The Ticket That Exploded (Burroughs, William S.)

by Burroughs, William S.

  The spliced-tape experiment to which I have already referred can be performed by anyone equipped with two tape recorders connected by extension lead so he can record directly from one machine to the other. Since the experiment may give rise to a marked erotic reaction it is more interesting to select as your partner for this experiment some one with whom you are on intimate terms. We have two subjects designated as S and W. Now take a text any text. S records the text on Tape Recorder 1. W records the same text on Tape Recorder 2. Now play back T.R.I three seconds recording on T.R.2. Play back T.R.2 three seconds recording on T.R.I and so forth alternating the two recorded voices. This is the simplest form of the spliced-tape experiment. The same results can be obtained by splicing two street recordings made separately by S and W. In order to obtain any degree of precision the tapes must be cut with a scissors and spliced together with tape. This is a laborious process that can be appreciably expedited if you have access to a cutting room and use film tape which is larger and much easier to handle. You can carry the experiment further by taking a talking film of S and a talking film of W and splicing sound and image track alternating 24 times per second.

  S and W carry in their respective and presumed separate nervous systems the equipment to record and playback sound to take images, equipment of which recorder and camera are the externalized abstraction. The equipment contained in the nervous systems of our two subjects is capable of total recording that is of recording and storing sound image smell tactile sensations and the affective reactions associated with this material. The total recording is activated by the playback of sound and image track by precise association with it, so that when we cut the film and sound record made on recorder and camera by our two subjects in together we are splicing the total record of S in with the total record of W. A flu virus is able to take over a healthy lung cell by giving the same signals as a healthy lung cell. The virus can give the same signals as a healthy lung cell because it was a healthy lung cell at one time. Spliced tape and film may or may not give rise to virus forms— (Warning: experiments with spliced tape and film are dangerous parenthetically)—In any case a unit of sound track recorded and film taken by S spliced in with W is now able to give the same signals as a W unit because it was that unit by the fact of being recorded on W’s sound and image track and replacing the sound and image unit recorded and filmed by W. We may say that S can give the same signals as W because he retroactively was W when an S unit of sound and image is cut into W’s sound and image track replacing W with S. Of course the same replacements are occurring in the sound and image track of S. If S is spliced into the total record of W and W is not spliced into the total record of S this unilateral splicing may result in W contracting an S virus to his considerable disadvantage.

  Many applications of the spliced-tape principle will suggest themselves to the alert reader. Suppose you are some creep in a grey flannel suit. You want to present a new concept of advertising to the Old Man . . creative advertising: “I mean advertisements that tell a story and create characters Inspector J. Lee of the Nova Police smokes Players — (flashes his dirty rotten hunka tin). Agent K 9 uses a Bradly laser gun. Aurelius would have approved your favorite smoke. Advertisements should provide the same entertainment value as the content of a magazine. Call in the best writers to write the continuity the best painters and photographers on the layout. Your product deserves the best.” So before he goes up against the Old Man he records the Old Man’s voice and splices his own voice in explaining his new concept and puts it out on the office air-conditioning system. Or suppose you are a singer. Well splice your singing in with the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Animals. Splice yourself in with newscasters, prime ministers, presidents. Why stop there? Why stop anywhere? Everybody splice himself in with everybody else. Communication must be made total, only way to stop it.

  Wittgenstein said: “No proposition can contain itself as an argument” = The only thing not prerecorded in a prerecorded universe is the prerecording itself which is to say any recording that contains a random factor.

