WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS - Interview Segments from "Commissioner of Sewers" (1986)

"William S. Burroughs: Commissioner of Sewers" (1986) is a film by Klaus Maeck, featuring both interview segments with and a spoken word performance by Beat novelist William S. Burroughs (1914-1997). This video contains only the interview segments and is subtitled in Italian. (The interviewer was Jürgen Ploog, a second-generation Beat author from Germany.)

Was Burroughs a CIA asset, or at least CIA-funded? There is some evidence to indicate that, yes. He was also quite a good writer when he wanted to be: AND THE HIPPOS WERE BOILED IN THEIR TANKS (co-authored with Jack Kerouac, 1945) and JUNKY (1953) are fine novels, and one of Burroughs' later books - CITIES OF THE RED NIGHT (1981) - opens a window onto the sinister worldwide occult scene of the 1960s and '70s. Burroughs, who had been a serious student of L. Ron Hubbard's Scientology cult while living abroad, was directly approached by the Process Church - a Scientology offshoot - when he returned to the United States in 1974. During the late '70s, he rubbed elbows with the New York occult crowd that gathered at Herman Slater's infamous Magickal Childe bookshop.

In short, Burroughs had important knowledge from an insider's perspective. He may be interesting largely for the wrong reasons, but he *is* interesting. His observations on writing, art, consciousness and the murky future of the human species are worth hearing.