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| [rohrpost] William S. Burroughs: The Electronic Revolution [1/3] |
William S. Burroughs
The Electronic Revolution
FEEDBACK FROM WATERGATE TO THE GARDEN OF EDEN
In the beginning was the word and the word was god and has
remained one of the mysteries ever since. The word was God and
the word was flesh we are told. In the beginning of what exactly
was this beginning word? In the beginning of WRITTEN history. It
is generally assumed that spoken word came before the written
word. I suggest that the spoken word as we know it came after
the written word. In the beginning was the word and the word was
God and the word was flesh ... human flesh ... In the beginning
of WRITING. Animals talk and convey information but they do not
write. They cannot make information available to future
generations or to animals outside the range of their
communication system. This is the crucial distinction between
men and other animals. WRITING. Korzybski, who developed the
concept of General Semantics, the meaning of meaning, has
pointed out this human distinction and described man as 'the
time binding animal'. He can make information to other men over
a length of time through writing. Animals talk. They dont write.
Now a wise old rat may know a lot about traps and poison but he
cannot write a text book on DEATH TRAPS IN YOUR WAREHOUSE for
the Reader's Digest with tactics for ganging up on digs and
ferrets and taking care of wise guys who stuff steel wool up our
holes. It is doubtful if the spoke word would have ever evolved
beyond the animal stage without the written word. The written
word ist inferential in HUMAN speech. It would not occur to our
wise old rat to assemble the young rats and pass his knowledge
along in an aural tradition BECAUSE THE WHOLE CONCEPT OF TIME
BINDING COULD NOT OCCUR WITHOUT THE WRITTEN WORD. The written
word is of course a symbol for something and in the case of
hieroglyphic language writing like Egyptian it may be a symbol
for itself that is a picture of what it represents. This is not
true of an alphabet language like English. The word leg has no
pictorial resemblance to a leg. It refers to the SPOKEN word
leg. so we may forget that a written word IS AN IMAGE and that
written words are images in sequence that is to say MOVING
PICTURES. So any hieroglyphic sequence gives us an immediate
working definition for spoken words. Spoken words are verbal
units that refer to this pictorial sequence. And what then is
the written word? My basis theory is that the written word was
literally a virus that made spoken word possible. The word has
not been recognized as a virus because it has achieved a state
of stable symbiosis with the host... (This symbiotic
relationship is now breaking down for reasons I will suggest
later.)
I quote from MECHANISMS OF VIRUS INFECTION edited by Mr. Wilson
Smith, a scientist who really thinks about his subject instead
of merely correlating data. He thinks, that is, about the
ultimate intentions of the virus organism. In an article
entitled VIRUS ADAPTIBILITY AND HOST RESISTANCE by G. Belyavin,
speculations as to the biologic goal of the virus species are
enlarged ... 'Viruses are obligatory cellular parasites and are
thus wholly dependant upon the integrity of the cellular systems
they parasitize for their survival in an active state. It is
something of a paradox that many viruses ultimately destroy the
cells in which they are living..."
And I may add the environment necessary for any cellular
structure they could parasitize to survive. Is the virus then
simply a time bomb left on this planet to be activated by remote
control? An extermination program in fact? In its path from full
virulence to its ultimate goal of symbiosis will any human
creature survive? Is the white race, which would seem to be more
under virus control than the black yellow and brown races,
giving any indication of workable symbiosis?
'Taking the virus eye view, the ideal situation would appear to
be one in which the virus replicates in cells without in any way
disturbing their normal metabolism.'
This has been suggested as the ideal biological situation toward
which all viruses are slowly evolving...'
Would you offer violence to a well intentioned virus on its slow
road to symbiosis?
'It is worth noting that if a virus were to attain a state of
wholly benign equilibrium with its host cell it is unlikely that
its presence would be readily detected OR THAT IT WOULD
NECESSARILY BE RECOGNIZED AS A VIRUS. I suggest that the word is
just such a virus. Doktor Kurt Unruh von Steinplatz has put
forth an interesting theory as to the origins and history of
this word virus. He postulates that the word was a virus of what
he calls BIOLOGIC MUTATION effecting the biologic change in its
host which was then genetically conveyed. One reason that apes
cant talk is because the structure of their inner throats is
simply not designed to formulate words. He postulates that
alteration in inner throat structure were occasioned by virus
illness ... And not occasion ... This illness may well have had
a high rate of mortality but some female apes must have survived
to give birth to the wunder kindern. The illness perhaps assumed
a more malignant form in the male because of his more developed
and rigid muscular structure causing death through strangulation
and vertebral fracture. Since the virus in both male and female
precipitates sexual frenzy through irritation of sex centers in
the brain the males impregnated the females in their death
spasms and the altered throat structured was genetically
conveyed. Having effected alterations in the host's structure
that resulted in a new species specially designed to accomodate
the virus the virus can now replicate without disturbing the
metabolism and without being recognized a virus. A symbiotic
relationship has now been established and the virus is now built
into the host which sees the virus as a useful part of itself.
