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| William S. Burroughs (1914-1997), American writer, artist, and major cultural figure of the 20th century |
First there are the utopias
Protected places and open, exposed places;
Something that goes by
What do you see?
When I look at myself
In search of the most accidental treasures
This problem of the human
Itself in a perfected form
In the memory of a machine
It is perhaps the only trace of our existence
-which is still experimentation-
DO NOT RETURN
I have read
There where I am not. The space that claws and gnaws
There is a light, ethereal
I have read
-if only because an unconsciously penetrated space is substituted for a space
Consciously explored
The place where I am
Will perhaps be
DO NOT
Will be enough, I shall come back
I see myself over there
There where I am not
DO NOT ATTEMPT
Do not operate
You will understand why
In such a space the place
Behind the surface, where I am absent
-I hope I can promise you-
I have read
I am over there
DO NOT
See myself there
A sort of shadow
Not a ground but a horizon
The space of our dreams
I come back toward myself
With an agitated and bitter approval
I begin again
SPEAKING A NEW LANGUAGE
The transition to actual movement and
Particularly a girl on point in pink ballet shoes
Is visible for an instant, then fades
Flashing red before disappearing
And art lovers admire their graceful
(You fill in the blank)
Against a background of pale iridescent green
Captured at home in various states of dress and undress, they
Mostly without our awareness.
All rights reserved.
The woman eating breakfast,
With disdain and willful negligence,
Makes their brevity more poignant
But there is also a renewed appetite for real
Receiving new attention
For sleepless nights
Once upon a time
In the seventies
A mother and her child
Are mutating into something new
Pay special attention to personal names
All rights reserved.
They lie with legs bent
It’s not “Gone With the Wind”
(All rights reserved.)
It’s hard not to notice the similarities between the
Renewed appetite
Once the favourite of British schoolchildren
And I had to pretend that I’d known that all along
He created a deluxe edition
(All rights reserved.)
A raucously entertaining
Deluxe edition
With that weird lust in his eyes and bits of brain matter in the cracks of his teeth
There’s so much to choose from
Some areas are suffering
Shall not be liable for any loss, actions, claims, proceedings, demand, or costs or damages whatsoever
An option only for the very rich
All knowledge is theft
We all tell ourselves what we already know
Flashing along in rapid succession
They continued on their way, all rights reserved,
Never mentioning the incident again and living happily ever after.
It’s a slick inversion:
A clinical strategy that
For example,
Like a blown-up blossom from a funeral bouquet
Simply wanting to be seen
Couldn’t possibly have anticipated the megalomania
Enormous gilded bricks
They scoff at us for being old-fashioned
This project raises timeless questions
These are understandable questions
But require further inquiry
Every painting is sold,
All are to be congratulated.
Are you the next big thing?
From the sidewalk outside
Remember how fashions change
Of course,
Shoot and stuff endangered species
Expanding, bursting
Enormous gilded bricks
Described as an evolution
Revolution is the new black
It’s hard not to notice the similarities between
The weirdos and gypsies
Picking up the pieces of
Intellectual property
The pale ghost of an owl swaying
In a small-scale universe
Preserved in formaldehyde, exhibited
Register on our eyes as “real”
We tell ourselves what we already know
Such as spray paint or magic
Speaking a new language
Is quite difficult
Wearing a cardboard party crown
Knitted coats and blankets
This idea of living without dead time
Hardly functions as a comprehensive history
It measures the pulse
Of everything you purchase in the museum gift shop
Objects of desire
Correction:
We tell ourselves what we already know
That’s probably true
It was the story of my life.
Despite the mystical nature of further translation
This mode of observation may seem crude
In blasting an image
Out of the continuum of history
Some as yet unthinkable new
Ways of thinking
Threatens a collapse into
The ever-vanishing horizon of a spontaneous ‘now’
Trash is both relatively and absolutely greater
In big parades and monster rallies;
Our century has
Forgotten how to
Redeem the trash, the trivia
Seemingly unimportant details
Then there were the slot machines in bazaars;
A bird’s eye view best captures
The destruction of Babel.
Painting demanded universal knowledge
With pictures that flitted by
This is no history
Yet, inevitably
And once and for all,
In an apocalyptic event
In one move
Having blasted the moment
Makes it an art object
A failure of vision
Is there to be any hope of an escape
The event cannot be accounted for
“What is beautiful?”
Almost a torture
This is an impossible task.
