SF: Did Burroughs have any opinion about the 2012 issue? Positive or negative societal transformation (with or without the supernatural whispers surrounding the date)? Any hope for mankind really figuring out the various mechanisms of control he’d been writing about all his life?

JG: I don’t know. People are searching his work for clues to that now. I don’t at all recall him emphasizing “2012″ in conversation, and he and I did often compare our studies in Mesoamerican pre-history and archaeology, enlarging each other’s knowledge, I believe.

William did go through a period of working from Mayan calendrical theories and his own fantasy/memory sources to create his own calendar. Barry Miles, more than any other Burroughs biographer to date, offers the best and fullest explanation of Burroughs’ personal calendar system, in Miles’ book, William S. Burroughs: El Hombre Invisible.

As for Burroughs’ level of “hope,” I must tell you that, the older he got, the less “hope” he had — for anything good ever to emerge from “the Human Experiment.” This is not uncommon in the elderly, you know. It definitely makes sense as a survival instinct: tell yourself it’s a good thing you won’t have to be around, to witness or suffer the universal Hell that is soon to descend upon all human life everywhere, etc.

You’ll notice I am resisting giving much credence to any “Apocalypse Soon” scenarios, that of “2012″ included — but you shouldn’t think for a second that I don’t recognize that these are truly “apocalyptic” times — if only for the way that mechanized humanity (an oxymoron if there ever was one!) has apparently damaged Planet Earth beyond the planet’s — or Mankind’s — ability to maintain climatic stability and predictability.

I submit to you that “The Future of the Novel” is a prophetic work, especially as he says: “A new mythology is possible in the Space Age, where we will again have heroes and villains, with respect to intentions towards this planet.”

(via Technoccult)

It says:

Dear Lucien & Cessa — Writing to you by candlelight from the mysterious Casbah — have a magnificent room overlooking the beach & the bay & the sea & can see Gibraltar — patio to sun on, room maid, $20 a month — feel great but Burroughs has gone insane e as, — he keeps saying he’s going to erupt into some unspeakable atrocity such as waving his dingdong at an Embassy part & such or slaughtering an Arab boy to see what his beautiful insides look like — Naturally I feel lonesome with this old familiar lunatic but lonesomer than ever with him as he’ll also mumble, or splurt, most of his conversation, in some kind of endless new British lord imitation, it all keeps pouring out of him in an absolutely brilliant horde of words & in fact his new book is best thing of its kind in the world (Genet, Celine, Miller, etc.) & we might call it WORD HOARD…he, Burroughs, (not “Lee” any more) unleashes his word hoard, or horde, on the world which has been awaiting the Only Prophet, Burroughs — His message is all scatalogical homosexual super-violent madness, — his manuscript is all that has been saved from the original vast number of written pages of WORD HOARD which he’d left in all the boy’s privies of the world — and so on, — I sit with him in elegant French restaurant & he spits out his bones like My. Hyde and keeps yelling obscene words to be heard by the continental clienteles — (like he done in Rome, yelling FART at a big palazzio party) — I’ll be glad when Allen gets here. — Meanwhile I explores the Casbah, high on opium or hasheesh or any drink or drug I want, & dig the Arabs. — The Slovenija was a delightful ship, I ate every day at one long white tablecloth with that one Yugoslavian woman spy. — We hit a horrendous tempest 2 days out, nothing like I ever seen, — that big steel ship was lost in mountains of hissing water, awful. — I cuddled up with TWO TICKETS TO TANGIER and got my laughs, I read every word, Cess, really a riot. — Also read Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling which you should read, it’s down on your corner. — Right now I’m high on 3 Sympatinas, Spanish bennies of a sort, mild. — Happy pills galore. — The gal situation here is worse than the boy situation, nothing but male whores all over, & their supplementary queens. — Met an actual contraband sailing ship adventurer with a mustache. Etc. More anon. Miss you & hope you’re well. Jack.

Anyway, that’s when I knew Philip, and now we’ve reconnected. From his piece,

I’ve made frequent work-related trips to the southeast section of the state, particularly to a town called Coffeyville, and seen such reckless toxic industrial waste it staggers the imagination. Whole cities and sections of cities have had to be evacuated (Treece, Kansas, Picher, Oklahoma, Galena and Coffeyville, Kansas). There is a refinery in Coffeyville that is owned by Goldamn Sachs, does $3 billion in sales every year, that dumps its waste straight into the Verdigris River and can be smelled throughout the town and, depending on the winds, from twenty miles away. A business called Safety Kleen (you can’t make this up), owned by Viacom, dumped enormous quantities of dioxin and PCB into the regional ecosystem. No one has yet figured out how to clean up Safety Kleen’s lethal mess. The populous of Coffeyville demonstrates a bizarre array of skin afflictions. The tap water tastes like something you would use to clean a rug.

It’s not entirely hopeless:

What can be hoped for?

Much of it can be resolved by simply stopping the destruction. The landscape has an unstoppable capacity for regeneration. If you don’t mow your lawn, in a few short months you’ll find yourself surrounded by jungle.

Once erosion stabilizes and wetlands renew themselves, they have a near miraculous capacity to filter and break down most toxins. Wildlife populations race into new niches, adapt quickly and thrive when relieved of the stresses of human encroachment.

Philip Heying’s responsible for this very great picture of William Burroughs and Timothy Leary. Other great photos on his site.