WILLIAM S.

Thank you to all who attended the fundraiser and celebration. Your support is appreciated.

Share this event on

Download the invite

Petter Weller played William S. Burroughs in David Cronenberg's 1991 masterpiece film, Naked Lunch, based off the book. He has appeared in more than 50 films and television series, including turns as the title characters in the cult classic The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension, and blockbuster hits RoboCop and RoboCop 2. He has also appeared in such critically acclaimed movies as Woody Allen's Mighty Aphrodite and the Oliver Stone-produced The New Age. His stage career began in the 1970s with appearances on Broadway in Full Circle, directed by Otto Preminger, soon after becoming a member of the famed Actors' Studio. Weller has also directed various projects for television, including episodes of Homicide: Life on the Street, and Monk. Weller is a contributor to the History Channel in several productions, credited as "Peter Weller, Syracuse University," where he is an adjunct faculty member.

Anne Waldman is one of the most powerful voices in the poetry world and has worked to preserve the beat legacy— one that is also her own. Waldman is, in her words, “drawn to the magical efficacies of language as a political act.” Allen Ginsberg called Waldman his "spiritual wife." In the 1960s she served as the director of the Poetry Project at St. Mark's. In 1974, with Allen Ginsberg, and others, Waldman founded the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at the Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado, where she remains a Distinguished Professor of Poetics and the Director of Naropa's famous Summer Writing Program. She was “poet in residence” with Bob Dylan’s famed concert tour, the Rolling Thunder Revue, in 1975–76. In addition to writing dozens of acclaimed books, Waldman has also edited several anthologies, including The Beat Book (1996). Her honors include grants from the Foundation for Contemporary Performance Arts, the Poetry Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Legend, icon, wild-hearted demoness bad-girl bitch. It is impossible to describe the juggernaut that is Penny Arcade without entering the world of hyperbole that she not only inhabits but also personifies. Since first climbing out of her bedroom window at age 13 to join the fabulously disenfranchised world of queers, junkies, whores, stars, stalkers and geniuses she has become one of the most influential performers in the world. By fearlessly displaying her singular brand of feminist sexuality and personal conflict she has garnered countless fans worldwide with an emotionally and intellectually charged performance style. Internationally revered as writer, director and actress, she has become the very bedrock that many of the biggest names in the entertainment industry have built their careers upon.

Hal Willner produced, along with Nelson Lyon, and is responsible for William S. Burroughs' albums Dead City Radio, and Spare Ass Annie and Other Tales . He is possibly best known for assembling tribute albums and events featuring a wide variety of artists and musical styles (jazz, classical, rock). He is often credited as the inventor of the 'modern' tribute album with Amarcord Nino Rota in 81. He became music supervisor of Saturday Night Live in 1981, a position which still holds. He is also responsible for William Burroughs appearance on the show. Willner has also produced albums for Marianne Faithfull, Lou Reed,, Gavin Friday, Lucinda Williams, Laurie Anderson, & Allen Ginsberg. He produced a live tribute concert to Tim Buckley, that ultimately launched the career of Tim's son Jeff.

The bibliographer and literary executor of the estate of William S. Burroughs. Grauerholz became acquainted with Burroughs in the 70s while befriending Allen Ginsberg in New York. Ginsberg recommended Grauerholz to Burroughs as a possible assistant and their working relationship began, growing to be a major factor in the popularization of Burroughs & his works. Grauerholz wasBurroughs' friend and manager until the author's death in 1997. He helped edit Cities of the Red Night (1981), The Place of Dead Roads (1985) and The Western Lands (1987). He spearheaded the author reading tours Burroughs often gave to audiences in the 1980s and 1990s and wrote editorial copy for a compilation of stories Interzone. Until Burroughs' death in 1997, he tirelessly supported him, getting him reading engagements, parts in films (Drugstore Cowboy) as well as recording readings. He looked after William's physical needs, taking him to a methadone clinic weekly, as well as providing him with companionship and acting as a kind of social seceretary to the people that came to meet Burroughs. Most recently, he edited the book When the Hippos Boiled in Their Tanks by Jack Kerouac and William Burroughs.

Burroughs' close friend and collaborator, John Giorno, was quick to release some of Burroughs’ best recorded work on Giorno Poetry Systems. The originator of Performance Poetry, John Giorno elevated Spoken Word to a high Art Form. One of the most innovative and influential figures of 20th Century poetry, John Giorno's career spans forty years. Giorno's work - written, performed, recorded and presented - has forever changed the way the world views poetry . His most recent book You Got To Burn To Shine (Serpent's Tail, 1994) details his deeply personal memoirs, including the story of his relationship with Andy Warhol (Giorno was the star of Warhol's first film, Sleep, 1963), his anonymous sexual encounter with Keith Haring (he and Keith later became good friends), and his thoughts about the Tibetan Buddhist understanding of death in the age of AIDS. Founded in 1965, Giorno Poetry Systems innovated the use of technology in poetry, working with electronic and multi-media, and creating new venues, connecting poetry with new audiences.

