Flamingo's in the Gulf of Mexico

HA!

Has Airport Security Gone Too Far?

Naked Lusts and Natural Painkillers: Portrait of a Literary Outlaw

WSB & Patti Smith

“Death smells.” That pronouncement, delivered by William S. Burroughs with the granite hauteur of a smirking Grim Reaper begins “William S. Burroughs: A Man Within,” Yony Leyser’s sympathetic documentary portrait of the formidable proto-Beat author of “Naked Lunch.”

“I mean it has a special smell, over and above the smell of cyanide, carrion, blood, cordite or burnt flesh,” he continues, reading this excerpt from his novel “Cities of the Red Night” as the camera studies a face that suggests the stone bust of a patrician zombie.

A little later in this documentary, “A Man Within,” there is a pungent video of Burroughs’s incantatory recitation of his 1986 “Thanksgiving Prayer,” a facetious rundown of horrors to be grateful for — “Thanks for the American Dream to vulgarize and falsify until the bare lies shine through” — juxtaposed with a double-exposure of the poker-faced author and a rippling American flag and other patriotic symbols. Later there is an amusing deadpan rendition of Burroughs croaking Marlene Dietrich’s signature song, “Falling in Love Again,” in German, from his 1990 album, “Dead City Radio.”

Narrated by Peter Weller, who played a Burroughs-like character in David Cronenberg’s movie “Naked Lunch,” “A Man Within” is embellished with scratchy line drawing that evokes Burroughs’s skeletal vision of humanity. There is not a word or image wasted in a documentary you wish ran an extra half-hour beyond its condensed 90 minutes.

It is all either blood-chilling or hilarious. For those who celebrate Burroughs as one of the darkest and greatest of all comic artists, he is an extreme social satirist of Swiftian stature, whose quasi-pornographic images offer a stark, ghastly/funny photonegative image of the American body politic.

“A Man Within” is a kind of genealogy of hip that connects Burroughs, who was born in St. Louis in 1914, the wealthy Harvard-educated grandson of the founder of the Burroughs Adding Machine company, with many currents of America’s outlaw cultural tradition. He was a close friend and sometime lover of Allen Ginsberg, with whom he is shown in conversation — and an idol of punk rockers like the Clash, the Dead Kennedys, Iggy Pop and Sonic Youth. Foremost among his admirers is Patti Smith, who recalls having a crush on him and credits him as the source of pop-culture terms like “blade runner,” “heavy metal” and “soft machine.”

Besides Ginsberg, who died in 1997, another great friend and inspiration was Brion Gysin, the Surrealist artist whose application of the Dadaist cut-out technique to writing Burroughs enthusiastically adopted.

While burnishing the Burroughs mystique, “A Man Within” assiduously tries to humanize an author whom it is all too easy to view as an avenging nihilist, a black hole of icy misanthropic contempt. It goes into considerable depth about his homosexuality. A product of the pre-gay liberation era, he had a physical passion for Ginsberg that was mostly unrequited, and for most of his life relied largely on hustlers for sex.

His on-and-off heroin addiction and writings about drugs may have made him a hipster saint, nicknamed “the pope of dope,” but his message about heroin was a warning not to take it. He was obsessed with control, and for many years was controlled by his addiction.

Two family tragedies stalked him. In 1951, while playing a drunken game of William Tell in Mexico, he accidentally put a bullet through the head of his wife, Joan Vollmer, whom his friend, the poet John Giorno, says he loved deeply.

“I’m forced to the appalling conclusion that I would never have become a writer but for Joan’s death,” Burroughs is remembered as saying. As a commentary, Burroughs is heard quoting from Edward Arlington Robinson: “There are mistakes too monstrous for remorse.”

In 1981, his son, Billy Burroughs, who had tried to emulate his father, died of acute alcoholism. It was the only time, Mr. Giorno says, that he ever saw Burroughs weep.

Two of the most articulate of the film’s many commentators include John Waters, who sees his own work in the same outsider tradition and who regards Burroughs “as almost a religious figure,” and the gender-bending musician and performance artist Genesis Breyer P-Orridge.

Late in life Burroughs softened somewhat, recalls James Grauerholz, his companion and executor of his estate. They moved to Lawrence, Kan., where Burroughs, an avid gun fetishist, took up visual art and produced “shotgun paintings,” made by shooting a can of spray paint placed in front of a plywood board.

His last words, scrawled in a journal shortly before his death in 1997, are among the most conciliatory he ever wrote: “Love? What is it? Most natural painkiller what there is.”

Stephen Holden @'NY Times'

Shaun Ryder - The Ecstasy & The Agony

What a surprise...

Where Did Our Debt Come From?

The Terrorists Have Already Won

It is rare to find an issue that can unite libertarians, leftists, and conservatives in mutual outrage, but in the last week the U.S. Administration has succeeded in doing such a thing. Despite the brief “aww” moment of bipartisanship however, what I wish to make a few notes upon what is a morally odious practice that has received virtually no attention in the international media, yet one that has serious ramifications upon our freedoms. And one that if we are not careful, shall creep our way into Australia.

I am talking about the new security theatre regime installed by the Obama Administration at U.S. airports. As of last week, air travelers in the United States going through security screening at most modern airports have only two options: either go through a scanner that shall enable security personnel to – literally – see them naked, or be subjected to an “enhanced pat down” – one that is little different to the groping of a sexual pervert – one that, according to the Transport Security Agency guidelines, requires for the feeling up of travelers genitalia. And I am not exaggerating when I say that that is what occurs. The guidelines literally say this!

Now, as readers here will know, I have slightly more sympathy for pro-national security arguments than your average libertarian (what can I say, it’s the conservative bent in me J ) Yet this new policy strikes even me as perverse. For it will do nothing to increase security (I mean, come on, any terrorist will be able to find a way about the ban if they tried, and besides, these don’t even detect most weapons), and at the same time, it is a morally abhorrent violation of the rights of U.S. citizens. The whole charade of security theatre, and all the inefficient, costly measures that it has created that perhaps in the past I was willing to turn a blind eye to, has just gone waaaay too far. And don’t think, unless we act upon it, it can’t happen in Australia.

So. Let us get into the details. Under these new rules, travelers have a choice. They can either go through a scanner – one which numerous medical authorities have said have dangerous levels of radiation (Wired notes that “scientists have also expressed concern that radiation from the devices could have long-term health effects on travelers”.) – and one which takes clear photos of them naked (yup, you can see just how big their ‘junk’ is), or be subjected to a “pat down” – a euphemistic expression for a procedure in which TSA rules – and again, this isn’t hyperbole – demand agents feel the crotch of passengers (and, I ought mention, also thoroughly rub and examine the breasts if they are female). Some commentators have gone so far to call it sexual molestation – and with some justification. Oh, and think you can opt out? Once you arrive at an airport, if you refuse the naked photography/groping – even if you choose not to board the plane – you can be fined $10,000

In anycase, if you choose the nudie-scanner approach, the images have been demonstrated to be able to be saved and leaked (just yesterday 35,000 images from a U.S. Marshall’s Office – images which were pledged to be erased after every screening – were publicly released). Fortunately for those concerned, they were from an earlier generation of scanners, which are rather blurry. But yes, just wait till the full nudie-scanners hit the interwebs and be prepared to be a star!

So how’s this gone since introduction.

Let’s see. TSA agents have already been recorded putting their hands down people’s pants, cupping and squeezing a traveler’s breasts, and traumatizing children (watch this clip of a three year old girl being accosted and judge for yourself). There are already reports that machines are being used to ogle women (one TSA operative was caught out saying “heads up, I’ve got a cutie). And you already have proof of TSA officials use the body scanners to make fun of people’s genitals and who pretend to find cocaine in passengers’ luggage as a prank,, and even TSA Agents proudly boasting “I am God”. There are even reports that TSA agents are – quite literally – putting their hands down people’s pants .

