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Saturday, May 12th, 2012
This passage, from a Nov. 1960 letter from Billy to Brion, I am finding almost unbearably perfect, evoking disparate threads from Beckett to Carroll to Pynchon... This needs to be quoted in bold and with underlining (some editorial, some present in the "original"). Burroughs is pitching an idea for Brion to write in the voice of Hassan-i Sabbah, for Reader's Digest...
LOOK OUT at all times. See what was in front of you. Can a man see what is front of him with all his friends and enemies talking in his ear? Stop talking to yourself. Ah this shocks you? Listen: Words should be your servants. Use them. Do not let them use you. And when you do not need them send them to sleep. How to? Learn to know the word your servant. Look at words. Listen. Listen out at all time. Look and listen out at all times. Take any simple phrase like I am That I am. Repeat it. Now pass it back and forth through a sieve of punctuation. See the words changing meaning as the period rotates. Now change the position of the words. Now translate into other languages. You are stuck in word slots. You do not hear. Cut the word lines. And step out into silence. It is yours. It is everybody's. You do not see the trees when you walk down the street because of ‘The ’‘Word ’‘Tree’. Look at the word tree. Look? at the word tree. Look at? the word tree. Look at the? word tree. Look at the word? tree. Word look at the tree? Tree look at the word? Etc. Now look at the tree and you will see the tree not the word tree. You will begin to see everything sharp and clear like after a rain.
posted morning of May 12th, 2012: Respond
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Prak nodded again."Forty-two," he said, "yes, that's right." He paused. Shadows of thought and memory crossed his face like the shadows of clouds crossing the land.
Today begins the final week of my forty-second year of life.
posted morning of May 12th, 2012: Respond
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Friday, May 11th, 2012
Two things to consider:
- Most people who will be reading this book will know who Brion is without being told every time the name appears that it is Brion [Gysin] and likewise that it is [Maurice] Girodias...
- Even if that were not the case (and to be sure there are more obscure references that you clarify), the clarification could easily be done in a less intrusive manner than the bracketed insertions you use throughout, which tend to wreak havoc with the slack meter and the smooth readability of Burroughs' composition.
Other than that, on the other hand, it is a wonderful read, and a great resource to have on hand; so thanks!
posted evening of May 11th, 2012: Respond
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Thursday, May 10th, 2012
It seems that M. was hurrying home after swallowing his mescaline tablet with hot tea in a cafe -- too cheap to support a hot plate you dig -- and he met B in the market and he had met B before but never seen him as hardly anyone does see him which is why he is known as El Hombre Invisible -- So B. said "Ah Monsieur M., Sit down and have a coffee and watch the passing parade...." and M. shook him off saying: "No! No! I must go home and see my visions" and he rushed home and closed the door and bolted it and drew the curtains and turned out the lights and got into bed and closed his eyes and there was Mr. B. and Mr. M. said: "What are you doing here in my vision?"And B replied: "Oh I live here."
love
william burroughs (letter to Allen Ginsberg, Oct. 30 1959)
posted evening of May 10th, 2012: Respond
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Wednesday, May 9th, 2012
 Don't Care didn't care. Reading and thinking about Sendak in the last couple of days (and particularly this post from Erica Friedman at the Hooded Utilitarian) have made me remember this post from last summer. (Read the whole thing.) What a fantastic nursery rhyme!
posted evening of May 9th, 2012: Respond
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Tuesday, May 8th, 2012
There are so many beautiful things in the world which I will have to leave when I die, but I'm ready, I'm ready, I'm ready.
posted evening of May 8th, 2012: Respond
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Monday, May 7th, 2012
Happy birthday, Mr. P!
posted evening of May 7th, 2012: 1 response
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Sunday, May 6th, 2012
This weekend I am noticing punch lines in my reading. I read two stories by David Foster Wallace -- "Mister Squishy" which I found to be beautiful, engaging writing but lacking in punch lines, and "The Soul is not a Smithy", which is my new favorite DFW and which abounds in brilliant punch lines; now am reading and enjoying a novel by Julian Barnes called The Sense of an Ending, which actually, coincidentally, has a fair bit in common with "The Soul is not a Smithy", at least on first impressions. I got a good laugh out of this punch line, delivered as Barnes' narrator is recounting his youthful efforts to find a girlfriend:
Some girls allowed more: you heard of those who went in for mutual masturbation, others who permitted "full sex,"as it was known. You couldn't appreciate the gravity of that "full" unless you'd had a lot of the half-empty kind.
posted morning of May 6th, 2012: Respond
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Click through for more. via the House of Substance.
posted morning of May 6th, 2012: Respond
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Saturday, May 5th, 2012
I got a nice, impressionistic photo in the course of this morning's bike ride (up to West Orange, down to Millburn, up through the Reservation and meet Ellen on top of South Mountain) -- a street light on South Orange Ave. under the cloudy sky.
posted morning of May 5th, 2012: Respond
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