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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 (19161986) 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. 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."

It was Gysin who introduced the Rolling Stones to the exotica of Morocco and took Stones' guitarist Brian Jones to Jajouka where he recorded the tribal musicians performing the Pipes of Pan. It was Gysin who provided the hashish fudge recipe published in Alice B. Toklas' cookbook, promising "ecstatic reveries and extensions of one's personality on several simultaneous planes." It was Gysin who introduced Burroughs to an automatic writing method called the cut-up, a literary progenitor to sampling. And it was Gysin who developed-with Ian Sommerville, the Dream Machine-a device that allowed people, with the flick of a switch, to access altered states of consciousness without drugs.

Working with the authorization of Gysin's literary executor, William S. Burroughs, John Geiger has produced the first-ever biography of the painter, poet, piper Brion Gysin.

John Geiger's books have been published in eight languages. He recently contributed to the Thames & Hudson monograph Brion Gysin: Tuning in to the Multimedia Age.

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Whatever your budget, this jam-packed guide to traveling with (or without) your pet offers thousands of accommodations "from posh to primitive" where dogs and cats can happily unwind, whether it be at the kennel or accompanying you to the Beverly Hilton Hotel. A dash of information accompanies each accommodation listing, displaying contact information and the approximate price range. Detailed data on facilities and amenities are not listed in this guide--for these you must call the lodging in question. This is more than a list of where to stay--Travel with or Without Pets Guide also recommends pet- sitting services and veterinarians throughout the United States, Canada, and Mexico, making your vacation a more pleasant experience all round. --Naomi Gesinger.
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This book deals with the role of theater in Sri Lanka during the decade of the 1980s, a period of intense political violence and anomie which was known locally as bhisana kalaya, or the "time of terror." Yet even as an authoritarian government and antigovernment terrorist groups held the civilian population to ransom, theater was paradoxically permitted a great degree of freedom. Audiences flocked to theaters to see and hear satire, political innuendo, and open criticism of what was going on in society. In trying to understand this tolerance of criticism in the theater as opposed to other arenas, Ranjini Obeyesekere links it to the long tradition of satire in folk and ritual performances. She also explores the impact of Buddhism on the larger culture, which resulted in the rapid and early spread of literacy. This, together with the Buddhist tradition of skepticism and its space for questioning, created a critical attitude towards authority figures. In conclusion, the author sees today's highly politicized Sri Lankan society as a natural development of sociocultural forces that have a long history. A most unusual and absorbing book..
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