This successful virus can now sneer at gangster viruses like
small pox and turn them in to The Pasteur Institute. Ach jungen
what a scene is here ... the apes are moulting fur steaming off
them females whimpering and slobbering over dying males like
cows with aftosa and so a stink musky sweet rotten metal stink
of the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden...
The creation of Adam, the Garden of Eden, Adam's fainting spell
during which God made Eva from his body, the forbidden fruit
which was of course knowledge of the whole stinking thing and
might be termed the first Watergate scandal, all slots neatly
into Doc Steinplatz's theory. And this was a white myth. This
leads to the supposition that the word virus assumed a specially
malignant and lethal form in the white race. What then accounts
for this special malignance of the white word virus? Most likely
a virus mutation occasioned by radioactivity .All animal and
insect experiments so far carried out indicate that mutations
resulting from radiation are unfavorable that is not conductive
to survival. These experiments relate to the effects of
radiation on autonomous creatures. What about the effects of
radiation on viruses? Are there not perhaps some so classified
and secret experiments hiding behind national security? Virus
mutations occasioned by radiation may be quite favorable for the
virus. And such a virus might well violate the equilibrium with
the host cell. So now with the tape recorders of Watergate and
the fall out from atomic testing the virus stirs uneasy in all
your white throats. It was a killer virus once. It could become
a killer virus again and rage through cities of the world like a
topping forest fire.
"It is the beginning of the end." That was the reaction of a
science attache' at one of Washington's major embassies to
reports that a synthetic gene particle had been produced in the
laboratory ..."Any small country can now make a virus for which
there is no cure. It would only take a small laboratory. Any
small country with good biochemists could do it."
And presumeably any big country could do it quicker and better.
In the Electronic Revolution I advance the theory that a virus
IS a very small unit of word and image. I have suggested now
such units can be biologically activated to act as communicable
virus strains. Let us start with three tape recorders in The
Garden of Eden. Tape recorder 1 is Adam. Tape recorder 2 is Eve.
Tape recorder 3 is God, who deteriorated after Hiroshima into
the Ugly American. Or to return to our primevil scene: Tape
recorder 1 is the male ape in a helpless sexual frenzy as the
virus strangles him. Tape recorder 2 is a cooing female ape who
straddles him. Tape recorder 3 is DEATH.
Steinplatz postulates that the virus of biologic mutation, which
he calls Virus B-23, is contained in the word. Unloosing this
virus from the word could be more deadly that loosing the power
of the atom. Because all hate all pain all fear all lust is
contained in the word. Perhaps we have here in these three tape
recorders the virus of biologic mutation which once gave us the
word and has hidden behind the word ever since. And perhaps
three tape recorders and some good biochemists can unloose this
force. Now look at these three tape recorders and think in terms
of the virus particle. Recorder 1 is the perspective host for an
influenza virus. Tape recorder number 2 is the means by which
the virus gains access to the host, in the case of a flu virus
by disolving a hole in cells of the host's respiratory tract.
Number 2, having gained access to the cell. leads in number 3.
Number 3 is the effect produced in the host by the virus:
coughing, fever, inflamation. NUMBER 3 IS OBJECTIVE REALITY
PRODUCED BY THE VIRUS IN THE HOST Viruses make themselves real.
It's a way viruses have. We now have three tape recorders. So we
will make a simple word virus. Let us suppose that our target is
a rival politician. On tape recorder 1 we will record speeches
and conversation carefully editing in stammers mispronouncing,
inept phrases ... the worst number 1 can assemble. now on tape
recorder 2 we will make so a love tape by bugging his bed room.
We can potentiate this tape by splicing it in with a sexual
object that is inadmissible or inaccessible or both, say the
senator's teen age daughter. On tape recorder 3 we will record
hateful disapproving voices and splice the three recordings
together at very short intervals and play them back to the
senator and his constituents. This cutting and playback can be
very complex involving speech scramblers and batteries of tape
recorders but THE BASIC PRINCIPAL IS SIMPLY SPLICING SEX TAPE
AND DISAPPROVAL TAPES IN TOGETHER. Once the associations lines
are established they are activated every time the senator's
speech centres are activated which is all the time heavan help
that sorry bestard if anything happened to his big mouth. So his
teen age daughter crawls all over him while Texas rangers and
decent church going women rise from tape recorder 3 screaming
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN FRONT OF DECENT PEOPLE."
