UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Monday, December 2.1996
3
Nova stars turn spotlight on local writer
By Liz Musser Kansan staff writer
The reporters asked questions, and the photographers snapped pictures, but Tuesday's press conference for the Nova Convention Revisited at the Lied Center was a chance for artists to shoot the breeze with their old budv William S. Burroughs.
"Everybody who is here are people
that know each other," said composer Philip Glass. "It's like a reunion for us. It's very moving to be with friends like this."
Attracting reporters from VH-1 and The New York Times, the afternoon gathering of the convention's performers included John Giorno, Philip Glass, Deborah Harry, Ed Sanders and a fashionably late entrance by Patti Smith and Michael Stipe.
"I love it," he said.
All of the performers except Stipe attended the original Nova Convention, which took place in 1978 in New York City.
Between cracking inside jokes with each other, the performers talked about Burroughs' effect on their lives.
For singer and poet Patti Smith, Burroughs' influence was basic.
"His work and friendship opened the door to help me understand the nature of mind," said poet and AIDS activist Jibun Giorno.
"Everybody who is here are people that know each other. It's like a reunion for us. It's very moving to be with friends like this."
At the center of the table sat Burroughs himself. When asked if he was embarrassed by all the hoopla, the 82-year-old Burroughs shook his head.
Philip Glass Composer
"He taught me to be more considerate of others and to dress well," Smith said.
Poet and author Ed Sanders said that he admired Burroughs because the Lawrence author had the ability to sum things up in a chaotic world. "It's very difficult to write maxims that last," Sanders said. "Burroughs is one person who can do that."
maxim for the young people of America.
Burroughs ended the conference with a
"Good things and bad things come in streaks," he said. "It's best to plunge when you're winning and retract when you're losing. Too many people plunge when they're losing."
Edmée Rodriguez / KANSAN
Michael Stipe made a guest appearance and sang a song during the Nova Convention Revisited Tuesday night at the Lied Center.
Ed Sanders, singer and poet from Woodstock, N.Y., answers reporters' questions at the Nova Convention Revised news conference. The conference was held at the Lied Center last Tues. Richard Devink/ KANSAN
Poet Ed Sanders revisits Lawrence
Burroughs' friend compares life today with life in the '60s
By Ian Ritter
Kansan staff writer
Ed Sanders had been to Lawrence before preforming at the Nova Convention Revisited, a tribute to William S. Burroughs held at the Lied Center Tuesday. Strangely enough, he was thrown off the KU campus in 1965.
Sanders was singing with his legendary experimental poetry/rock band, the Fugs, when the campus police decided that it wasn't going to stand for the band's music. Sanders, looking back on the incident, Sanders said that he couldn't remember why the band was escorted off Mt. Oread.
"We were doing these freak-out versions of our tunes," he said, shrugging about the incident in his Lied Center dressing room prior to his sound check for the convention.
Sanders' connection with Burroughs wasn't through the Fug, but through an arts magazine he published in the early 60s.
"I started reading his pieces," Sanders said. "And in the early '60s, I started corresponding with him in Tangiers and Paris."
Sanders said that the Fugs were influenced by Burroughs novels such as The Soft Machine and Nova Express.
The Fugs were radically leftist in political thought and Sanders hasn't lost that ideology during the years.
At his home in Woodstock, N.Y. Sanders publishes a weekly newspaper called the Woodstock Journal with his wife Miriam.
"I'm going out in a blaze of leaflets," he said. "I started out my paper in opposition to Newt Gingrich."
The paper deals with many social issues through essays and poetry, but Sanders still focuses on the '60s in his work.
"The same issues are in America as were then," he said. "There's the same problem involving the secret police as there is now."
Sanders is especially upset about hair-sample drug testing.
"When's it gonna stop?" he said. "Are we gonna give to give a hair sample to get our mail?"
Sanders said that times have improved since the '60s in areas of racism and sexism, but that there was much for the youth of today to be unset about.
"We didn't have homeless back then and it seemed a lot cheaper to live back then," he said. "It's much tougher for a young person now to rebel than it was then."
Sanders linked a lack of student activism on campuses today to strong financial burdens and fear.
"People tend to follow very accepted paths in order to get a stable job and benefits," he said. "I'm very loathe to criticize the young because I was very criticized for my beliefs when I was young."
For the future, Sanders looks toward the Clinton/Gore administration with hope, although he didn't vote for the president. He said that only unusual circumstances would keep Gore out of the White House in the year 2000.
"The only way to prevent Gore from being President is to get the CIA teams that killed Kennedy," he said. "They're probably in wheelchairs now."
Kemeth Irby, associate professor of English and friend of Sanders for several years, said that Sanders was a notable composer and writer.
"He's done his time on many fronts with good effects," irbay said. "He's a good singer; not all poets are good singers."
REVIEW
By Erin Rooney
Kansan staff writer
Burroughs tribute disappointing
The newsroom has been inundated with faxes, memos and reporters' notes on The Nova Convention Revisited for more than two months. The convention was one of the most publicized events of the semester and now I'm reveling in the fact that it finally is finished.
Before any William S. Burroughs fans throw down the paper in disgust, let me explain that I agree some of the fanfare was deserved — the University of Kansas doesn't play host to Deborah Harry and Patti Smith on the Lied Center stage everyday. But for all that it was built up to be, I was disappointed.
The media was invited to a faster-than-a-speeding-bullet press conference Tuesday afternoon.
I bailed on the "get to know your fellow journalists" chit-chat time and made my way to the performance hall to watch Smith and her guitarists Leny Kaye and Oliver Ray run sound checks. This was my favorite part of the day.
I watched Smith and her crew banter about equipment and whatever was the topic of the day. They were just hanging out. It was an opportunity that I doubt I ever will have again in my lifetime and I was fortunate to be there.
The actual performance that night was far from the personal experience I had earlier in the day. John Giorno
started off the show with a few in- your face poetry recitations. I'd never heard such blunt sexual terms spoken in front of a crowd that large.
Philip Glass played respectable piano pieces and was followed by Laurie Anderson. Anderson surprised me. I was mesmerized by her ability to make an electric violin sound like a group of bagpipers. Her song about meeting a four-year-old sand enthusiast on the World Wide Web brought a smile to my face.
Burroughs kept with the rhythm of the earlier press conference and read a poem that lasted less than three minutes. An intermission preceded Ed Sanders' spoken words to a synchronized drum beat performance.
With much anticipation, Harry took
to the stage with a three person band. It appeared that she didn't expect the show to be such an ordeal and in fact looked a bit unheared. After playing a few newer songs, she took her hair down and belted out Heart of Glass and Call Me.
Minutes later, I enjoyed Smith and Stine's lyrical performances.
But after the show came to a conclusion, I couldn't help but think that maybe the show could have had more substance, more depth.
Maybe the people could have explained why they agreed to come perform, or how Burroughs had influenced their lives. No explanations, though, so I left the convention fondly remembering the sound check earlier in the day.