243: Kill the Word

I’m really quite behind on the blogging now; this will not do.  I’ve just finished and posted that bizarre thing about eating insects, and suddenly realised that only counts as yesterday’s.  Still got another one to do for today.  And this is it, here and now.  Wednesday.  On top of that I have a vague feeling I missed one out a couple of weeks ago that I never caught up on.  Fortunately I noted on the calendar each time I should be adding another one hundred to the tally.  Initially I intended to post every day on the day.  Now I think it not so important if I miss out a day, as long as I catch up the next day, and don’t let it slip away.  That way if I really don’t have the time or energy I will not risk posting complete rubbish (as I have in the past).  Since I loosened that strict rule I think the blog has improved; moved from bored rants and tired whingeing, towards articles and reviews (with lots of pretty pictures).

I just googled William Burroughs shotgun art (images) because I am thinking of writing a blog on the subject, but right now I am more interested by some of the random elements that this search has thrown up.  A bewildering (too easily bewildered?) array of trashy book covers that have to be reproduced here (as well as some unsettling pictures of fat American men in their pants, playing with guns).  And when the time comes to write about Burroughs’ shotgun art, I will get off my arse and grab the book off the shelf: Ports of Entry: William Burroughs and the Arts.

Of course Junkie: the Confessions of an Unredeemed Drug Addict by William Lee, is actually the first book by William Burroughs (Lee being his mother's maiden name).  Presumably the other silly book covers were pulled up in the search due to a close proximity to a caption about Burroughs.  I could easily slip back into the insect theme of the last blog post, if I continue down the Burroughs route.  Heroin.  Accidental matricide.  Young men.  Or I could interpret my interest in the secondary pictures (over the primary search images of shotgun art) as a reaction to Burroughs’ concept of the cut-up technique drawing together disparate images and text into a new whole.

Cut word lines – Cut music lines – Smash the control images – Smash the control machine – Burn the books – Kill the priests – Kill! Kill! Kill!

– The Soft Machine, 1961

Yes, that is what I was doing.  I was killing the word, a revolutionary act against the ultimate clandestine control system.  When we free ourselves from the spoken word, written word and thought word, and can think and communicate in pure conceptual imagery we will finally be free!  That is what I was doing.  If you thought I was just easily distracted by things that stand out, and trying to kill a few hundred words, you were sooo wrong.

For anyone keeping score expect soon a blog about Burroughs shotgun art, a follow-up to the post about the opening night of No Offence Intended at BLANKSPACE, and possibly, just maybe, a post about eating Potted Wood Shrimp...