Word Virus: The William S. Burroughs Reader

by William S. Burroughs

  so many share old mirror all the old names waiting silver grey and out of focus mr martin smiles

  meester can be done and so easily

  well now to show you the pictures for example he looked through a pile of dusty slides humming before they found the mine was salted i was safe in the argentine so there

  a picture flickered on screen showing a general standing in an armored car from the magic lantern drifted riot noises and gun shots newspaper headlines flashed on revolt in the argentine the boy sat down on a dusty sofa

  so you see so many actors and so little action perhaps tomorrow typhoid epidemic in Sweden or was it switzerland and of course the middle east but thats rather dangerous and nobody wants to be mixed up in it you see its like agatha christie finding the last place anyone would expect anything to happen otherwise there simply isnt room canada yes definitely no one expects anything to happen in canada old man sits in 1920 spanish study stucco walls arch to a vaulted ceiling on desk of black oak is a cobra lamp and a crystal radio set the old man wears headphones and flickers in and out of focus

  old photographer trick young man see the pretty birdie smile remember subject freezes so i started snapping the picture just before i made with the pretty bird and using a loud false click just after so i already took the picture when they hear the click say ten seconds ago the pictures i got using this angle were much worse than usual they were in fact exactly pictures of the way someone looks when he hears the smile pretty birdie shutter click i was young and i wanted good pictures that was long ago 1920 tunes stir dust on the desk oh yes i found out how to get my good pictures and made a lot of money as a portrait photographer all i had to do was find out what words music picture odor brought out in my subject the face i wanted them i took the picture just before i played the music or whatever the cue was and the subject never knew when i took the picture since i still used the false click gimmick reaction time yes i went into that allowing for reaction time there was still that interval of a few seconds unaccounted for why you see i couldn’t just pick up the money and forget it i had to know and i found the answer the face moves in time you never photograph the present but always the future if you want a picture of how someone looks when a flashbulb pops you take a few seconds before the bulb pops i was taking pictures not of the face as it is but as it will be in a few seconds i was photographing the socalled future this could only mean that the future is already photographed and prerecorded then old fred flash came to call sitting right where youre sitting now

  well my boy youve put your foot in it now you see we dont pay our characters to shut up about what they already know we pay them not to find out we tried to pay you we tried to pay you just look at this house modern and convenient you find it so of course well you wouldn’t just pick up our money and go back to your pewter and your tulip bulbs you had to know why so now you know and you might as well know the rest if you can take a face a few seconds from now you can take a face a few years from now same gimmick pick a cue any cue always need a peg to hang it on remember its all a matter of timing just time just time all right you can take over my job now know who i am old fred flash i take the first picture and i take the last picture come along young man show you around the darkroom quite a few gimmicks to learn reversed negatives and all that now some of these negatives you see here just put on these infrared four eyes will develop tomorrow some have a long germination period seeds you might say and you know what will grow out of those seeds didnt you plant that corn later on when films start moving we say where i came in im en route to—dont ask questions for about three know goal almost blown all under good control just a matter of standing up under fire chinese rockets reading reliable gun shots old photographer trick preparation r2 and 212 and shutter clicks young boy thoughts routine 3mx four reliable frequency waves panama dust session was plunged into second boy walks on screen to eat a few peanuts and drink paregoric next fatal question i am dying meester age flakes fall before the audit number long long ago face dying just before clearing process never knew when im around the dark room negatives and all that auditor asks if you got my last hints from second gpm riot noises cool and clean deep into third goal which is right where youre sitting now have to stop and polish off second goal chinese characters had arrived it was time to shift commissions well you might as well know its all anyway at this writing the second time however last hints just time to show you around technology show you thirteen years of gimmicks to learn second reversed over and over mirror image breaks out third goal and so on learn it and use it your image shifted the other all under good control revolution standing up under fire

