As usual, it was Silberman with the deepest connection, first of acquaintances (not counting National Public Radio) to tell me WSB was dead. His sad e-mail notification started a small, at first locally circulated sequence of memorials. Eventually Steve wrote a piece for Wired News about William S. Burroughs as an inspiration to a generation of web publishers.

This barely edited note is what I sent off first to Steve and Levi and few others, later to some of the more central memorial pages. I may have accidentally spammed Beat-L with it as well.


I AM DYING, MEESTER?

this seems to complete a set of sorts. they're dying all around us. driving back at 2:30 last night from the bay area "furthur" show, wearing my mime troupe t-shirt, having heard arlo do alice's restaurant live for the first time ever and robert hunter reinvent st. stephen as ballad, i catch the news that another giant has fallen.

what can i say? he inspired my 'zine, Enterzone (the title is an homage) and freed up my writing a thousand fold. his ongoing presence in the ephemeral world of media, electronic and otherwise, was an inspiration, and the language viruses he spawned will live on long after the sun consumes the innermost planets.



"...Stale breakfast table - Little cat smile - Pain and death smell of his sickness in the room with me - Three souvenir shots of Panama city - Old friend came and stayed all day - Face eaten by 'I need _more_' - I have noticed this in the New World - 'You come with me, Meester?'

"...

"...Sad movie drifting in islands of rubbish, black lagoons and fish people waiting a place forgotten - Fossil honky tonk swept out the ceiling fan - Old photographer trick tuned them out.

"'I am dying, Meester?'

"Flashes in front of my eyes naked and sullen - Rotten dawn wind in sleep - Death rot on Panama photo where the awning flaps."



'A Living Breathing and Ever Growing
William S. Burroughs Web Memorial'
at The William S. Burroughs Files



burroughs.net



So What Else is New?


Enterzone