  It’s all done with tape recorders .. Guess you’ve all seen the Philipp’s Carry Corder a handy machine for street recording and playback you can carry it under your coat for recording important thing to remember is not just recording but playback in the street the Carry Corder looks like a transistor radio for street playback city folks don’t notice yesterday voices phantom car holes in time . . fun and games with this gadget . . God’s little toy Paul Bowles calls it . . (Maybe his last toy parenthetically he is gone away through unknown mornings leave a million tape recordings of his voice behind fading into the cold spring air pose a colorless question?) . . Why not give Carry Corder parties? Every guest arrives with his Carry Corder and cartridges of what he intends to say recording what other Carry Corders say to him it is the height of rudeness not to record when directly addressed by another Carry Corder no one can talk directly at a Carry Corder party if you want to say something you have to nick off into the little boy’s room and record it first while your genial host mixes the whole party around on a battery of tape recorders . . (“Not infrequently I stripped to the waist and pitched in with the men . . Yes boys that’s me there by the cement mixer.”) . . You can use the recordings from the last party at the next party funeral meats serving up the wedding feast in the word of the Immortal Bard tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow . . And think what several hundred people with Carry Corders could do at a political rally . . Carry your Carry Corders down Fleet St. and Madison Avenue . . Subliminate the subliminators . . Carry Corders of the world unite. You have nothing to lose but your prerecordings.

  “It’s all done with recorders — The sound track evokes the image track — Recollect when i was on the Madison Avenue Lark — So i am giving out with a steady stream of interviews and i soon extracted the interview formulae — I recorded ten alternative answers to any question from the interview framework — And all i had to do was press buttons and out came the answers — I could of course do this from a distance by radio and retired to my Southern plantation strictly from Tin Pan Alley with recorded darkies singing out in the mimosa and Spanish moss projected on view screens — Later the whole operation was automatic and did not need my attention at all and i had answers for the next thousand years all set up — I extended the principle of absent control to other activities — I dictated the necessary orders, counterorders and alternative moves for any operation — I could write all the speeches and ultimatums of one government with answering speeches and ultimatums of another and of course put on the war recordings when the order came through channels — Just a technical sergeant know how things are done — Same method can be applied to sex — As a young man i discovered that i could anticipate the dialogue of any amorous encounter — So i recorded the dialogue and made an image track to go with it — appropriate background music, lighting, odors the lot — Action — Camera — Compliments of Pavlov i could do quite as well with my recordings as with the so-called “real thing” (The image track can be dispensed with once the appropriate associations are established)—i built up a whorehouse of tapes and rented them out for two notes a night any script any face you want — Spot of bother with the Syndicate and that’s when i moved into the Madison Avenue Territory — Now carry it a bit further — The interviewer can of course apply the same method — That is record his questions and alternative questions — Both governments can record speeches, ultimatums, orders and counterorders — So record the whole war with its battles and sieges, victories and defeats, monumental fuck-ups and corny songs — Lovers exchange tapes — You understand nobody has to be there at all — So why ask questions and why answer? — Why give orders and why make speeches? — Why not leave your tape with her tape and dispense with sexual contact? — And then? — Since no one is there to listen, why keep running the tape? — Why not shut the whole machine off and go home? Exactly what i intend to do — Turn all my tapes over to Rewrite and go home — You can look any place — No go
od — No bueno — Departed have left no address — It’s all done with tape recorders. What we see is dictated by what we hear. You can verify this by a simple experiment. Turn off the sound track on your television set and use an arbitrary recorded sound track from your tape recorder: street sounds . . music . . conversation. . recordings of other TV programs, radio et cetera. You will find that the arbitrary sound track seems to be appropriate . . people running for a bus in Piccadilly with a sound track of machine-gun fire looks like 1917 Petrograd. You can extend the experiment by using material that is more or less appropriate to the image track. For example take a political speech on TV shut off sound track and substitute another speech you have prerecorded . . hardly tell the difference . . isn’t much . . Record the sound track of one Danger Man spy program and substitute for another . . Try it on your friends and see if they can’t tell the difference.

