied the claim.
Out'n'about
Met up tonight with an old blogging compatriot 'The Sweet Spot Diviner' and when Rowland S. Howard was brought up in conversation I was asked if I had seen his brother Harry's band 'Pink Stainless Tail'?
Being a single mother of three I could only answer "I wish".
You can check them out
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