An Open Letter to My Readers on Publication of the Burroughs-Warhol Connection
Dear Reader,
I am going to tell you something I’ve never told you before. I write in conversational prose and I believe in conversational prose. I picked it up from Andy Warhol. Warhol wrote three classic books. a: A novel (1968), The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (1975), and The Andy Warhol Diaries (1989). All three books are based on Andy Warhol’s tape-recorded voice (or in the case of the Diaries redaction by Warhol’s co-writer Pat Hackett). The first book, by far his best and most creative book, consists of twenty-four hours of tape-recorded conversations between the Star of Chelsea Girls, Ondine, and Andy, with many guest appearances by people like Brigid Polk, Rotten Rita, and Edie Sedgwick. The most amazing thing about this book is the process it went through to the completion of its text. Six people transcribed the twenty-four cassette tapes and each made numerous mistakes and edits. When Warhol received the seven-hundred-page transcript he was so impressed by its shape he claimed to have read it forty times. And he insisted, through the Factory’s manager, Billy Name, who oversaw publication of the book with Grove Press, that it be published as transcribed with thousands of spelling and grammatical riots throughout. The result is the best close-up account of Andy Warhol’s Factory operations in 1965, 1966, and 1967—the Golden Years of Andy Warhol’s Momento Mori for the 1960s from Chelsea Girls through The Velvet Underground & Nico to a: A Novel. The fact this book is not included in any college course on the 1960s or Andy Warhol or on the literature of the 1960s, and the fact it’s not in print in fifteen languages, like my Warhol biography has been, is a travesty that may not ever be addressed since nobody representing Warhol’s literary estate appears to have any vision of his complete writings. Why don’t we have The Collected Writings of Andy Warhol in twelve volumes? Why isn’t there an Andy Warhol Reader when a good one would be popular around the world?
William Burroughs also wrote three classic books. I like to say they are Junkie, The Yage Letters, and Naked Lunch. All three books remain in print. The difference between Burroughs and Warhol in the literary scene is that no enthusiastic young critics puckered up on Warhol’s books when they were published as they had on his paintings and films. Whereas, on the publication of Naked Lunch Burroughs was immediately championed by a whole new generation of commentators. No question the long-term influences of Burroughs and Warhol on the international counterculture during its greatest period 1962-1982, and to this day, are equal. The combination of those influences, those traces of languages planted deep, is now open for development. Like all my writing, this letter trails behind it many open windows and open doors.
In fact, The Burroughs-Warhol Connection is one big invitation to search it like you would search a house without losing touch with the fact it is a book. I see this book as a mansion with many rooms. So look… all you gotta do is transform all these pages into walls, floors, and ceilings. Then hang the pictures on the walls of the many rooms you make out of the pages. Once we grab the notion of turning the book into a large house, we can begin to see ourselves walking through it over and over again until all the images and words meld together and pour through us. Imagine if this new way of reading could lead to a new way of thinking. And maybe that’s the key to getting out of our current crisis. It would mean you could walk through the front door of this house and maybe never emerge from it but escape by going underneath it. And thus erase thinking and instead find the flow. Of course, it’s a little demanding, but if you see how beneficial it could be to fit yourself into the cockpit of a book and take it for a magic carpet ride, you are going somewhere else.
Also, I hope this book is as much of a catalyst as it is an entertainment. I make no pretence that I’ve drained this subject once and for all. On the contrary, I hope this book inspires other writers to write biographies of comparison featuring other subjects. And to pursue further comparisons between the souls of these subjects.
Thank you.
Victor Bockris
The Burroughs-Warhol Connection will be published on December 1st. You can learn more about it here.
