Bloom's Day Cut-up

As Scores Perished In The Waters of Tomorrow:

Blooms Day Cut-up (June 16, 2009)

I first heard of the 23 enigma from William, the ferryman of the dead, Hermes of the Nova Express, etc.  

According to Burroughs, the souls of the deceased, he ferried them with Clark, around 1960 in Tangier.  

Hell, only the dead who are probably years without an accident have that very day silver coin enough for their passage, him and everybody else aboard.

Ancient Greek burial rights make the corpse a crude example of irony in the Church of 323 Sixth Street.

The Radio announced the crash of an airliner that will be found to have 1,000 victims, all welcomed by Capt. Clark aboard flight 23 this morning.

Fire Chief Croker shared love for me enough to have perished at 3:30 O'clock.

What, as they say, was the cause of 69 more bodies laid in the morgue? Just scandalous revelation and not a single lifeboat burned beyond recognition.

What I can't understand is how inspectors at North Brother Island can bring totals of straight talk from Mr. Crimmins about the disaster that stands unparalleled among those who are without doubt.

Well now, look at that, wiped out, in many instances a father is left smiling as his prick starts to twitch at him.

America, I said, quietly, just like that in the end, spread out on the floor, looking at every country even our own.

Isn't that knowledge? Cold cold water in the bowl. Well, of course there's money to be made all hours of the day.

And the old man smiled, I saw him looking at my frockcoat and dress.  

Women were roasted to death, their blood burning and turning as scores perished in the waters of tomorrow. Wondering from which table came their doom in the river after 23 years and a day.

Taking the heroic work of the waterman to Spain. Looking at coffins in a line.

The bombardment of machine guns and howitzers on the ground. Some Kildaire street club toff chops-off the prayers of the dying infantry.

She, the manager of the Hibernian Bank, she gave me a can whose pressure seemed inexhaustible to fellow knights of the road.

"Gentlemen... and Metzger" she moaned, and sank her teeth in to the high color, of course, laughing at his grizzled mustache made of sharkskin.  

Everything smelled like hairspray as she bore his stumpy body forward on spatted feet that bounced away, leaving silvery reticulate on Lambert's brother Sam before it all fell jingling into the sink.  

The windscreen of the motorcar in the sun has a flash just like that, like him, the Rev. George C.F. Haas with his vitals and his breath.

A good drop of gin in the morning for the pastor, in the sunshine of his fat strut, down there with two pilots and some of members of the Greasy Black Rope.

Dogs lick at the blood as the fire starts with an explosion from heaven's imperial state as attests the honor and custom of the cup.

Are the unhappy crew deprived of old sayings from the north wall and Sir John Charon, the buried host.

He sailed westward, sailed a skiff, a transport vessel, cross the waves of fairy wash. Elijah is coming Mr. Kernan.

Against your throat it could only be me. You will see.

Is he buried in Michan's or no? 

The old man smiled, just the same way as before, as the corpse was brought in through a secret way making his business neat and tidy now.

Went out in a puff. Well well, better turn away as the world ends with a whimper.

Kernan turned and walked down the slope of Guinness's visitor's waiting room.

- - -

The cut-up an amalgamation of Dadaist absurdity, occult ritual and high school slumber party collage.  My mind has always made peculiar connections between the Gen. Slocum tragedy of 1904, it's use in Joyce's Ulysses, the infamous tale of Capt. Clarke that was the catalyst for Burroughs theories on the 23 Enigma and Pynchon's Crying of Lot 49 (as well as RAW's Illuminatis Trilogy but really what text does not have tangential connections to that work). So I decided to use these texts in a writing experiment using a variant of Burroughs and Gysin's cut-up methods. A favorite method that I have developed over the years uses the repetition of the number 5. This includes using five separate sources so along with the three main text I added a NYT article on the Slocum disaster and for bonus randomness a passage from Virgil in which he describes Charon the ferryman on the river Styx (see what I did there?).

There is always a moment when you are working with random chance that you question your sanity and become convinced that nothing of any sense is going to rise from all the gibberish. This experiment was no different but once I read the line, “Women were roasted to death, their blood burning and turning as scores perished in the waters of tomorrow.”, I had suspicions that it might all come together. In the end it’s a pretty fun piece of surrealist poesy with a few great lines, and yes some awkwardly formatted nonsense. I also like how there is just enough hint to some actual narrative, distinct from that of the component parts. I am certainly considering chartering a secret society called The Greasy Black Rope.

If your interested in cut-ups and other experimental forms of writing I highly suggest tracking down a copy of The Third Mind, its pretty amazing stuff and if anyone is interested in the details of the method I used here drop a note in the comments or send an e-mail, I'd be more than happy to share the technique with you