Talk:The "Priest" they called him
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[edit] Rewrite
I just rewrote this entry, it was in a terrible mess - spelling errors, incorrect capitalization, unencyclopedic narrative style, not enough links, shoddy interpretation, etc. -- Moe Aboulkheir 03:17, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
[edit] the immaculate fix
I think it is debatable whether the Priest's cause of death was some sort of mystical drugless overdose or the result of extreme opiate withdrawal (in a WSB piece, both are possible; stranger things have happened in WSB works than drugless overdoses). I haven't edited this bit in the article because this is a tough call, considering the Burroughsian abstractness of the story. The ending of the story is as follows (punctuation & capitalization added by me for readability, based on WSB's performance in the recording; the text, as published in Exterminator! is mostly devoid of punctuation and capitalization):
- He [the Priest] went back to his room and sat down on the bed. Then it hit him like heavy silent snow: all the grey junk yesterdays. He sat there and received the immaculate fix. And since he was himself a priest, there was no need to call one.
Marksman45 08:04, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
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- I wrote the drugless overdose bit - it seems pretty clear to me from the religious overtones of the story and the phrase "immaculate fix" that the inebriation of the Priest was intended as karmic payback for the self-sacrifice of him relinquishing his drugs to the withdrawing Mexican. The fact that he died was incidental, the word "fix" doesn't imply death at all - if the Priest was about to die from opiate withdrawal (which is rarely fatal), then a fix would have saved his life, not killed him. Moe Aboulkheir 23:35, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
- See, I still don't know... "Immaculate fix" sounds to me like a Burroughs-ism for death. Burroughs talks a lot throughout his ouevre about how the "pleasure" of a fix is merely the absence of the pain of withdrawal, and extends this further to say that all pleasure is merely the absence of pain. And then in death, of course, all pain is removed from a person as all life is; it seems to me that this could be described as an "immaculate fix." Death from withdrawal is definitely rare, but this is Burroughs we're talking about... it's also pretty rare to pick up a suitcase in a lobby and discover a pair of severed legs inside (I also think there's something to similarity of the description of the severed legs to the description of the Mexican's legs, especially given the poem that immediately follows the story in Exterminator! -- but this is material for an essay, not an article). I'm not going to change it, at least at this point in time, because the drugless overdose definitely makes sense in the context; I just still personally lean towards withdrawal. Have you heard any other interpretations? I'd like to hear some more opinions thrown in. Marksman45 06:42, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
- I also noticed the similar descriptions of the severed legs and the knotted legs of the Mexican. If I was prone to such paroxysms, I would note that the Priest redeems the legs for the drugs and then relieves the pain in the legs of the boy by handing over the drugs. Some kind of karmic smash and grab going on here - anyway, as you said, it's up to some other asshole to write the essay on that. You're right, it's probably foolish to try to apply reason to the effects of drugs in the story. I haven't heard any other interpretations, and the one I reflected in the article was the first that occured to me (I didn't even consider the possibility of a more prosaic explanation). If I hear any others, I'll let you know. Moe Aboulkheir 21:40, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
- So now I wonder, what exactly do we put in the article to avoid Original Research? The thing is so damned open to interpretation. I wonder if anyone has written an essay about this piece that we can reference. I'll google it to see if'n I can find anything. Marksman45 12:05, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
- Good call - I'm thinking if you can't find an essay, the closing sentence should be changed to something like "...the Priest returns to his room, reclines on his bed and dies from what Burroughs calls the immaculate fix" - leaving the interpretation up to the reader. Moe Aboulkheir 13:16, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
- Over 200 google results failed to turn up anything useful, so I'm gonna go with your suggestion. Marksman45 21:50, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
- Good call - I'm thinking if you can't find an essay, the closing sentence should be changed to something like "...the Priest returns to his room, reclines on his bed and dies from what Burroughs calls the immaculate fix" - leaving the interpretation up to the reader. Moe Aboulkheir 13:16, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
- So now I wonder, what exactly do we put in the article to avoid Original Research? The thing is so damned open to interpretation. I wonder if anyone has written an essay about this piece that we can reference. I'll google it to see if'n I can find anything. Marksman45 12:05, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
- I also noticed the similar descriptions of the severed legs and the knotted legs of the Mexican. If I was prone to such paroxysms, I would note that the Priest redeems the legs for the drugs and then relieves the pain in the legs of the boy by handing over the drugs. Some kind of karmic smash and grab going on here - anyway, as you said, it's up to some other asshole to write the essay on that. You're right, it's probably foolish to try to apply reason to the effects of drugs in the story. I haven't heard any other interpretations, and the one I reflected in the article was the first that occured to me (I didn't even consider the possibility of a more prosaic explanation). If I hear any others, I'll let you know. Moe Aboulkheir 21:40, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
- See, I still don't know... "Immaculate fix" sounds to me like a Burroughs-ism for death. Burroughs talks a lot throughout his ouevre about how the "pleasure" of a fix is merely the absence of the pain of withdrawal, and extends this further to say that all pleasure is merely the absence of pain. And then in death, of course, all pain is removed from a person as all life is; it seems to me that this could be described as an "immaculate fix." Death from withdrawal is definitely rare, but this is Burroughs we're talking about... it's also pretty rare to pick up a suitcase in a lobby and discover a pair of severed legs inside (I also think there's something to similarity of the description of the severed legs to the description of the Mexican's legs, especially given the poem that immediately follows the story in Exterminator! -- but this is material for an essay, not an article). I'm not going to change it, at least at this point in time, because the drugless overdose definitely makes sense in the context; I just still personally lean towards withdrawal. Have you heard any other interpretations? I'd like to hear some more opinions thrown in. Marksman45 06:42, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
- I wrote the drugless overdose bit - it seems pretty clear to me from the religious overtones of the story and the phrase "immaculate fix" that the inebriation of the Priest was intended as karmic payback for the self-sacrifice of him relinquishing his drugs to the withdrawing Mexican. The fact that he died was incidental, the word "fix" doesn't imply death at all - if the Priest was about to die from opiate withdrawal (which is rarely fatal), then a fix would have saved his life, not killed him. Moe Aboulkheir 23:35, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