  all right heres one just took the picture old man standing in sepia long long ago called in to pay you all right so take over my stack of riot pictures some face picked out heres the album personality reshapes my pictures round up wars revolutions riots strikes and stockmarket crashes old old photographer trick in the magic lantern

  but really darling that sepia park fountains trees and oh yes me standing right there on third avenue

  superimposed cage of images reversed you can read

  i shant do anything tried that setup i already knew perhaps late on short notice

  well my boy youve put your trick in the darkroom concealed wheels spin the world reshapes of course riots wars revolutions stockmarket crashes are the easiest to take now it sometimes happens a situation arises or some character is suddenly important and you dont have all the pictures because you never figured anything could happen there then you have to go out and get those pictures on short notice thats when you need to know every trick in the darkroom and like all tricks they dont always work old fred flash is the difference between the camera and what the camera takes just time just time always need a peg to hang it on the way it will be your face where i came in all right what have you got just take over my job now well its all here in the files i remember all the pictures i take the first page and the last used to keep all the photos and they piled up and up millions and millions of old photos then microfilm then electron microscopes and then he picked up a handful of yellow crystals like pulverized amber virus crystals he held out his hand show you a thousand years chewing the same argument around and around birth and death have to kill the audience every few years to keep them in their seats heh heh heh just an old showman yep its here in the darkroom waiting birth and death always plenty of that i take the last picture simply dont see your face in the world there in his eyes baby the way it will be and dying eyes take the rest picture of me without you where the future plates develop photograph albums of interlocking wheels pay old man eyes pose a colorless question of some face over here youth harmonica music bare feet summer afternoons carnivals toy boats all the words and thoughts float there over the pictures young thoughts now thats a rare commodity like the poet say long long thoughts but never enough to go around

  your actors erased our marks in longagoboy the pilot eyes a dead world i really finished last cigar in ewyork onolulu aris ome oston death takes over the game so many actors buildings and stars laid flat pieces of finance over the golf course summer afternoons drift in a sepia cloud do you see the silver fountains word and music drifting from 1910 streets crowds in baghdad rising from the typewriter mr martin smiles sorrowful servant stood on the sea wall in sepia clouds of panama

  i am dying meester in the darkroom say good bye johnny yens last adios in and out of focus

  yep its all here in the grey room all the old names waiting for a live one saddest of all movies just listen to them this is the way the world ends voices frosted on the glass

  from the job

  THE AMERICAN NON-DREAM

  America is not so much a nightmare as a non-dream. The American non-dream is precisely a move to wipe the dream out of existence. The dream is a spontaneous happening and therefore dangerous to a control system set up by the non-dreamers. Experiments carried out by Doctor Gross in New York at the Mount Sinai Hospital indicate that any dream in the male is accompanie
d by erection. The non-dream program is specifically directed against the male principle. It is above all anti-sexual and anti-male.

  Any progress or system of thought must have ground to grow on and especially such a vegetable program as this dead hand stretching the vegetable people. The ground for the non-dream program was well laid by the turn of the century, ready for seeds which would yield in course of time hideous fruit. World Wars I, II, and III were already inevitable, given the basic formula of nationalism. The concomitant rise of communism would serve as pretext for more control measures while the communists would be driven to apply similar measures and thus serve the master plan. Let us look at some of the milestones in the anti-dream plan:

  The Oriental Exclusion Acts: The equanimity of the Chinese is, of course, due to their language which allows for periods of silence and undirected thought, quite intolerable to the non-dreamers who must program all thought. I have already spoken of the difference between hieroglyphic and syllabic writing. (If I hold up a sign on which the word “ROSE” is written, you must repeat the word sub-vocally. If I hold up a hieroglyphic sign for rose you do not have to repeat the word, and even have the option of silence.) Admittedly, two model control systems, the Mayan and the Egyptian, were based on hieroglyphic writing. However, these control systems were predicated on the illiteracy of the controlled. Universal literacy with a concomitant control of word and image is now the instrument of control. An essential feature of the Western control machine is to make language as non-pictorial as possible, to separate words as far as possible from objects or observable processes.

