Ireland has been home to artists who have fled its shores to find room to breathe so that they could write clear of the oppressive atmosphere of both the heavy hand of the Catholic Church and the violence of their country's politics. James Joyce landed in France and when the Germans came he left to end his days of exile in Switzerland.
Before him Oscar Wilde descended upon London who loved him until he was betrayed and forced into exile in Paris where he died a broken and sad man. After Joyce the playwright Samuel Beckett left Ireland for France, where aside from chauffeuring Andre the Giant to and from school, he wrote the masterpiece of existential theatre, Waiting For Godot
Ireland, the cold and clammy land of bogs and peat, appears to be light years apart from the heat and desert sun of Tangiers and the international zone of the fifties and the sixties. But in 1992 the artistic current that birthed the aforementioned luminaries extended its reach beyond its borders to celebrate and remind the world of the work produced in the land of sand, sun, and lawlessness.
From the end of World War Two to the time of independence in the '60s Tangier was divided up into three zones. The British had one, the French another, and the third was a neutral buffer zone between the two called the international zone. Nominally there was supposed to be some sort of rule of law, but pretty much a blind eye was turned to everything.
It became a Mecca for a couple types of people — artists looking for an inexpensive and inspirational place to live and those hangers-on who always seem to appear where artists congregate, the rich and the thrill seekers who like to pretend they live the bohemian life style. They would "discover" an artist for a season and show him or her off to their friends, dabble in the free flow of drugs, and be delightedly shocked at the proliferation of both male and female prostitutes.
But amidst the parties and the hedonism there were the artists who were delving into the darkness that is so much a part of contemporary man but is studiously ignored by all but the brave and the insane. In some instances the line between the two became so blurred as to be indistinguishable.
The Here To Go Show in 1992 Dublin was a commemoration and celebration of the life and work of two of the minds and talents that were honed and refined in the hothouse atmosphere of Tangiers — William S. Burroughs and Brion Gysin.
Article comments
1 - frank rynne
William S. Burrough's review of Destroy all Rational Thought
Feb 28, 1994
I have seen the Dublin videos and they look very impressive. I am sure the actual performance must have been a real knock-out. We need more 'diabolic music' everywhere.
Not destroy all rational thought but put in proportion the 1/10 of the iceberg that appears above the water.
all best