Brion Gysin

February 3, 2003 10:49 PM

Brion Gysin - He played a powerful role in the work of William Burroughs, he sought to destroy language, and he may have killed Kurt Cobain, so why doesn't anybody know who he is?
posted by cachilders (9 comments total)

Oh, come on. Sure we do. We all tried to build dreammachines our sophomore year in college.

Didn't we?
posted by adamgreenfield at 11:08 PM on February 3, 2003

There was some talk to the effect that Brion was a bad influence, a keef-crazed, razor-wielding, dada-spouting anarchist . . . .

One of us. One of us.
posted by LeLiLo at 11:13 PM on February 3, 2003 [1 favorite]

yay cut ups.

To build a role, one of us may have killed Kurt, crazed
razor sought to destroy our sophomore dreammachines
Didn't we talk a powerful bad influence?
Oh, come on.
played to the effect, tried to build wielding: dada doesn't
know one language, spouting keef -- who?
Anybody.
One of us.
posted by juv3nal at 11:38 PM on February 3, 2003

Real Audio of a BBC program resulting (if I understand correctly) from a collaboration between Burroughs and Brion Gysin available here.

Transcript here.

Bizarre, fascinating, insane(?) stuff. It makes me wonder on which side of the line separating artistic nature from insanity these two stood on (if indeed, such a line exists).
posted by syzygy at 3:58 AM on February 4, 2003

Some of the interviews in Here to Go left me more confused than when I'd started. Which is a good thing. I think.
posted by PinkStainlessTail at 4:26 AM on February 4, 2003

Dreamachines. yah, using a turntable and arethmatical calculations I could not do today. it worked, and it didn't.
posted by pekar wood at 7:01 AM on February 4, 2003

Cut-ups and the Internet is a must-read for anyone interested in this stuff, including links to online cut-up generators.

Nice post, cachilders (except for the part about Gysin killing Cobain). I love the idea of permutation poems, which can be great when they're read aloud (au). There's more of Gysin reading at ubu.com.
posted by mediareport at 12:12 PM on February 4, 2003

Thanks mediareport. You guys have been great at filling in the stuff I left out, and the Cobain hit was just a hook for the people who wouldn't normally read about a fellow like this.
posted by cachilders at 3:31 PM on February 4, 2003

I wouldn't have mentioned it if you'd said, "One of his inventions may have killed Kurt Cobain." Minor difference there. ;)
posted by mediareport at 4:04 PM on February 4, 2003