him, is a born writer". Cooper, in return, wrote, in his essay 'King Junk', "along with Jean Genet, John Rechy, and Ginsberg, [Burroughs] helped make homosexuality seem cool and highbrow, providing gay liberation with a delicious edge". Splatterpunk writer Poppy Z. Brite has frequently referenced this aspect of Burroughs' work. Burroughs' writing continues to be referenced years after his death; for example, a November 2004 episode of the TV series CSI: Crime Scene Investigation included an evil character named Dr. Benway (named for an amoral physician who appears in a number of Burroughs' works.) This is an echo of the hospital scene in the movie Repo Man, made during Burroughs' life-time, in which both Dr. Benway and Mr. Lee (a Burroughs pen name) are paged. Burroughs had an impact on twentieth-century esotericism and occultism as well, most notably through disciples like Peter Lamborn Wilson and Genesis P-Orridge. Burroughs is also cited by Robert Anton Wilson as the first person to notice the "23 Enigma": Some research suggests that Burroughs is arguably the progenitor of the 2012 phenomenon, a belief of New Age Mayanism that an apocalyptic shift in human consciousness would occur at the end of the Mayan Long Count calendar in 2012. Although never directly focusing on the year 2012 himself, Burroughs had an influence on early 2012 proponents such as Terence McKenna and Jose Argüelles, and as well had written about an apocalyptic shift of human consciousness at the end of the Long Count as early as 1960's The Exterminator. Bibliography Footnotes References Sources . Further reading Published materials Allmer, Patricia and John Sears (ed.) Taking Shots: The Photography of William S. Burroughs, London: Prestel and The Photographers' Gallery, 2014. Charters, Ann (ed.). The Portable Beat Reader. New York: Penguin Books, 1992. (hc); (pbk). Gilmore, John. Laid Bare: A Memoir of Wrecked Lives and the Hollywood Death Trip. Searching for Rimbaud. Amok Books, 1997. Harris, Oliver. William Burroughs and the Secret of Fascination. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 2003. Johnson, Robert Earl. The Lost Years of William S. Burroughs: Beats in South Texas. Texas A&M University Press, 2006. Kashner, Sam, When I Was Cool, My Life at the Jack Kerouac School. New York: HarperCollins Perennial, 2005. Miles, Barry. William Burroughs: El Hombre Invisible: A Portrait. New York: Hyperion, 1993. Sargeant, Jack. Naked Lens: Beat Cinema. New York: Soft Skull Press, 2008 [1997] [2001]. Schneiderman, Davis and Philip