burroughs and cage
i find john cage's williams mix very interesting and not altogether unpleasant to listen to. the method of "composition" that he used is analogous in literature to william s. burroughs' cut-ups, which he created by taking poetry, news articles, etc., and cutting them up to rearrange them into a "chance" piece. here is a link to a good burroughs resource.here is a link to an online java cut-up machine, which doesn't work very well but might be interesting to play with. here is an example i made with psalm 137 and a transcript of israeli soldiers killing a ten year old girl:
yea, Zion. the LORD'S If I cunning. not remember thee, to art he be, that rewardeth he thy little ones is inappropriate embankment, 250 meters from on a girl under from are more soldiers.
OP: Receive. Looks see She’s down. Right and head. Over.
HQ: Roger.
CC [on general even be killed. Over. that of us mirth, saying, Sing song in a strange my Jerusalem; who said, Rase it, to be destroyed; happy near a young girl. She’s now location.
[Gunfire]
OP: She’s now behind of toward her now. They are out?
SENTRY: Affirmative, with a squad] . . wearing pants . I also confirmed the down, hanged in the midst thereof. required they that wasted her my of my mouth; if Remember, Edom in the shall the an Arab female about gate.
HEADQUARTERS: see it?
OBSERVATION POST: right Approximately to HQ.
HQ: Receiving, over.
OP: right her.
SENTRY: Our troops you she Me and another soldier kill!
cc killed her. She zone, By the rivers of Babylon, our harps upon the How thee, O Jerusalem, let my tongue cleave to the O as thou hast served us. stones. SENTRY: We of barracks. She keeps running east. a ten-year-old girl.
HQ: Roger.
OP: company one of the positions dropped isn’t moving.
COMPANY COMMANDER [to had band]: Any motion, anyone who We carried us away captive required us one of let I chief joy. of rase it, even against 100 the light armored vehicle it’s running east.
HQ: What ten?
OP: She’s fear, the hits are storming around 70 meters now are Forward, to confirm the . . . jeans we wept, when we remembered For there they land? If I do prefer not Jerusalem above shall be, that taketh and dasheth meters below our emplacement, an her.
HQ: Are you talking about behind the embankment, dying few the hit? Is she down?
OP: going in. [To the kill. if it’s a three-year-old, should there we sat us songs shall we sing the forget right hand forget day the daughter of Babylon, who thee Happy Affirmative, her the authorized zone.
SENTRY: Very the The hits are are her.
HQ: commander and his squad like her.
HQ: What, did has a a kaffiyeh on her communications moves in the willows of us a song; and of Zion. roof O LORD, the children of foundation thereof. spotted Observation post “Spain,” do you position?
OP: She’s currently north OP on her, a centimeter from I understand that the HQ]: [to HQ]: We fired and vest, shirt. Also she
ok that sucks, but my question is this: have i written a poem? i don't believe that i have, and while i think that these works can certainly be called art, i don't want to call chance-music music.
when burroughs created his cut-ups, he viewed them as being kind of prophetic:
I remember a cut-up I made in Paris years later: "Raw peeled winds of hate and mischance blew the shot." And for years I thought this referred to blowing a shot of junk, when the junk squirts out the side of the syringe or dropper owing to an obstruction. Brion Gysin pointed out the actual meaning: the shot that killed Joan.
(burroughs accidentally killed his wife.) i think that passage from "queer" reminds me of john cage using the i ching to create his audio cut-ups.
last night i was at the bar and i had this discussion with a friend, and he had a pile of money there on the bar. i picked it up and threw it on the bar and it fell in some arbitrary pattern, and i asked whether that could be considered art. and then i picked it up and arranged it into what could have seemed a chance design, but was actually created with intent. is that art? i would say that asthetics have very little to do with art-- i mean if you think somethings ugly you can't just say that it isn't art, whether it's something grotesque or just a clumsy drawing by a child. but imagine some compa
ny coming up with a new product, like a comb, and it just so happens that it looks really beautiful. does that make it art? if art is subjective, then anyone who doesn;t like your work can just say that it's not art. so i think that it has more to do with intent.
and john cage certainly intended to create williams mix in laying out a certain specific pattern, but did he intend for it to come out sounding the way it did?
update 4/4/06: well, somebody in germany made the connection... i don't speak german, but with the help of google translator i got the gist of it.
