i don't know about that, don't think the current day iteration has remarkably changed its style, it its high and low periods, but I don't think its unfair to say you can trace a lineage from authors like Burroughs, Hunter S. Thompson, even Ishmael Reed, to a brand of irreverent satiric comedy pioneered by guys like Lenny Bruce, Pryor, Bill Hicks, and much of our current TV satire. Sure, it's a bit diluted for mainstream consumption, but the ethos is there. Michelle Wolf probably would have made Burroughs proud with her white house correspondents dinner performance. But, then again, I'm biased to this argument, as I'm making a form of it in my master's thesis lol.
@@phorestpsy216 Alot of comedy today is simply vulgar, lacks intelligence, or as you say, turns things into a satire. None of them are actually dark, Burroughs is the dark.
fascinating to observe an author who so vividly foregrounded the invasive effects of power, language, and drugs. All three seem to have hold of him, reading his absurdist narrative to a nervously laughing audience. He's looking somewhat Mugwump-like.
I LOOOVE Burroughs :) He was the most elegant of the magical Beat genius trio (Ginsberg, Kerouac, Burroughs), looking like a quiet old business man and at the same time he wrote among the crazyest and weirdest and experimental and insanely great stuff EVER written by an earthling LOL Anyway, this vid is a priceless and cult doc !!! :)
I'm not sure I agree that there is nothing funny about it. Its a kind of reverse snobbery to suggest that nobody can possibly find a kind of sick humour in this and that if they do they are nervously following some external narrative they've been "told" to follow. This wasnt the whole audience laughing after all, but a select few obviously picturing the image in their head of a doctor using a toilet plunger to restart a patients heart. For me, theres a kind of dark humour, it reminds me of those early silent films and I can just see William S Hart as the doctor. The whole point of Burroughs, is that you should take from it these intricate and often explicit, masterpieces of images he paints in your head, whatever you want, whatever you see. But to suggest a response is wrong... Take ownership of your own imagination, not other peoples.
Paul Escudier They think they'll be caught out for being dumb if they don't. Culture vultures. Unless they were told otherwise, they'd think WSB was an unintelligable, sick freak...and they wouldn't be far wrong. Same thing with lobsters in Nth America. They weren't sought after till people were told they were a delicacy. Before that? Sold to prisons or used as fertilizer. If the average american could be convinced that child rape was funny, fun, glamorous, or artistic they'd buy that bullshit w
It's something Philistines do, so as to notify you that they do in fact get it. I heard the same thing in a screening of Phantom Thread with a crowd of twentysomething year old neckbeards. Every time Daniel Day Lewis would say something abusive to his partner, theyd howl with laughter. Bunch of wankers.
Surreal as fuck
I'm assuming the 70's Saturday Night Live is worlds away from its current incarnation.
Awesome use of the masterful commissioner of sewers
i don't know about that, don't think the current day iteration has remarkably changed its style, it its high and low periods, but I don't think its unfair to say you can trace a lineage from authors like Burroughs, Hunter S. Thompson, even Ishmael Reed, to a brand of irreverent satiric comedy pioneered by guys like Lenny Bruce, Pryor, Bill Hicks, and much of our current TV satire. Sure, it's a bit diluted for mainstream consumption, but the ethos is there. Michelle Wolf probably would have made Burroughs proud with her white house correspondents dinner performance. But, then again, I'm biased to this argument, as I'm making a form of it in my master's thesis lol.
@@phorestpsy216 Alot of comedy today is simply vulgar, lacks intelligence, or as you say, turns things into a satire. None of them are actually dark, Burroughs is the dark.
fascinating to observe an author who so vividly foregrounded the invasive effects of power, language, and drugs. All three seem to have hold of him, reading his absurdist narrative to a nervously laughing audience. He's looking somewhat Mugwump-like.
I LOOOVE Burroughs :) He was the most elegant of the magical Beat genius trio (Ginsberg, Kerouac, Burroughs), looking like a quiet old business man and at the same time he wrote among the crazyest and weirdest and experimental and insanely great stuff EVER written by an earthling LOL Anyway, this vid is a priceless and cult doc !!! :)
I'm not sure I agree that there is nothing funny about it. Its a kind of reverse snobbery to suggest that nobody can possibly find a kind of sick humour in this and that if they do they are nervously following some external narrative they've been "told" to follow. This wasnt the whole audience laughing after all, but a select few obviously picturing the image in their head of a doctor using a toilet plunger to restart a patients heart. For me, theres a kind of dark humour, it reminds me of those early silent films and I can just see William S Hart as the doctor. The whole point of Burroughs, is that you should take from it these intricate and often explicit, masterpieces of images he paints in your head, whatever you want, whatever you see. But to suggest a response is wrong... Take ownership of your own imagination, not other peoples.
Thank you Perfectly What I can't convey as limited care factor to explain this weird exquisite squire to the unimaginative and the obtuse.
In those with an imagination, the image of a doc spilling cigarette ashes in a patient is damn funny
this is rad thanks for uploading it
great quality video. Thanks for the upload.
Love and sick
The New Yorker article on William Burroughs brought me here. www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/02/03/the-outlaw-2
Why the hell are they laughing...
Paul Escudier They think they'll be caught out for being dumb if they don't. Culture vultures. Unless they were told otherwise, they'd think WSB was an unintelligable, sick freak...and they wouldn't be far wrong. Same thing with lobsters in Nth America. They weren't sought after till people were told they were a delicacy. Before that? Sold to prisons or used as fertilizer. If the average american could be convinced that child rape was funny, fun, glamorous, or artistic they'd buy that bullshit w
..wholesale also. Burroughs can be funny but not here..sounds infantile..
It's something Philistines do, so as to notify you that they do in fact get it. I heard the same thing in a screening of Phantom Thread with a crowd of twentysomething year old neckbeards. Every time Daniel Day Lewis would say something abusive to his partner, theyd howl with laughter. Bunch of wankers.
Because Burroughs is incredibly funny.
i'm sorry but if you can't see the humor in this you're the pretentious one