The teen age daughter is just a refinement. Basically all you
need is sex recordings on number 2 and hostile recordings on
number 3. With this simple formula any CIA sonofabitch can
become God that is tape tape recorder 3. Notice the emphasis on
sexual material in burglaries and bugging in the Watergate cess
pool ...Bugging Martin Luther King's bed room ...Kiss Kiss bang
bang ...A deadly assassination technique. At the very least sure
to unerve and put opponents at a disadvantage. So the real
scandal of Watergate that has not come out yet is not that bed
rooms were bugged and the offices of psychiatrists ransaked but
THE PRECISE USE THAT WAS AND IS MADE OF THIS SEXUAL MATERIAL.
This formula works best on a closed circit. If sexual recordings
and film are widespread, tolerated and publicaly shown tape
recorder 3 losses ist power. Which perhaps explains why the
Nixon administration is out to close down set films and
reestablish censorship on all films and books. to keep close
circit on tape recorder 3.
And this brings us to the subject of SEX. In the words of the
late John O'Hara I'm glad you came to me instead of one of those
quacks on the top floor ...Psychiatrists, priests whatever they
call themselves they want to turn in off and keep tape recorder
3 in business. Let's turn it on. All you swingers use video
cameras and tape recorders to record and photograph your
sessions. Now go over the session and pick out the sexiest
pieces you know when it really HAPPENS. Reich built a machine
with electrodes attached to the penis to measure this orgasm
charge. Here is unpleasurable orgasm sagging ominously as tape
recorder 3 cuts in. He just made it. And here is a pleasurable
orgasm way up on the graph. So take the best of your sessions
and invite the nabors to see it. Its the naborly thing to do.
Try cutting them in together alternating 24 frames per second.
Try slow downs and speed ups.
Build and experiment with orgone accumulators. Its simply a box
of any shape or size lined with iron. Your intrepid reporter at
age 37 achieved spontaneous orgasm no hands in an orgone
accumulator built in an orange grove in Pharr/Texas. It was the
small direct application accumulator that did the trick. That's
what every red blooded boy and girl should be doing in their
basement work shop. The orgone accumulator could be greatly
potentiated by using MAGNETIZED IRON which sends a powerful
magnetic field through the body. And small accumulators like ray
guns.
There is Two Gun Maggee going off in his pants. The gun falls
from his hand. Quick as he was he was not quick enough.
For a small directional accumulator obtain six powerful magnets.
Arrange your magnetized squares so they form a box. In one end
of the box drill a hole and insert an iron tube. Now cover the
box and tube with any organic material ...rubber,leather,cloth.
Now train the tube on your privates and the privates of your
friends and nabors. Its good for young and old man and beast and
is known as SEX. It is also known to have a direct connection
with what is known as LIFE. Let's get St. Paul off our backs and
take off the bible belt. And tell tape recorder 3 to cover his
own dirty thing. It stinks from the garden of Eden to Watergate.
I have said that the real scandal of Watergate is the use made
of recordings. And what is this use? Having made the recordings
as described what then do they do with them?
ANSWER: THEY PLAY THEM BACK ON LOCATION.
They play these recordings back to the target himself is the
target is an individual from passing cars and agents that walk
by him in the street. They play these recordings back in his
naborhood. Finally they play them back in subways, restaurants,
air ports and other public places.
PLAYBACK is the essential ingredient.
I have made a number of experiments with street recordings and
playback over a period of years and the startling fact emerges
THAT YOU DO NOT NEED SEX RECORDINGS OR EVEN DOCTORED TAPES TO
PRODUCE EFFECTS BY PLAYBACK. ANY RECORDINGS PLAYED BACK ON
LOCATION IN THE MANNER I WILL NOW DESCRIBE CAN PRODUCE EFFECTS.
No doubt sexual and doctored tapes would be more powerful. But
some of the power in the word is released by simple playback as
anyone can verify who will take the time to experiment ...I
quote from some notes on these playback experiments.