This collection of
Vague echoes of recollection
Surfacing with something else even louder
There is nothing mystical about this
Riot sound effects can produce an actual riot
Lacking in surprises, stuck in a traffic jam
Something like the galaxy
Brightly lit by thousands of candles
To stay in
Expand outward and stand in position
To stay up
Refuse to live the present as a future memory
The thing is formed
Alchemistic manipulations in the darkroom
What are you doing
In the background: the secret lay elsewhere
And the life that you live in order to
Avoid the exaggeration
Written here and now
To stay out
Be very careful on these excursions
To the sea
Or the mountains
It was like a dream
Played backwards,
Disappearing from view
I’d see this thing through, even if it meant losing my mind
There was undoubtedly a connection
I think this might be
Your choice
When will I decide I have had enough
Struggle half-heartedly to work
To stay down
While all the rest disappears into the whiteness
-if only because an unconsciously penetrated space is substituted for a space consciously explored-
You are an animal
We all tell ourselves what we already know
Because it’s actually happening
Against a background
Of pale iridescent green
But the previous year it’s
Coming from the depth of memory
The following year it
Will be teeming with visitors
This project raises timeless questions about
The desire for novelty
The search for the most precious treasures
After the old out-house burned down in a brush fire
I would like to show you
And subvert and remix
Past and present will be revealed
Behind the surface;
While all the rest disappears into whiteness
But in fact is only an illusion
-I hope I can promise you-
Even in the belly of the beast
This problem of the human
-which is still experimentation-
Container and contained
With something else even louder
The image that emerges
(in blasting an image out of the continuum of history)
From such an exploration
It is perhaps
The only trace of our existence
It’s hard not to notice the similarities between the
Memory of a machine
And the life you live in order to
Shoot and stuff endangered species
Avoid the exaggerations
Our history occurs
The thing is formed
Intellectual property
Produced by the turning of a crank
Celebrate the abandonment which takes place here
I see myself over there
Flashing red before disappearing
The event cannot be accounted for
So
I begin again
There’s so much to choose from
If you made it through all that nonsense, congratulations! I cut out sentences and fragments from essays on art and philosophy, pulled out handfuls at a time from a bowl, and tried to arrange them thoughtfully.
It's meant to be an experiment; the human mind tries to make sense of information, even when no meaning is to be found.
If you have more time to kill, try this one:
Faced with any new object
I should like to point out
keep or hide their secrets
an age-old feature of the mechanism of the earth’s crust
He was awakened one midnight
Inwardly, it pained him
with relief, with humiliation, with terror, he understood
Everything we perceive as Art rings true
indeed, the Word always appears
shows the indigence of the Image
eroded and full of transitional form
He tried other analogous experiments, each more daring than the last
meditate on his abnormal privilege
In this deserted edifice a voice might give glory
give it too much thought
His life’s purpose was complete
complete oblivion
In general, his days were happy
In general, his days were happy
Every living creature has a built in mechanism
To give it too much thought
Indeed the word always appears
DISLIKES COMPARTMENTED ARGUMENTS
But somehow, to give it too much thought, I should like to point out the polemical nature of philosophy.
OUR PHILOSOPHER, dedicated to his dreams
Dislikes compartmented arguments, without deep, true, genuine roots
TO GIVE IT TOO MUCH THOUGHT
Troubled by the impression that this all had happened before
The magician suddenly remembered the words
Extremely simple signals, everyday language, shows the indigence of the image
He does it disdainfully
Dimmed by weariness, there is a superabundance of metaphor,
an ephemeral expression
THE CONCEPT SOON BECOMES LIFELESS
Lose their poetic possibilities, each more daring than the last
Only once, in passing
The smallest functioning mechanism
THEN the smoke which corroded the metallic nights
I always feels a slight shock, the dead laws of nature, a voice might give glory, fear for the future, the smoke, downstream to the god, AND YET,
what a success
The organic whole of living matter and also of life
He perceived the sounds and forms of the universe
with a certain colourlessness
Troubled with the impression that this all had happened before
One cannot exist
Before returning to intimacy
One cannot exist without the other, but for the task of generating information it simply WILL NOT DO
The child awaits me and will not exist if I do not go to him.
Knew that death was coming
An age-old feature of the mechanism of the earth’s crust, knew that death was coming
This is an artificially-made construction, it certainly will not do
As is well known,
Structure is a reality,
For the task of generating
Fear for the future
An ephemeral expression, it is not worth the trouble
Dimmed by the weariness
We must be careful through many leagues of inextricable jungle and swamp
Contrary to the imagination
His abnormal condition was that of a mere image
Always in the same way
No one would have seriously regarded the circus
The influence of personality on history
(or rather that all signs are to some degree both conventional and representational)
Now a metaphor gives concrete substance
Limb by limb and feature by feature
There is also a constant renewal
A continuation of the cosmic conflict between life and inert matter and
The smoke which corroded the metallic nights, rings true
Imagining the same rites, in other circular ruins
This same idea is expressed more clearly again
To convey the inadequacy of a philosophy
The concept soon becomes lifeless
Since, by definition, IT IS
We are constantly witnessing
Great dreamers of locks
Keep or hide their secrets
Traditional and newly-invented peep-shows, a continuation of the cosmic conflict between life and inert matter:
In the early years of this century
Amusement became a serious art, Along with a whole procession
Most ordinary, most commonplace,
a controversial metaphor, giving orders and
The magician carried out these orders of time
Passing judgment, always in the same way
A feeling of humiliation, of vertigo!
A universal of human culture, a phenomenon of being
Man persisted in a kind of ecstasy
At times, he was troubled by the impression that all this had happened before
And became a serious artFor this one, I cut out the phrases first, but the order they are presented is completely random. The power of choice was used only while cutting out the phrases. I kept going, and going, until I reached what felt like a conclusion.
I like exploring this technique, of trying to find meaning in random fragments; it feels like the way the brain tries to organize our memories.
A cut-up can distort meaning to try and create something new, however, the old
meaning (intended by the original writer) doesn't completely disappear; it remains, as a
faded memory or an imbedded fossil.
All art works this way and it is impossible to take away all context.
