Burroughs - ?In answer to Mr Lipton?s article on the cut-ups and The Process by Brion Gysin to consider the points raised??*

William S.

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*[Letter to The Editor, Los Angeles Free Press]. A typescript letter, 4to., 6pp., double spaced, and a carbon from it, both paginated by hand and with amendments, the former with around 25 annotations and a 2 line addition, the second with proofreader's typesetting marks.In the original stamped and franked mailing envelope; postmarked 8th May, 1970, with a short TLS cover letter dated May 21, 1970.And: a 3pp., carbon of a typescript of 'Cut Ups as Underground Weapons' and a TLS covering note from Matson's literary agency (5 documents). London, 1970. Enquirieswelcomed through this link. In very goodcondition. Apparently no other manuscript/typescript or epistolary material relating to Lipton's critique in the W.S.B. archives at NYPL or Ohio State University.'In answer to Mr. Lipton's article.' is not in Maynard & Miles. ?Cut Ups as Underground Weapons' (Maynard & Miles C278) appeared in The Los Angeles Free Press #310, June 26, 1970. Published in a much more polished form in ?Rub Out the Words: The Letters of William S. Burroughs, 1959-1974', 2012. A cache of very illuminating documents from a literary 'flame war' that was waged in the pages of 'The Freep';an early, pioneering, underground newspaper and one that also published Charles Bukowski, The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers and Ron Cobb. W.S.B. rubbisheda negative review of Brion Gysin's proto-magical realist novel 'The Process' (focussing on the use of ?Cut Ups) that was published in Freep #295, March 1970 by Lawrence Lipton. He being a poet and the author of 'The Holy Barbarians' a well known account of The Beats published in the fifties. The Cut-Up method itself was an'''.extensionof the ideas expressed by Tristan Tzara 'To Make A Dadaist Poem' (1920)''' (p4 Colin Fallows - Cut-Ups, Cut -Ins, Cut-Outs: The Art of William S. Burroughs, 2012). The method was sort ofrediscovered in 1959 by Brion Gysin, in his room at the Beat Hotel, when he was cutting a mount with a Stanley knife on top of a load of old newspapers. He played around with the fragments, found interesting new typographies and meanings and a 'a few days later showed the discovery to Williams Burroughs. [who] immediately recognised that this was a tool of great importance to him' (ibid). Cut Ups, and Brion Gysin's gift of themto Burroughs, is core to the understanding of the hiswork and worldview, and his belief in a magical world of spells and curses. W.S.B. delivers a point-by-point rebuttal of Lipton that quotes extensively from the review. Lipton had written a highly belligerent opinion piece, some might consider it trolling now, that accuses W.S.B. of mystifying his own and Gysin's literary innovations. He castigates him for his rather grandiose claims that his automatic technique of writing has divinatory and magical applications, as a form of modern day ritual scrying, illusion making and cursing. As well as laughing at W.S.B.'s belief in a magical reality, he also pokes fun at the Cut Up's supposedly subversive effect on the established order, accusing him of dissembling about how much he actually did use the writing style in his work: ''The claims made for cut ups by William Burroughs have been widely publicised but the extent to which he himself used it in The Naked Lunch, The Soft Machine, The Ticket That Exploded has never been made explicit even in the voluminous interviews, evidently prefering [sic] to keep the matter arcane msyagic [sic] esoteric.''. W.S.B. easily snuffs out this claim, matter of factly, stating that '.quite explicitly no cuts [sic] ups were used in Naked Lunch which was written prior to my introduction to that technique' and goes on to the other titles that did use it. He cites a very early example of Gysin using the cut up technique, in combination withponderingandhighly complex tapeoverdubbing,in a 1960 public broadcast for BBC' radio produced by the great Douglas Cleverdon of?Under Milk Wood' fame: 'An example of cut up word craft entitled I AM THAT I AM made by Brion Gysin w. Seller Inventory # 131292

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Title: Burroughs - ?In answer to Mr Lipton?s ...