Author of Drugs and the "Beats".  John Long was born in Chicago in 1941 and grew up in the Chicago area. After graduating from the University of Wisconsin, Madison in 1963, he went on to study law at Stanford. In 1972 he moved to France with his wife Mary. His visit to present at this event will be his first time back in the United States in thirty years. John went on to receive his Master's degree from the University of Angers, France, and in 1981 he was awarded a Doctorate in literature from the Sorbonne. John is recognized as an expert on the Beat Generation. Currently, he and his family raise sheep on a large domain in the South of France. He has taught at several universities in France and has recently retired from the University of Toulouse where as associate professor he taught English and American literature and civilization.

Tony Trigilio is the author of the poetry collection, The Lama's English Lessons; the chapbooks, With the Memory, Which is Enormous and Make a Joke and I Will Sigh and You Will Laugh and I Will Cry ; and two books of criticism, Allen Ginsberg's Buddhist Poetics and Strange Prophecies Anew. His poems have been anthologized in The City Visible: Chicago Poetry for the New Century; Digerati: 20 Contemporary Poets in the Virtual World, America Zen, and A Gathering of Poets, a volume commemorating the students killed at Kent State University and Jackson State University. He has published critical essays in Reconstructing the Beats and Girls Who Wore Black: Women Writing the Beat Generation.   He holds a Ph.D. in English from Northeastern University in Boston. W A recipient of a 2009 Illinois Arts Council Fellowship in Poetry, he has taught since 1999 at Columbia College Chicago, where he also directs the program in Creative Writing - Poetry.

Kurt Hemmer is the editor of the Encyclopedia of Beat Literature (Facts On File 2007) and an Associate Professor of English at Harper College in Palatine, Illinois. His article “‘The Natives Are Getting Uppity’: Tangier and Naked Lunch” appears in Naked Lunch @ 50: Anniversary Essays (Southern Illinois University Press 2009). Among other articles, “Political Outlaws: Beat Cowboys“ was published in American Studies Journal volume 50 (Fall 2007) and “The Prostitute Speaks: Brenda Frazer’s Troia: Mexican Memoirs” was published in Paradoxa 18: Fifties Fictions (2003). The award-winning documentaries As We Cover the Streets: Janine Pommy Vega (Harper 2003) and Rebel Roar: The Sound of Michael McClure (Harper 2004) were produced by Dr. Hemmer and Tom Knoff.

Activist, educator, author, member of the Weathermen (later known as the Weather Underground). Born William Charles Ayers on December 26, 1944, in Oak Park, Illinois. A former radical activist, Bill Ayers has established himself as an educator and author. He grew up as the middle child of five in the Chicago suburb of Glen Ellyn. His father was a business executive and his mother was a homemaker. Ayers joined the faculty of the University of Illinois at Chicago in 1992. In addition to his work at the university, he has become an accomplished author, writing numerous works on education, including The Good Preschool Teacher: Six Teachers Reflect on Their Lives (1989), To Teach: The Journey of a Teacher (1993), and Teaching for Social Justice: A Democracy and Education Reader (1998). Ayers is currently a distiguished professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago,

Davis Schneiderman is a multimedia artist and writer whose works include the forthcoming novel Drain from Northwestern University Press (2010), the novels DIS (BlazeVox) and Abecedarium (Chiasmus); the co-edited collections Retaking the Universe: Williams S. Burroughs in the Age of Globalization (Pluto) and The Exquisite Corpse: Chance and Collaboration in Surrealism’s Parlor Game (Nebraska, 2009); and the audiocollage Memorials to Future Catastrophes (Jaded Ibis). He has written extensively on Burroughs, most recently in Naked Lunch@50: Anniversary Essays. His creative work has been accepted by numerous publications including Fiction International, The Chicago Tribune, The Iowa Review, and Exquisite Corpse. He has recently been named Director of Lake Forest College Press/&NOW Books, and he directs the NEH-funded Virtual Burnham Initiative. He can be found, virtually, at davisschneiderman.com/ .

His audiocollage CD, Memorials to Future Catastrophes, released last year, contains a Burroughs-inspired track:

Click the map once to enlarge

Hotel Allegro, Chicago

Ray's Bucktown B&B Chicago

Google Map

Google Map

For any questions or comments, or if you are interested in making a contribution to the film, please email info@burroughsthemovie.com

Share this event on

"Arts supported by Grolsch.

Live and enjoy responsibly"

©2009-2010, Created by Eric Burton