Connections: Stewart Home, William Burroughs & Chappaqua, via Terry Taylor

From a memory of Rapid Eye and The Assault on Culture: Utopian Currents from Lettrisme to Class War, over to the 1994 promotional video for the Stewart Home novel Red London at UbuWeb.

Then to Home’s blog, that he updates regularly. Recently, Home gave a talk to promote Terry Taylor’s republished 1961 Beatnik novel Baron’s Court, All Change. It’s the first UK novel to mention LSD. Taylor is still alive, he attended the talk, and answered questions from his seat in the audience at Housmans bookshop.

“Taylor was born in 1933 and inspired the novels “Absolute Beginners” and “Mr Love and Justice” by Colin MacInnes; and aside from being an assistant to noted photographer Ida Kar (and also her lover despite a huge age difference between them), Terry was also a hustler…” writes Home.

“In the 1960s Taylor went on to pursue drugs and magic in Tangier, smoking grass with Berbers and trying to materialize thought forms, before settling down in later life to run a sandwich bar in Rhyl, Wales”. writes Phil Baker.

Also on Home’s blog is a quick review of ‘All Out Of Time And Into Space’, an exhibition of William Burroughs’ art that’s on at The October Gallery until 16 February 2013. Home is not keen on Burroughs’ “cynical” art … but Burroughs did find himself in financial difficulties near the end of his life, and shooting signs with a gun is quicker than writing novels, probably.

It’s reported that Terry Taylor met Burroughs in Tangier. Burroughs also appears in the cult film Chappaqua, that gets a mention in the comments section on Home’s blog. Also mentioned is Gysin’s art, which inspired Burroughs. Gysin has an “official” site these days, it features an Extrageographic article from long ago.

The first ten minutes of Chappaqua can currently be watched on Youtube. here: