William S. Burroughs’ Scathing “Thanksgiving Prayer,” Shot by Gus Van Sant

“Thanks­giv­ing Day, Nov. 28, 1986” first appeared in print in Tor­na­do Alley, a chap­book pub­lished by William S. Bur­roughs in 1989. Two years lat­er, Gus Van Sant (Good Will Hunt­ing, My Own Pri­vate Ida­ho, Milk) shot a mon­tage that brought the poem to film, mak­ing it at least the sec­ond time the direc­tor adapt­ed the beat writer to film.

If you’ve seen Bur­roughs use Shake­speare’s face for tar­get prac­tice, or if you’ve watched The Junky’s Christ­masyou’ll know that he was­n’t kind to con­ven­tion or tra­di­tion. And there are no pris­on­ers tak­en here, as you’ll see above.

For back­ground on Bur­roughs, read the New York­er piece “The Out­law, The extra­or­di­nary life of William S. Bur­roughs.” Find the text for “Thanks­giv­ing Prayer” here.

Now time for a lit­tle Thanks­giv­ing din­ner.…

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. Or fol­low our posts on Threads, Face­book, BlueSky or Mastodon.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

William S. Bur­roughs Tells the Sto­ry of How He Start­ed Writ­ing with the Cut-Up Tech­nique

How William S. Bur­roughs Influ­enced Rock and Roll, from the 1960s to Today

William S. Bur­roughs Teach­es a Free Course on Cre­ative Read­ing and Writ­ing (1979)

How William S. Bur­roughs Used the Cut-Up Tech­nique to Shut Down London’s First Espres­so Bar (1972)

 


by | Permalink | Comments (0) |

Sup­port Open Cul­ture

We’re hop­ing to rely on our loy­al read­ers rather than errat­ic ads. To sup­port Open Cul­ture’s edu­ca­tion­al mis­sion, please con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion. We accept Pay­Pal, Ven­mo (@openculture), Patre­on and Cryp­to! Please find all options here. We thank you!


Leave a Reply

Quantcast