William S. Burroughs

Latest Articles

Author sees poetry and prose through the trees

Planting Seeds
The plan was simple, if nerdy: New York novelist and English teacher Richard Horan would visit the historic sites and childhood homes of famous authors (along with some notable historical and cultural figures).
By DEIRDRE FULTON | May 10, 2011

By | January 01, 0001

Cinema paradisos

As Hollywood's summer fare goes cold, local film festivals heat up
Here's the dilemma: you love movies, but you also love the idea of taking a vacation to one of the many inviting resorts that New England has to offer — the beaches of Cape Cod or the Islands, picturesque towns in Maine or Rhode Island, or even the cultural and historical enclaves of Boston itself.
By PETER KEOUGH | June 16, 2010

Hope against Hollywood

Letters to the Boston editor, March 26, 2010
Mr. Keough’s “Is There Any ‘Hope’ in Hollywood” article makes my own point. Precious , The Blind Side , and The Princess and the Frog were strategically released to detract from the positive image of President Barack Obama.
By BOSTON PHOENIX LETTERS | March 24, 2010

Excerpt: Patti Smith's Just Kids

Rock icon Patti Smith recalls burroughs and Mapplethorpe, the early days of CBGB, and saddling up for Horses in this memoir excerpt
The stars were lining up to enter the Ziegfeld Theatre for the glittering premiere of the film Ladies & Gentlemen, the Rolling Stones. I was excited to be there.
By PATTI SMITH | March 03, 2010

The Harvard Psychedelic Club

How Timothy Leary, Richard Alpert, Huston Smith, and Andrew Weil killed the fifties and ushered in a new age for America
Timothy Leary brought the bowl of mushrooms up to his nose and sniffed.
By DON LATTIN | January 19, 2010

By | January 01, 0001

Review: Pontypool

Bruce McDonald deserves some credit for trying
Bruce McDonald's ambitious shaggy-dog story combining elements of Talk Radio , William Burroughs, and Night of the Living Dead succeeds about as well as could be expected.
By PETER KEOUGH | April 15, 2009

Year in pictures

Imagery 2008
Imagery 2008
By PHOENIX STAFF | January 28, 2010

Patti Smith: Dream of Life

An intimate, affectionate, non-linear visit
This collage of a documentary emanates from an 11-year collaboration between punk poet/rocker Patti Smith and her filmmaker friend Steven Sebring.
By GERALD PEARY | December 09, 2008

Beating a dead horse

An excerpt from And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks
I got home about 3:45 after eating breakfast at Riker’s on the corner of Christopher Street and Seventh Avenue
By JACK KEROUAC AND WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS | October 22, 2008

Back Beat

At last, Kerouac and Burroughs's co-authored noir novel, And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks, resurfaces.
On a Sunday afternoon in December of 1997 I hooked up with the poet Jim McCrary at a Greenwich Village saloon.
By GEORGE KIMBALL | October 24, 2008

Winners and sinners

Barth, Bolaño, Roth, Morrison, and more
Ah, fall, when Nobel Prize winners are announced — and, now, when past winners turn up with more good reading.
By BARBARA HOFFERT | September 11, 2008

War stories

Mailer on the ’68 conventions
“We will be fighting for forty years.” Reading those words at the end of Norman Mailer’s 1968 Miami and the Siege of Chicago , you can’t help but feel a chill.
By CHARLES TAYLOR | August 19, 2008

Tricky Dick

Philip K. Dick's second Library of America volume
The Philip K. Dick phenomenon might be petering out.
By PETER KEOUGH | July 28, 2008

The medium is the movie

In new films, truth is fluid — and controlled by the click of a button
In almost every movie you go to these days you’ll see another screen — a television, a computer, even another movie screen — within the screen you’re watching.
By PETER KEOUGH | March 05, 2008

Beyond illbient

DJ Spooky goes global
When I get DJ Spooky on the phone a week ago Tuesday, he’s fresh home in New York City from Antarctica.
By JON GARELICK | January 14, 2008

Well hung

Mala Noche and Pierrepoint: The Last Hangman
Gus Van Sant’s arresting first feature, the 1985 Mala Noche , was a raw, libidinous tale of homosexual desire.
By GERALD PEARY | June 13, 2007

New rave

Klaxons bring their new brand of Britpop to Boston
The newest act to come buzzing from the UK is a trio of educated lads whose intelligently obtuse pop is warming hearts, minds, and dance floors.
By DAVID DAY | April 09, 2007

Challenging the print

A conversation with Charlie Hewitt
Lewiston-born painter, printer, and real-estate developer Charlie Hewitt left Maine to live in New York for many years.
By IAN PAIGE | February 28, 2007

Groundbreakers

Radio Golf ; bobrauschenbergamerica ; I Am My Own Wife
As the Huntington Theatre Company mounts Radio Golf , the ghost in the rafters is that of Wilson, who died last October at 60, soon after completing this final piece of his grand project chronicling decade by decade the African-American experience of the last 100 years.
By CAROLYN CLAY | September 20, 2006

Alchemical ascendancy

Into the heart of Tool’s darkness
Maynard James Keenan, to borrow an observation made about the young William Burroughs, has the face of a sheep-killing dog — taut, starved, bleakly symmetrical, with an underhang of menace.
By JAMES PARKER | May 17, 2006

On the Racks: May 9, 2006

Art Brut’s Bang Bang and Matmos’s brutish art
Plus new albums by Red Hot Chili Peppers, Grandaddy, and Snow Patrol.
By MATT ASHARE | May 09, 2006

How to speak Yiddish

From the Talmud to tukhes and back
In 1962, the American Jewish Congress released Invitation to Yiddish , a double-LP speak-along-with-the-record instructional course designed as a beginner’s introduction to Yiddish.
By JOSH KUN | April 28, 2006

Family and fate

The Sopranos finds the Tao
Series creator David Chase could easily have ended The Sopranos last year, in the fifth season.
By JON GARELICK | March 10, 2006

Steely man

Donald Fagen takes a solo shot
For a rock band who wrote songs about prostitutes, Eastern gurus, pedophilia, heroin, niece lust, Charlie Parker, and a post-apocalyptic world, Steely Dan have always had something akin to the last laugh.
By KEN MICALLEF | March 09, 2006

Dimensions of depth

Artists expand their SPACE
WORKNOT. Who doesn’t like the sound of that, apart from feudal lords and corporate management?
By IAN PAIGE | January 18, 2006