I, too, was most intrigued by the interview with Burroughs. He seems like he would have been a really cool guy to sit down and talk to because he had some really innovative ideas. I liked his concept of his scrapbook and how he would take newspaper clippings or write things down, and then when he saw something in real life that reminded him of a scene, he would take a picture and then put it down next to it in the scrapbook -- that is the real cut-up, I think, because it is taking the real, actual life, something totally separated from his world from his mind, and bringing them together.
On page 4, he says, "Cut-ups establish new connections between images, and one's range of vision consequently expands." This line particularly resonated with me because that is the sense of what I think we have been trying to do all along--take totally, or at least seemingly, unrelated things and find a way to string them together to create something new that people can appreciate, (or we can on our own). He says that the range of vision expands, and I think that it's important how he points that out, because the fact that we are doing these things and bringing different pieces together really does broaden our potential or outlooks as writers...perspectives, maybe? I'm really not sure exactly how to phrase what I'm thinking. My point is that by doing what we're doing with collage, or what he was doing with his "cut-up" method, we are giving ourselves the opportunity to see things in a new way.
Nice job. Yes, there's that expansion of consciousness associated with the act of "cut ups," for the writer, and maybe something to consider, too, is what it does for the reader. Anything? How do you respond as a reader to something like the "First Cut Ups" in that excerpt from The Third Mind, or to "The Mayan Caper?"
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