Now You Know

Let me explain William S. Burroughs' cut-up method to all of you through his own words. Here are some excerpts that describe the technique
so that ya'll will know what I mean when I say I do cut ups.

"The cut-up method brings to writers the collage, which has been used by painters for fifty years. ...And photographers will tell you that often their best shots are accidents... writers will tell you the same. ...All writing is in fact cut-ups. ...You cannot will spontaneity."

"Cut-ups are for everyone. Anybody can maje cut-ups. It is experimental in the sense of being something to do. Right here, write now. Not something to talk and argue about. Greek philosophers assumed logically that an object twice as heavy as another object would fall twice as fast. it did not occur to them to push the two objects off the table and see how they fall. cut the words and see how they fall. Shakespeare Rimbaud live in their words. Cut the world lines and you will hear their oices. CUT-UPS OFTEN COME THROUGH AS CODED MESSAGES WITH SPECIAL MEANING FOR THE CUTTER."

"All writing is in fact cut-ups. A collage of words read heard overheard. What else? Use of scissors renders the process explicit and subject to extension and variation. Clear classical prose can be compose entirely of rearranged cut-ups. Cutting and rearranging a page of written words introduces a new dimension into writing enabling the writer to turn images in cinematic variation. Images shift sense under the scissors smell images to sound sight to sound sound to kinesthetic. this is where Rimbaud was going with his color of vowels. And his 'systematic derangments of senses.' The place of mescaline hallucination: seeing colors tasting sounds smelling forms."

Ok, so I guess Burroughs' own words don't really explain the method so much as the philosphy behind it. So here's the deal: I take quotes from other people's writing--song lyrics, poetry, prose, my own work--and LITERALLY cut up the lines. I pick the sentences/phrases out of a hat at random and write them down. This produces a piece of cut-up literature. I then go back, reread it, add some pronouns, take out some prepositions, do what I got to do to make the sentences into actual sentences. (This actually does not take as much time as one might think. Most of the sentences are already structurally sound and make sense on their own.) I then go back one more time and attempt to make the verb tenses agree with one another.

As for the fold-in method--this is a variation of the cut-up technique. I write down the phrases in two columns on a piece of lined paper. I get two full pages of writing down. This leaves me with four columns of random phrases. I then fold the pages in half and line up the columns to produce a piece of writing.

It's all about being random. Through chaos comes order.

So, now you know. Peace.