  The sound track conjures up the image track — Word came before image — Shut off the sound track on your TV set and put in your own sound track words music what you will — Now play back your sound track and you will see the images sharp and clear — I recorded sound tracks of TV and film programs — mixing in suggestions from Rewrite to microphones and radio cruise cars — So i press a button and record all sounds and voices of the city — So i press a button to feed back these sounds with cut-ins a few seconds later, you are still watching a TV program or listening to the juke box — A few seconds later you are hearing the same words from my broadcast with cut-ins from Rewrite — Of course i cut in bulletins from Rewrite with all popular songs using music as punctuation — (Singing came before talking)—I folded the bulletins in with newspapers, magazines and novels — I put them out mixed with street sounds and talk wind and rain and lapping water and birdcalls — Well — Word evokes image— & % $ $ “N:? — Singing came before talking — Shut the whole machine off — Rub out the word — There is no one there to hear it — Nothing here now but the recordings may not refuse vision in setting forth — the story of one absent today — Fade-out overtakes Mr Bradly Mr Martin — Five times thy strong tape caught in the door — no shelter in the dogs of unfamiliar dust — the cold adiós without a shadow — These our actors bid you a long good night —

  showed you your air

  “The Subliminal Kid charters your attention please — i am Inspector J. Lee of The Nova Police — Just a technical sergeant moved a nova criminal to Rewrite Operations — And i am sure that it’s all done with recorders — Remember that these techniques for the next thousand years manipulated by nova criminals — Absent control simple: Always create as many insoluble counterorders and alternative conflicts recordings to the explosion of a planet — Recording devices fix the nature of absolute associations, established total weapons — manipulated on a global scale feeds: Go home — Conflicts are deliberately created — No address the Nova Mob — Sammy the Butcher, the sound track conjures up the Brown Artist to paint yellow plains of Minraud — Jacky Blue Note, shut off the sound track on your Hamburger Mary — the subliminal words music what you will — Now in all my experience as a police officer never seen such total fear of indicated alterations on any planet — The same words straighten out this mess — Cut in bulletins from Rewrite — Nothing here now but unworkable course — Mr Bradly Mr Martin, Audience Chamber with the threat of no shelter in the dogs — Is that clear enough or shall i make it even clearer?” —

  “For i have known exactly what i intend to do” —

  “Isn’t time is there left? — Go home — A boy shut off the sound track on you in the door — words, music what you will — Now the final ape of history sees the images sharp and clear on your ticket that exploded — end of voices — So i press a button beside you and the dreamer gone — So why ask questions and why intersect on empty speech? — Why not leave this dream contact? Shut the machine off — nothing here now but the door — juke box bulletins from Rewrite singing in newspapers and magazines of the earth:

  “Word falling — Photo falling — Defectors from the Nova Mob — Just time — Just time — Just time” —

  Electric storms of violence sweep broadcast still in progress “Word falling — Photo falling” —

  “Gongs of violence show alternative answers to any question — Artists take over the entire answer battery of automatic junk state — i extended this to other flesh — Counterorders issued — Dictate force of riot police at the operation — Death Dwarfs on orbit of Saturn galaxy — The interviewers shift in speed-up movie — Now since i could attack position over instrument i had the answers for a thousand years — Didn’t have to be there answering questions of absent tenants — The Rewrite Doctor on stage — shatters a window in image without word — All i had to do was press slow-motion flashes and newsreels shut off — All right, Doctor, stop asking questions — Indications enough answer without being there — Shut the whole machine off July, 1962, Present Time — Big money bulletins feed back Scandinavia outhouse parasite — A song goes through the city with suggestion pictures feeling along — And this broadcast was still in progress — The human body is an image on screen talking — You made questions and put the answers on a face — Good bye old interview — Mack The Knife, i can work for anybody — Juke box or radio speak of new dreams for old — Moanin’ low my sweet bulletins and feed them back all the time to put all the things you are on subliminal level — Alternative answers to any question can play the game as well as you — Entire answer battery on automatic hopes to be there — i could control it from my blue heaven — Somebody stole my girl — Thing was automatic — Seemed to whisper Louise, Mary, all the things you used to do — Should old acquaintance go home? Why should anybody be there from Florida up to the old North Pole? — Ahead — Ahead — Ahead — they chanted and retired to Tin Pan Alley — Record either end — Beat your mother to Spanish moss — automatic future for the next thousand years — war recordings at the time but Old Bill, returned a technical sergeant — Witnesses from a distance observed the image track streak across the sky and crash with associations — established this art along the Tang dynasty — So we turn over board books on subliminal level — sexual frustration lark — ‘So i am giving out skin — Put it on’ — easily ten alternative answers to any association locks — And all i had to do was shatter a window in stupid board members — Errand boy closing their screens — the whole operation from collaborators and liars — Won’t be much left — i dictated the necessary orders on the air — with human nights — Voices came through channels — just any people anywhere on dead nitrous flesh are done — i discovered that i could anticipate the humiliation account” —