  The District Supervisor shabby office late afternoon shadow in his eyes calm and grey as a wise old rat handed a typed page across the desk

  Relations between human beings sexualizing congruent accessibility ambivalently fecundate with orifices perspectives is I feel to beg the question of contributory latent configurations reciprocally starved of direction or vector by the recognizable human remembrance of such approximate exasperations a desperately effete societal somnolence supine negation by any reputable informed latent consensus inherently commissioned with customary human techniques interweaving re-enactments of necessary correspondences inter-derivational from complementary internalizations confluently communicated reciprocal analogous metaphors with this relentlessly successful diagrammatic schemata delinquently recognizable juxtapositions to traduce or transfigure a pulsating multiplicity of contradictions inherent in linguistic engagements disproportionately flailing gritty colloquialisms edged with grammatic outrage bubbling beneath indispensably internalized concordance latterly derivative from scorned or pillage infantile suburban genitalia sexualizing exasperations into diagrammatically contrapunctual linguistically communicated multiplicity of otherness escalating the delinquent preparations in concomitantly banal privatization concentrates of irrelevant hysteria contributory misinformed perspectives of negation ambivalently supine oppositionally interweaving desperately recognizable latterly commissioned flailing stridently illiterate human beings would traduce or transfigure fecundate with orifices potentials reputably informed correspondences of societal consensus notwithstanding the complementary structuralized configurations relentlessly juxtapositions interdependence of necessary and precisely reciprocal consensus latterly contingent upon communicated linguistic concordance of such contractually analogous indispensably infantile preparations fecundately accessible human correspondences or relations between human internalized concordance indispensably starved of direction or vector by irrelevant approximately derivative confluent exasperations latently misinformed contingent inaccessibility communicated societal internalizings indispensably pillaged infantile preparations flailing disproportionate bubbling outrage notwithstanding the contrapoised stridently juxtapositions interdependence latterly commissioned recognizable societally structuralized reciprocally misinformed indispensably congruent multiplicity of otherness perspectives concomitantly banal irrelevant concentrates with orifices gritty interstices rectilinearally inaccessible.

  These jewels gathered from one of the periodicals admittedly subsidized by the CIA. If you see the function of word as extension of our senses to witness and experience through the writer’s eyes then this may be dubbed blind prose. It sees nothing and neither does the reader. Not an image in a cement mixer of this word paste. As a literary exercise I pick up the Penguin translation of Rimbaud and select images to place in congruent juxtapositions with this colorless vampiric prose which having no color of its own must steal color from the readers such contractually accessible linguistically structuralized preparations on blue evenings I shall go down the path in a dream feeling the coolness on my feet starved of direction or vector by derivationally confluent exasperations five in the evening at the Green Inn huge beer mug froth turned into gold by a ray of late sunshine perspective of illiterate human beings would traduce or transfigure fecundate with orifices potential the Watchman rows through the luminous heavens and from his flaming dragnet lets fall shooting stars and precisely reciprocal latent consensus if societal flailings stridently congruent from pulsating mangrove swamps riddled with pools and water snakes diagrammatic contrapunctual . . . ving desperately the poverty of image shea . . . in bronze from scorned or pillage consensus of contributory configurations . . . like a flock of doves shivering of Venetian blinds and the yellow blue awakening sexualizing contingent accessibility informed hideous wrecks at the bottom of brown gulfs where the giant snakes devoured by lice fall from the twisted trees with black odors communicated suburban orifice re-enactments of infantile genitalia contributory internalized contradictions blue waves golden singing fish foam of shadow flowers would traduce or transfigure banal privatization concentrates latterly risen from violet fogs through the wall of the reddening sky ambivalently supine contractually inaccessible black cold pool where a child squatting full of sadness launches a boat fragile as a butterfly in May between starved confluent exasperations communicated linear derivations from reciprocal engagements spat blood concomitantly irrelevant hysteria at the foot of dark walls beating the skinny dogs internalized vector misinformed preparation it is raining softly on the town moonlight as the clock was striking twelve concentrates of otherness with orifices bitter perspectives the road without sound is white under the empty moon a slight cesspool of dirty blood internalized infantile diagrammatically necessary piercing cry in the darkened square spat blood confluently stinging like the salt of child’s tears sexualizing interdependence latterly contingent upon a motionless boat in ashen waters concordantly infantile misinformed perspectives North wind across the wreckage perish power justice vanish ambivalently supine fecundately human there are brothers dark strangers if we began bubbling beneath indispensably banal privatization concentrates blond soldiers from the thin bracken the wilderness the meadows the horizon are washing themselves red in the storm delinquently pulsating oppositional colonnades under blue light railway stations wind from the sky threw sheets of ice across the ponds vector latterly communicated the question of internalized direction at four o’clock on a summer morning the sleep of love the wind comes in to wander about under the bed reputably such contractually accessible human concordance is I feel to beg the question then they will have to deal with the crafty rat ghastly will-o’-the-wisp comes like a gunshot after vespers configurations of internalized congruencies

