While this is not the first book to be written about Brion Gysin, it is the first attempt to tell the story of his life.

The multimedia artist, poet and novelist Brion Gysin may be the most influential cultural figure of the twentieth century that most people have never heard of.

Gysin (1916-1986) was an English-born, Canadian-raised, naturalized American of Swiss descent, who lived most of his life in Morocco and France. He went everywhere when the going was good, seeking to fulfill the "magician's role" that he had chosen for himself. He dabbled with surrealism in Paris in the 1930s, lived in the "Interzone" of Tangier in the 1950s and traveled the Algerian Sahara with Sheltering Sky author Paul Bowles before moving into the legendary Beat Hotel in Paris.

Gysin's ideas influenced generations of artists, musicians and writers, among them David Bowie, Keith Haring, Patti Smith, Michael Stipe, Genesis P-Orridge, John Giorno and Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones. None was touched more profoundly than William S. Burroughs, who said admiringly of Gysin: "There was something dangerous about what he was doing."

I can certainly agree with that. Don't want to shell out $$ for the book? I've posted numerous links about the man @ linkfilter.

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