Performances mark 50th anniversary of “Naked Lunch”

Actor Peter Weller, poets John Giorno and Anne Waldman, and performance artist Penny Arcade are among the notables scheduled to appear Friday, August 28, at Thinkart Salon to mark the 50th anniversary of William S. Burroughs’s landmark novel Naked Lunch. Weller, who played Burroughs’s alter ego William Lee in David Cronenberg’s 1991 film version of the book, will headline “an evening of art, readings, happenings, and performances” to raise money for the new documentary William S. Burroughs: A Man Within, directed by Yony Leyser. The event will feature a preview screening of the documentary’s trailer as well as an exhibition of Burroughs’ efforts at visual art. Also on hand will be 60s radical William Ayers and James Grauerholz, Burroughs’s longtime secretary, sometime companion, editor, and estate executor. For more information, call 773-252-2294.