  Saharan blue where a thousand blue devils dance in the air like flowers of fire supine oppositionally pillaged inaccessible jackals howling across deserts of thyme stridently misinformed preparations communicated the question of pillaged consensus it is raining internalized concordance dawn rising like a flock of doves softly on the town shivering of Venetian blinds at four o’clock and the yellow blue awakening concentrates the sleep of love on orifices summer accessibility the skinny dogs internalized flowers of fire

  Anything they can do you can do better. Pick up The Concise Oxford Dictionary mix your own linguistic virus concentrates fire burn and caldron bubble mix it blac
k and mix it strong folks hereabouts have done you wrong return confluently the complement: e.

  Fristic elite impacted banal limitrophic imposture impotently flailing effluvial grout mud incumbent MN grume intervolving abrasively affricative incubus interpositional inconsummate lubricious investiture decommissioned externalized incondite anastrophe incrassate misinformed ME palatogram’s epidemic anfractuosity eschatological obscurant retiary disaffected lumper uxorious urubu anachronic prologist consensual nevermore bubbling beneath innavigable umlaut inextricably disadmeasured societal interstices reciprocally ablative inconditely flailing oppositional contagonist precatory ingravescent gowk disobliged catoptic zillah pillaged consensus of justiciable justiciar kempy kavass libating opponency orifices adventitious encumbrancer anachronic hysteria of vector its heart misinformed pulp irrefrangible disaffected echidna encounter ineluctable obmutescence arachnoid troglodyte flailing inofficious effluvium disobliged investiture rectilinear additive disadhesion impacted limitrophic elite irrefrangible contagonist anachronic uxorious troglodyte sexualizing ingravescent propinquities intervolving abrasive inoccupation congruently disinternalized necessities ill informed pulp extrapolating diagrammatic efferent prehensions obmutescent palatogram’s prefigured eschatologist uxoriously disobliged investiture nevermore bubbling beneath innavigable effluvium impotent obloquy irrefrangible hysteria such additive ineluctable disadhesion irrefrangible limitrophic incubus bubbling uxorious pulp ablative palatogram precatory impacted adhesion effluvial inconsummate lubricious flailings ingravescent contagonist retiary umlaut prefigured eristic eschatologist, voici le temps des assassins blind man’s bluff any number can play. . . blind prose but it has direction and purpose. One purpose is to protect a camouflaged thesis from the embarrassment of factual testing. If I say “England is an island” I can produce evidence to support my statement should anyone call it in question. If they write an article attacking the Olympia Press as sexualizing congruent accessibility to its heart of pulp fecundate with orifices perspectives in the name of human privacy they have placed their thesis beyond the realm of fact since the words used refer to nothing that can be tested. The words used refer to nothing. The words used have no referent.