Friday July 28, 1972 ...Plan 28 at a glance ...First some
remarks on the tape recorder experiments started by Ian
Sommerville in 196. these involved not only street, pub, party,
subway recordings but also PLAYBACK on location. when I returned
to London from the States in 1966 he had already accumulated a
considerable body of data and developed a technology. He had
discovered that playback on location can produce definite
effects. Playing back recordings of an accident can produce
another accident. In 1966 I was staying at the Rushmore Hotel,
11 Trebovir Road, Earl's Court, and we carried out a number of
these operations: street recordings, cut in of other material,
playback in the streets ...(I recall I had cut in fire engines
and while playing this tape back in the street fire engines
passed.) These experiments were summarized in THE INVISIBLE
GENERATION ... ( I wonder if anybody but CIA agents read this
article or thought of putting these techniques into actual
operation) Anybody who carries out similar experiments over a
period of time will turn up more 'coincidences' than the law of
averages allows. The tech can be extended by taking still or
moving pictures during playback. I have frequently observed this
operation: make recordings and take pictures of some location
you wish to discomode or destroy, now play recordings back and
take more pictures, will result in accidents, fires, removals.
especially the latter The target moves. We carried out this
operation with the Scientology Center at 37 Fitzroy Street. Some
months later they moved to 68 Tottenham Court Road, where a
similar operation was carried out...
Here is a sample operation carried out against The Moka Bar at
29 Frith Street London W1 beginning on August 3, 1972 ...Reverse
Thursday ...Reason for operation was outrageous and unprovoked
discourtesy and poisoned cheese cake...
Now to close in on The Moka Bar. Record. Take pictures. Stand
around outside. Let them see me. They are seething around in
there. The horrible old proprietor, his frizzy haired wife and
slack jawed son, the snarling counter man. I have them and they
know it.
"You boys have a rep for making trouble. Well come on out and
make some. Pull a camera breaking act and I'll call a Bobby. I
gotta right to do what I like in the public street."
If it came to that I would explain to the policeman that I was
taking street recordings and making a documentary of Soho. This
was after all London's First Expresso Bar was it not? I was
doing them a favor. They couldnt say what both of us knew
without being ridiculous...
"He's not making any documentary. He's trying to blow up the
coffee machine, start a fire in the kitchen, start fights in
here, get us a citation from the Board of Health."
Yes I had them and they knew it. I looked in at the old Prop and
smiled as if he would like what I was doing. Playback would come
later with more pictures. I took my time and strolled over to
the Brewer Street Market where I recorded a three card Monte
Game. Now you see it now you dont.
Playback was carried out a number of times with more pictures.
Their business fell off. They kept shorter and shorter hours.
October 30, 1972 The Moka Bar closed. The location was taken
over by The Queens Snack Bar.
Now to apply the 3 tape recorder analogy to this simple
operation. Tape recorder 1 is the Moka Bar itself it is pristine
condition. Tape recorder 2 is MY RECORDINGS of the Moka Bar
vicinity. These recordings are ACCESS. Tape recorder 2 in the
Garden of Eden was Eve made from Adam. So a recording made from
the Moka Bar is a piece of the Moka Bar. The recording once
made, this piece becomes autonomous and out of their control.
Tape recorder 3 is PLAYBACK. Adam experiences shame when his
DISCRACEFUL BEHAVIOR IS PLAYED BACK TO HIM BY tape recorder 3
which is God. By playing back my recordings to the Moka Bar when
I want and with any changes I wish to make in the recordings, I
become God for this local. I effect them. They cannot effect me.
And what part do photos take in this operation? Recall what I
said earlier about written and sopken word. THE WRITTEN WORD IS
AN IMAGE IS A PICTURE . The spoken word could be defined as any
verbal units that correspond to these pictures and could be in
fact be extended to ANY SOUND UNITS THAT CORRESPOND to to the
pictures ...Recordings and pictures are tape recorder 2 which is
access. Tape recorder 3 is playback and 'reality'. For example
suppose your bathroom and bed room are bugged and rigged with
hidden infra red cameras. These pictures and recordings give
access. You may not experience shame during defecation and
intercourse but you may well experience shame when these
recordings are played back to a disapproving audience.
Now let us consider the arena of politics and the applications
of bugging in this area. Of course any number of recordings are
immediately available since politicians make speeches on TV.
However, these recordings do not give access. The man who is
making a speech is not really there. Consequently more intimate
or at least private recordings are needed which is why the
Watergate conspirators had to resort to burgulary. A
presidential candidate is not a sitting duck like a Moka Bar. He
can make any number of recordings of his opponents. So the game
is complex and competitive with recordings made by both sides.
This leads to more sophisticated techniques the details of which
have yet to come out.
