::: Cut-ups :::
Dan Clore
At a surrealist rally in the 1920s Tristan Tzara the man from
nowhere proposed to create a poem on the spot by pulling words
out of a hat. A riot ensued wrecked the theater. Andre Breton
expelled Tristan Tzara from the movement and grounded the
cut-ups on the Freudian couch.
In the summer of 1959 Brion Gysin painter and writer cut
newspaper articles into sections and rearranged the sections at
random. "Minutes to Go" resulted from this initial cut-up
experiment. "Minutes to Go" contains unedited unchanged cut-ups
emerging as quite coherent and meaningful prose.
The cut-up method brings to writers the collage, which has been
used by painters for fifty years. And used by the moving and still
camera. In fact all street shots from movie or still cameras are by
the unpredictable factors of passersby and juxtaposition cut-ups.
And photographers will tell you that often their best shots are
accidents…writers will tell you the same. The best writing seems to
be done almost by accident but writers until the cut-up method was
made explicit—all writing is in fact cut-ups; I will return to this
point—had no way to produce the accident of spontaneity. You
cannot will spontaneity. But you can introduce the unpredictable
spontaneous factor with a pair of scissors.
The method is simple. Here is one way to do it. Take a page.
Like this page. Now cut down the middle and across the middle.
You have four sections: 1 2 3 4... one two three four. Now rearrange
the sections placing section four with section one and section two
with section three. And you have a new page. Sometimes it says
much the same thing. Sometimes something quite different –
cutting up political speeches is an interesting exercise – in any
case you will find that it says something and something quite
definite. Take any poet or writer you fancy. Here, say, or poems
you have read over many times. The words have lost meaning and
life through years of repetition. Now take the poem and type out
selected passages. Fill a page with excerpts. Now cut the page.
You have a new poem. As many poems as you like. As many
Shakespeare Rimbaud poems as you like. Tristan Tzara said:
"Poetry is for everyone." And Andre Breton called him a cop and
expelled him from the movement. Say it again: "Poetry is for
everyone." Poetry is a place and it is free to all cut up Rimbaud and
you are in Rimbaud's place. Here is a Rimbaud poem cut up.
"Visit of memories. Only your dance and your voice house. On
the suburban air improbable desertions... all harmonic pine for
strife.
"The great skies are open. Candor of vapor and tent spitting
blood laugh and drunken penance.
"Promenade of wine perfume opens slow bottle.
"The great skies are open. Supreme bugle burning flesh children
to mist."
Cut-ups are for everyone. Anybody can make 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 word lines and you will hear their voices. Cut-ups
often come through as code messages with special meaning for the
cutter. Table tapping? Perhaps. Certainly an improvement on the
usual deplorable performances of contacted poets through a
medium. Rimbaud announces himself, to be followed by some
excruciatingly bad poetry. Cut Rimbaud's words and you are
assured of good poetry at least if not personal appearance.
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
composed 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 derangement of the
senses." The place of mescaline hallucination: seeing colors
tasting sounds smelling forms.
The cut-ups can be applied to other fields than writing. Dr
Neumann in his Theory of Games and Economic Behavior
introduces the cut-up method of random action into game and
military strategy. assume that the worst has happened and act
accordingly. If your strategy is at some point deter- mined... by
random factor your opponent will gain no advantage from knowing
your strategy since he cannot predict the move. The cut-up method
could be used to advantage in processing scientific data. How
many discoveries have been made by accident? We cannot
produce accidents to order. The cut-ups could add new dimension
to films. Cut gambling scene in with a thousand gambling scenes
all times and places. Cut back. Cut streets of the world. Cut and
rear- range the word and image in films. There is no reason to
accept a second- rate product when you can have the best. And
the best is there for all. "Poetry is for everyone"...
Now here are the preceding two paragraphs cut into four
sections and rearranged:
ALL WRITING IS IN FACT CUT-UPS OF GAMES AND
ECONOMIC BEHAVIOR OVERHEARD? WHAT ELSE? ASSUME
THAT THE WORST HAS HAPPENED EXPLICIT AND SUBJECT
TO STRATEGY IS AT SOME POINT CLASSICAL PROSE.
