Chance Encounter of a Sewing Machine and an Umbrella on an Operating Table

     From The Western Lands by William S. Burroughs:

     So the One God, backed by secular power, is forced on the masses in the name of Islam, Christianity, the State, for all secular leaders want to be the One.  To be intelligent or observant under such a blanket of oppression is to be "subversive."

     I first read Burroughs in 1986, The Adding Machine, a short book of essays.  Then I read Naked Lunch but wasn't prepared for it.  Still, trusting bewilderment would lead to understanding, I read The Soft Machine and Nova Express.  The cut-ups in those novels, whereby fragments of different texts mix

randomly like the outcome of a literary Big Bang, baffled me but served as preparation for The Ticket That Exploded, a novel I read after my second manic episode in 1994.  My brain's neural network, recovering after the inescapable disturbance of normal order from mania, helped me understand Burroughs' prose.    

     From The Ticket That Exploded:

     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 haven't tried this, but plan to.

     Images gain new context as they associate with previously unrelated sound, original sound silenced as I experimented with American Capitalism's Super Bowl in 2019, listening with headphones to Atari Teenage Riot's Reset, a stunning mind-blasting album.  Images of the players, action, cheerleaders, the crowd, ads, blended with intense and compelling music, a new unique movie giving life to memories, individual images still with me.  

     L.A. Rams in blue and yellow, Tom Brady looking for people to catch his balls, the crowd's faces, celebrities watching just like ordinary people, Coach Belichick, head resembling a bag of expired flour.

     13-3 Patriots.    

     August 2, 1997, Burroughs died.  I found out the next day, saw a headline on a library copy of USA Today, a more mundane publication it's not possible to read, but William S. Burroughs cut many newspapers to form random patterns, so it's appropriate I saw the news of his death that way.

     I told my coworker Nicole about his death.

     "He's one of my favorite authors."  

     We talked a bit, then she went to her tasks, saying, "I'm sorry about your friend."

Vic Neptune