The basic tracks for this week's piece are from Real English Tea Made Here at ubu.web.
WSB's birthday is commemorated on this site because of his singularly Promethean act: breaking the hold of the Word virus on the Human mind, by cutting up the input that sustains it. A concept derived from Marcel Duchamp's cutup work, innocently applied to the serial stream of social control built into language, with unexpected results.
The tapes in Real English Tea were compiled in the mid-sixties and published by Ubuweb when the CD was issued in 2007. They include pieces that stand by themselves, and some in which the content is more scattered and perhaps even meant as a do-it-yourself challenge for anyone coming across them later.
I accept the challenge. My goal in these birthday things is to present, in effect, a cut-up lecture from the old Doctor, summarizing and demonstrating the remarkable mind-altering principles of cutup as he practiced it, for those of us who wish to do the same.
His birthday is Feb 5 (1914). Here is part 1 of this year's mix, entitled Sun Tea, part 1.
If you're interested in more Burroughs birthday bits on this site, there's a search box over there on the right.