Consider this story from a grope-survivor:

“I said I didn’t want them to see me naked and the agent started yelling “Opt out- we have an opt here”. Another agent took me aside and said they would have to pat me down. He told me he was going to touch my genitals and asked if I wouldn’t rather just go through the scanner, that it would be less humiliating for me. I was in shock. I couldn’t believe this was happening. I kept saying I don’t want any of this to happen. I was whispering please don’t do this, please, please.”
Since Celeste didn’t agree to go through the scanner, the enhanced pat down began. “He started at one leg and then ran his hand up to my crotch. He cupped and patted my crotch with his palm. Other flyers were watching this happen to me. At that point I closed my eyes and started praying to the Goddess for strength. He also cupped and then squeezed my breasts. That wasn’t the worst part. He touched my face, he touched my hair, stroking me. That’s when I started crying. It was so intimate, so horrible. I feel like I was being raped. There’s no way I can fly again. I can’t do it.””

A good friend of mine was so traumatized from her experience last week she cancelled her trip home to visit her family for Thanksgiving. Indeed, in the last week I have spoken to about 10 people who have travelled by air since this has come in. Ever single one – whether they chose the naked scanner, or the grope – have been traumatized. And I’m not talking about crazy anarcho-capitalist libertarians only here. I’m talking about your average American, forced to be humiliated by the state.

Of course, this has nothing to do with safety. The hours long wait at airports has already forced many to abandon air travel, and, as driving is proven to be more dangerous than flying, by one estimate, enhanced security procedures after 9/11 led to 2,300 additional road deaths in two years.. It is simply about government exercising its power.

Now, at this point, some of you may be scratching your heads wondering “why on earth is the Obama Administration doing this”. To which I chuckle to myself and extract the following from the Washington Examiner:

“Rapiscan is one of the two companies that makes the nudie-scanners at airports for the TSA. Rapiscan CEO Deepak Chopra … recently was tapped by Obama to accompany the administration on Obama’s trip to India. Also, Chopra is an Obama donor.”

But of course, that’s not all: “Rapiscan got the other naked-scanner contract from the TSA, worth $173 million. Rapiscan’s lobbyists include Susan Carr, a former senior legislative aide to Rep. David Price, D-N.C., chairman of the Homeland Security Subcommittee.” Ah of course.

So this is where have have come to. The rights of citizens being trampelled upon due to a bootleggers-Baptist alliance of national-security fearmongers, and rent-seeking corporations. This is what our fear in the ‘war of terror’ has come to. For good reason, the headline on the conservative Drudge Report (accompanied by a photo of a Catholic nun being felt-up by a TSA agent). read: The Terrorists Have Won. Because, if we have come to the stage where to board a plane you either have to be photographed naked, or groped by government operatives – when again there is no legitimate security requirement for this whatsoever, then we have a problem.

The only question is, what now Australia? For as the price of freedom is eternal vigilance, I worry if we ignore this travesty, the same thing may happen here. And that it shall become not a question of if, but when.

Tim Andrews @'Thoughts on Freedom'

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David Hockney’s IPad Doodles Resemble High-Tech Stained Glass

Tom Phillips - The app of A Humument

Tom Phillips’ A Humument is an artists’ book made by defacing (and hence deconstructing) an obscure Victorian novel, W.H. Mallock’s A Human Document, writes John L. Walters. (See Archive, Eye no. 18 vol. 5.) Phillips outlines white ‘rivers’ within the original text setting to link words of his choosing, revealing new phrases – ‘we are the people’, ‘art took ornament as water found desert’ – while applying ink, paint and collaged elements to each numbered page.

After four printed editions for Thames & Hudson (and the tiny Heart of a Humument), Phillips has made an iPad version, now available on iTunes. I interviewed him in the kitchen of his Peckham house on bonfire night, while rockets and bangers whizzed and crackled in the streets outside. Phillips is something of a local hero in our part of Southeast London, which he celebrates in the mighty 20 Sites n Years project...