The speaker found a book called You're the Monkey to be similar to William Burroughs' work, as Burroughs believed that all the answers were within his writings. Burroughs also believed that suffering from scarlet fever at a young age opened a portal to receive otherworldly knowledge. The speaker and Burroughs shared the experience of having scarlet fever and even had a club called the scarlet fever club. The speaker felt that Burroughs' interpretation of the book of the dead was a way for him to reckon with mortality. The speaker also discussed how reading Burroughs' work was like following a jazz saxophone solo, where they would go with the flow of the writing without analyzing it.
Patti Smith has been at the vanguard of art, poetry, rock and roll, and other forms of self-expression since the 1960s. But this talk with Marc happens to be her very first one-on-one conversation done over Zoom. They talk about Patti's days living at the Hotel Chelsea, carrying on the legacy of the Beat Generation, and forming life-changing relationships with William Borroughs, Sam Shepard, Allen Ginsberg, and Bob Dylan, among others. Patti also recalls the most mortifying live performance moment of her career, which happened for all the world to see.
Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekly bonus material! https://plus.acast.com/s/wtf-with-marc-maron-podcast.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.