The basic operation of recording pictures, more pictures and
playback can be carried out by anyone with a recorder and a
camera. Any number can play. Millions of people could nullify
the control system which those who are behind Watergate and
Nixon are attempting to impose. Like all control systems it
depends on maintaining a monopoly position. If anybody can be
tape recorder 3 then tape recorder 3 loses power. God must be
THE GOD.
ELECTRONIC REVOLUTION
In THE INVISIBLE GENERATION first published in IT and in the Los
Angeles Free Press in 1966 and reprinted in THE JOB, I consider
the potential of thousands of people with recorders, portable
and stationary, messages passed along like signal drums, a
parody of the President's speech up and down the balconies, in
and out open windows, through walls, over courtyards, taken up
by barking dogs, muttering bums, music, traffic down windy
streets, across parks and soccer fields. Illusion is a
revolutionary weapon:
TO SPREAD RUMORS
Put ten operators with carefully prepared recordings out at rush
hour and see how quick the words get around. People don't know
where they heard it but they heard it.
TO DISCREDIT OPPONENTS
Take a recorded Wallace speech, cut in stammering coughs sneezes
hiccoughs snarls pain screams fear whimperings apoplectic
sputterings slobbering drooling idiot noises sex and animal
sound effects and play it back in the streets subway stations
parks political rallies.
AS A FRONT LINE WEAPON TO PRODUCE AND ESCALATE RIOTS
There is nothing mystical about this operation. Riot sound
effects can produce an actual riot in a riot situation. RECORDED
POLICE WISTLES WILL DRAW COPS. RECORDED GUNSHOTS, AND THEIR GUNS
ARE OUT.
"MY GOD, THEY'E KILLING US."
A guardsman said later: "I heard and saw my buddy go down, his
face covered in blood (turned out he'd been hit by a stone from
a sling shot) and I thought, well this is it." BLOODY WEDNESDAY.
A DAZED AMERICA COUNTED 23 DEAD AND 32 WOUNDED, 6 CRITICALLY.
Here is a run of the mill, pre-riot situation. Protestors have
been urged to demonstrate peacefully, police and guardsmen to
exercise restraint. Ten tape recorders strapped under their
coats, playback, and record controlled from lapel buttons. They
have pre-recorded riot sound effects from Chicago, Paris, Mexico
City, Kent/Ohio. If they adjust sound levels of recordings to
surrounding sound levels, they will not be detected. Police
scuffle with the demonstrators. The operators converge. turn on
Chicago record, play back, move on to the next scuffles, record
playback, keep moving. Things are hotting up, a cop is down
groaning. shrill chorus of recorded pig squeals and parody
groans.
Could you cool a riot by recording the calmest cop and the most
reasonable demonstrator? Maybe! However, it's a lot easier to
start trouble that to stop it. Just pointing out that cut/ups on
the tape recorder can be used as a weapon. You'll observe that
the operators are making a cutup as they go. They are cutting in
Chicago, Paris, Mexico City, Kent Ohio with the present sound
effects at random and that is a cutup.
AS A LONG RANGE WEAPON TO SCRAMBLE AND NULLIFY ASSOCIATIONAL
LINES PUT DOWN BY MASS MEDIA
The control of the mass media depends on laying down lines of
association. When the lines are cut the associational
connections are broken.
President Johnson burst into a swank apartment, held three girls
at gunpoint, 26 miles north of Saigon yesterday.
you can cut the mutter line of the mass media and put the
altered mutter line out in the streets with a tape recorder.
Consider the mutter line of the daily press. It goes up with the
morning papers, millions of people read the same words. In
different ways, of course. A motion praising Mr. Callaghan's
action in banning the South African Cricket Tour has spoiled the
colonel's breakfast. All reacting one way or another to the
paper world or unseen events which becomes an integral part of
your reality. You will notice that this process is continually
subject to random juxtapostation. Just what sign did you see in
the Green Park station as you glanced up from the PEOPLE? Just
who called as you were reading your letter in the TIMES? What
were you reading when your wife broke a dish in the kitchen? An
unreal paper world and yet completely real because it is
actually happening. Mutter line of the EVENING NEWS, TV. Fix
yourself on millions of people all watching Jesse James or the
Virginian at the same time. International mutter line of the
weekly news magazine always dated a week ahead. Have you noticed
it's the kiss of death to be on the front cover of TIME. Madam
Nhu was there when her husband was killed and her government
fell. Verwoerd was on the front cover of TIME when a demon
tapeworm gave the order for his death through a messenger of the
same. Read the Bible, kept to himself, no bad habits, you know
the type. Old reliable, read all about it.
So stir in news stories, TV plays, stock market quotations,
adverts and put the altered mutter line out in the streets.
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