CUTTING AND REARRANGING FACTOR YOUR OPPONENT
WILL GAIN INTRODUCES A NEW DIMENSION YOUR
STRATEGY. HOW MANY DISCOVERIES SOUND TO
KINESTHETIC? WE CAN NOW PRODUCE ACCIDENT TO HIS
COLOR OF VOWELS. AND NEW DIMENSION TO FILMS CUT
THE SENSES. THE PLACE OF SAND. GAMBLING SCENES ALL
TIMES COLORS TASTING SOUNDS SMELL STREETS OF THE
WORLD. WHEN YOU CAN HAVE THE BEST ALL: ''POETRY IS
FOR EVERYONE" DR NEUMANN IN A COLLAGE OF WORDS
READ HEARD INTRODUCED THE CUT-UP SCISSORS RENDERS
THE PROCESS GAME AND MILITARY STRATEGY, VARIATION
CLEAR AND ACT ACCORDINGLY. IF YOU POSED ENTIRELY OF
REARRANGED CUT DETERMINED BY RANDOM A PAGE OF
WRITTEN WORDS NO ADVANTAGE FROM KNOWING INTO
WRITER PREDICT THE MOVE. THE CUT VARIATION IMAGES
SHIFT SENSE ADVANTAGE IN PROCESSING TO SOUND SIGHT
TO SOUND. HAVE BEEN MADE BY ACCIDENT IS WHERE
RIMBAUD WAS GOING WITH ORDER THE CUT-UPS COULD
"SYSTEMATIC DERANGEMENT'' OF THE GAMBLING SCENE IN
WITH A TEA HALLUCINATION : SEEING AND PLACES. CUT
BACK. CUT FORMS. REARRANGE THE WORD AND IMAGE TO
OTHER FIELDS THAN WRITING.
– William Burroughs
--
---------------------------------------------------
Dan Clore
The Website of Lord Weÿrdgliffe:
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/9879/index.html
Welcome to the Waughters....
The Dan Clore Necronomicon Page:
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/9879/necpage.htm
Because the true mysteries cannot be profaned....
"Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!"
Charlie Diaz
Anyone know of a simple software program out there for Mac that
randomizes text I input?
How about a randomizer for whatever kind of data I feed it, ie
sound, video, text.
Hail Eris,
Charlie.
In a previous article, cl...@columbia-center.org (Dan Clore) says:
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mz_informed
bk...@lafn.org (Charlie Diaz) wrote:
>
> Anyone know of a simple software program out there for Mac that
> randomizes text I input?
> How about a randomizer for whatever kind of data I feed it, ie
> sound, video, text.
>
> Hail Eris,
> Charlie.
>
Charlie, If you have Quark XPress there is an Xtension named Jabberwocky that
will do that. It is limited in that it works with the vocabulary that you
define but does kick out some interesting stuff. Email me if you want a copy
and I'll send it your way. The one I have is for Macintosh and is less than
64k in size. Happy First of Discord!
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Jaden
>
> Anyone know of a simple software program out there for Mac that
> randomizes text I input?
> How about a randomizer for whatever kind of data I feed it, ie
> sound, video, text.
I don't know about video and text, but IBM Simply Speaking sure does randomize
whatever you dictate into it.
---------------------------------------
Jaden ~ ja...@ufl.edu
*Suspicion Breeds Confidence*
www.eriswerks.org
There is no enemy
anywhere
Geoff Spear
: randomizes text I input?
you want MacPoet. it's not explicitly Discordian, but anyone into Dadaism
today who isn't a Discordian most likely just hasn't heard of us. it does
all sorts of randomization and text generation, and is but far the best
piece of software every written by anyone.
you can find it on info-mac.
--
geoff spear | please respond via snail mail;
http://www.pitt.edu/~ghsst6/ | i don't use computers.