Category: Art

So I couldn’t pass up this first edition hardback Grove Press edition of William Burroughs’ 1964 novel Nova Express (with cover design by Grove Press stalwart Roy Kuhlman) that I found a few hot days ago, wandering decomposing stacks of pressed leaves here in North Florida. It ate up half of my credit at this particular used bookstore and yet was still cheaper than a new hardback NYT bestseller. Haven’t read the damn thing since college, and don’t own a copy so. Here’s the back cover with an author photo of Burroughs in which he looks like a goddamn baby (how did he live so long?):

“[T]he greatest satirical writer since Jonathan Swift”! I’m sure Jack Kerouac wouldn’t like hyperbolize even a smidge. What was Burroughs satirizing? Like modernism, modern machine life, etc. Control, as in all Burroughs.

Biologic Agent K9 called for his check and picked up supersonic imitation blasts of The Death Dwarfs — “L’addition — Laddition — Laddittion — Garcon — Garcon — Garcon” — American tourist accent to the Nth power — He ordered another coffee and monitored the café — A whole table of them imitating word forms and spitting back at supersonic speed — Several patrons rolled on the floor in switch fits — These noxious dwarfs can spit out a whole newspaper in ten seconds imitating your words after you and sliding in suggestion insults — That is the entry gimmick of The Death Dwarfs: supersonic imitation and playback so you think it is your own voice — (do you own a voice?) they invade The Right Centers which are The Speech Centers and they are in the right — in the right — in thee write — “RIGHT” — “I’m in the right — in the right — You know I’m in the right so long as you hear me say inside your right centers ‘I am in the right’” — While Sex Dwarfs tenderize erogenous holes — So The Venusian Gook Rot flashed round the world —

Read the rest of the death dwarf routine.