OP: Receive. Looks see She’s down. Right and head. Over.
HQ: Roger.
CC [on general even be killed. Over. that of us mirth, saying, Sing song in a strange my Jerusalem; who said, Rase it, to be destroyed; happy near a young girl. She’s now location.
[Gunfire]
OP: She’s now behind of toward her now. They are out?
SENTRY: Affirmative, with a squad] . . wearing pants . I also confirmed the down, hanged in the midst thereof. required they that wasted her my of my mouth; if Remember, Edom in the shall the an Arab female about gate.
HEADQUARTERS: see it?
OBSERVATION POST: right Approximately to HQ.
HQ: Receiving, over.
OP: right her.
SENTRY: Our troops you she Me and another soldier kill!
cc killed her. She zone, By the rivers of Babylon, our harps upon the How thee, O Jerusalem, let my tongue cleave to the O as thou hast served us. stones. SENTRY: We of barracks. She keeps running east. a ten-year-old girl.
HQ: Roger.
OP: company one of the positions dropped isn’t moving.
COMPANY COMMANDER [to had band]: Any motion, anyone who We carried us away captive required us one of let I chief joy. of rase it, even against 100 the light armored vehicle it’s running east.
HQ: What ten?
OP: She’s fear, the hits are storming around 70 meters now are Forward, to confirm the . . . jeans we wept, when we remembered For there they land? If I do prefer not Jerusalem above shall be, that taketh and dasheth meters below our emplacement, an her.
HQ: Are you talking about behind the embankment, dying few the hit? Is she down?
OP: going in. [To the kill. if it’s a three-year-old, should there we sat us songs shall we sing the forget right hand forget day the daughter of Babylon, who thee Happy Affirmative, her the authorized zone.
SENTRY: Very the The hits are are her.
HQ: commander and his squad like her.
HQ: What, did has a a kaffiyeh on her communications moves in the willows of us a song; and of Zion. roof O LORD, the children of foundation thereof. spotted Observation post “Spain,” do you position?
OP: She’s currently north OP on her, a centimeter from I understand that the HQ]: [to HQ]: We fired and vest, shirt. Also she
ok that sucks, but my question is this: have i written a poem? i don't believe that i have, and while i think that these works can certainly be called art, i don't want to call chance-music music.
when burroughs created his cut-ups, he viewed them as being kind of prophetic:
I remember a cut-up I made in Paris years later: "Raw peeled winds of hate and mischance blew the shot." And for years I thought this referred to blowing a shot of junk, when the junk squirts out the side of the syringe or dropper owing to an obstruction. Brion Gysin pointed out the actual meaning: the shot that killed Joan.
(burroughs accidentally killed his wife.) i think that passage from "queer" reminds me of john cage using the i ching to create his audio cut-ups.
last night i was at the bar and i had this discussion with a friend, and he had a pile of money there on the bar. i picked it up and threw it on the bar and it fell in some arbitrary pattern, and i asked whether that could be considered art. and then i picked it up and arranged it into what could have seemed a chance design, but was actually created with intent. is that art? i would say that asthetics have very little to do with art-- i mean if you think somethings ugly you can't just say that it isn't art, whether it's something grotesque or just a clumsy drawing by a child. but imagine some compa
ny coming up with a new product, like a comb, and it just so happens that it looks really beautiful. does that make it art? if art is subjective, then anyone who doesn;t like your work can just say that it's not art. so i think that it has more to do with intent.and john cage certainly intended to create williams mix in laying out a certain specific pattern, but did he intend for it to come out sounding the way it did?
update 4/4/06: well, somebody in germany made the connection... i don't speak german, but with the help of google translator i got the gist of it.
posted by jonboynemo @ 10:05 AM
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