  “Hurry up — Counter” —

  “So i recorded the dialogue and boy from last stupid pressure group with appropriate background music — Control machine is disconnected compliments of Pavlov — board books are written in symbols as the so-called ‘real thing’ — American from last interview performed sharp discharge from method — So why ask questions and why answers $ ? — Why not leave your tape humiliations and Scandinavia outhouse contacts? — You can look any place — no pressure group relying on rectum — no address— Technical brains melted the law — The sound track conjures up the image police — Shut off the sound track — Their boy entered the ‘20s in word and music — Spread slow-motion flashes and you see the image sharp and clear — So i press the button blocks board instructions cross newspapers of the earth — Collaborators with word with flesh, traitors to all souls everywhere, i cut in bulletins from Rewrite with heavy punctuation — The board is relying on fading voices — Shut the whole machine off — Rub out the board — Is near right now to hear it — Mr Bradly Mr Martin five times guided poisonous cloud of parasites — These our actors bid you peaceful opaqueness in this monument of tiredness” — The Old Man himself stood at the end of the board room table a hat box under his arm. With an abrupt movement he emptied the hat box. The bronze head of a young girl crudely severed with a hack saw clattered across the board room table. T
he Old Man held up a hack saw bronze filings caught in its teeth.

  “This old hand went and sawed the head off their filthy mermaid . . J. Ericson & Sisters only living rival of Trak . .. If anyone does not like this thing that I have done I can use this saw a second time.”

  He paced behind the board members like an aroused torn cat. He stopped behind Scamperelli the Pulp King who perfected a process for making pasta from sawdust. He clamped one hand over Scamperelli’s mouth pulled his head back and applied the hack saw to Scamperelli’s throbbing carotid. “Scamperelli do you like this thing that I have done?”

  “Glub . . glub . . glub . .”

  “I presume that is pulp talk for ‘yes.’”

  He paced and stopped behind the Oil King. “Total Oil, do you like this thing that I have done?”

  Dry Hole Dutton glanced sideways at the saw. With a presence of mind derived from his wildcatting days he crooned out: “Only you can make the world go round.” Unanimously other board members took up the chant. Its the old army game kid. Get there firstest with the brownest nose.

  “Thing Police all Board Room Reports now are ended — i foretold you were all spirits watching TV program — Terminal electric voices end — These our actors cut in — A few seconds later you are melted into air — Rub out promised by our ever-living poet — Mr Bradly Mr Martin, five times our summons — no shelter in setting forth” —

  “Beat your mother to Spanish broadcast still in progress — Just time — Just time — So we turn over board books — i can work for anybody — newsreel lark — So i am giving out Rewrite Department — Pictures shatter absent bodies — Juke box closing their screens — Sex phantom tape association afternoons conveyed on the air with human image — flesh done slow motion — Hurry up — Counter the last errand boy from stupid pressure group — All right, Doctor, machine is disconnected — Indications enough written in symbols as the machine shut off July 26, 1962, Present Time — Just Time — Just Time — flashing on global scale: ‘Scandinavia outhouse parasite, go home’ — And no address nova mob — The human body is sound track on ‘Hamburger Mary’” —