Last night, after I’d come to a stopping point in editing, I decided to take a few books and randomly select one word from every page. I recorded whatever word latched onto me first. In some instances, a phrase (such as ‘The Crab’) stuck out too prominently for me to omit one word or the other, so I wrote down both. Here are the results.
The first person to write a story/novel/whatever incorporating all of these words/names/whatever gets to go on television during the Super Bowl halftime show and cry before a national audience.
Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs
doll, Note, breathe, retired, The Man, eaten, ectoplasmic, stash, Rube, the, at, hassle, Agents, distasteful, his, levels, pot, mosaic, bureaucracy, Often, teeth, naked, never, stimulation, Senders, abortionist, artery, not, Benway, area, from, much, understand, course, pissing, female, talking, genitals, in, mathematician, misbehavior, growing, junky, custom, myself, deliver, sometimes, agents, Notes, industry, undreaming, kidney, You, Saniflush, slight, papier mache, naked, addiction, which, can’t, yes, you, Jesus, penis, Regret, Mugwump, behind, pictures, dancer, cowboy, Naked, them, whips, listlessly, one, Hear, rambling, his, pants, bathroom, buddy, premonitory,* deserted, religious, Johnny, almost, body, leaps, heroin, clap, bill, system, you, agitation, houses, bebop, walls, perpetrator, Chinese, Millions, citizens, Then, tuck, spied, provided, jump, that, about, Doctor, anything, wouldn’t, Jeeeeesus, Stand, sure, chicken, mutterings, screaming, act, giving, virus, Huntsmen, palpates, He, triplicate, paralyzed, troubles, Ali, We’ll, Daybreak, Mullahs, became, old, courses, legend, Gertie, Make, Faculty, MANAGER, STOOGE, which, dossier, burn, die, Typical, tablets, drugs, more, replicas, depopulated, T.B., They’ll, North-by-North-East, Lee, cautiously, Kinda, Old Gray Mare, So, Spring, lush-rolling, Zone, fish, Marvie, him, tight, underwent, takers, effective, register, professional, flashed, did, turned, completely, now, Carl, chlorine, away, masturbation, coffee cup, feeling, dig, Sailor, egg, Exterminator, like, rhythm, burning, weren’t, voice, left, fell, Huh, back, called, non-resident, eyes, powdered, front, oil, crime, approval, dehydrated, 1929, The Crab, youths yodel, Now, thinking, hole, flesh, white, No good
Atrocity Exhibition by J.G. Ballard
assembled, Weapons, nervous, multiple-exposure, followed, translation, ripped, airfield, worn, Posterior, underpass, death, reminded, Persistence, Talbot’s, Stochastic, Koester, Optimum, multi-vehicle, cable, billboard, Thoracic, Jackie, fever, towards, Modern, Einstein, wheel, You, Suite, pelvis, Apartment, newsreels, failure, Max Ernst, complete, railing, Mere, million, Great, Profane, And, Action, overhead, pensive, counters, inclined, up, movements, bridge, automobile, aggressive, were, legs, schoolboy, geometry, With, stockades, described, tomorrow, photographs, lunar, back, exquisite, Good, applause, Robing, Dallas, EMBRYO, Speed-King, thousand, Assassination, group, sexual, night, latent, atrocity, increasingly, optimum, conceptualizing, Witwer, Nordvall, And, hoped, hairstyle, Ronald Reagan, Oswald, however
The Age of Wire and String by Ben Marcus
catalog, chief, Intercourse, Snoring, celebration, father, luster, opening, Act, absorbs, weeping, position, Albert, sometimes, Landing, confession, golds, first, shortens, wooden, repercussive, morning, use, claim, prison, period, rising, built, Larchmont, innocent, openly, Cloth, darkness, head, legs, some, runnel, achieves, name, maker, Strategy, cooling, windows, sleeping, When, Coughing, It, open, broken, house, was, Destroy, Archaic, discussed, heat, Garment, circle, person, category, system, pursue, Ben Marcus, meaning, streams, were, There, sluggish, held, tunnels, followed, fruit, Continuous, burned, mother, garment, man, first, falsified, period, names, position, compulsory, manner, man, I am, blankets, bird, shapes, sled, them, put, bird, will, grandover, fires, bundles, Ben Marcus, flat, swings, analysts, musicians, subdued, tropes, brother, front, foam, earliest, Welder, Arm, Accountant, water, spicules, wire, inscriptions, which, full, previous, object
The Writing of the Disaster by Maurice Blanchot
disaster, indecipherable, catastrophic, exposed, rhythm, words, brings, system, primitive, exclusion, negative, beneath, prayer, remain, suffering, characteristics, scrivener’s, unsubjected, Most-High, dominator, unlimited, identity, difficult, exile, word, order, different, silent, Silence, measure, mortified, mortal, thought, other, shelter, book, forerunners, defying, teleology, letter, propriety, watch, tacit, madness, body, same, irony, sky, consciousness, Joy, watches, deprives, forgiving, What, well-disposed, morality, meaning, abyss, uninterrupted, a work, requires, writer, poet, To write, he interrupts, never, not yet, experience, always, ceaselessly, death, pronounce, No, zones, indifferent, enacted, cannot, noncontemporaneity, knows, demans, extinguished, suffered, clandestine, bread, obliterated, myth, threatening, balanced, where, destroys, means, must, presence, nearest, thought, facile, uncovers, transhistorical, reciprocity, resounds, happened, Aristotle, Mallarme, present, lapse, discovery, language, thus, designate, word, fail, number, allow, indiscretion, Saying, heavy, considered, understanding, immortal, presupposes, writer, preserving, Nietzsche, reference, absolute, mythical, narrative, multiplicity, continuous, indicates, because, isolated, basis, reason, supposed, cavernous, perpetuity, linked, opening, Law, escaped, Today, requirement, seek, imperceptibly, Shining
Selected Poems and Prose of Paul Celan
whipped, swelter, skeletons, glance, with, instead, wintry, Lord, green, Mould-green, eyes, Spiteful, lover’s, house, grave, makes, say, eye, emptiness, you, sail, humans, looked, stone, swimming, into, climbed, which, gray, bursts, figs, pursed, lift, among, with, too, ensilenced, me, death, free ones, nettle, endlessness, deeply, one, unwritten, swarming, beholder, graspable, darkness, glance, evening, Heart, Muteness, four-beat, Hours, terrain, see, up, poison-hushed, dry eyes, rises, flight, nothing, inscribed, overhead, Thou, mousetail, true, Paris, With, heaven, lostness, earth, incants, what, right, Plague, my, field, crowns, gnashed, Nothing, me, you, thousandyear, round, Baobab, packed, heavy, Huesca, hair, arises, night, Humans-and-Jews, letters’, mixed, coils, tastes, back, Alba, Breath-and-Clay, scales, shoulder, from, shadows, Clapped, blows, teeth, rest, Stand-for-no-one-and-nothing, silenced, high, flood, I, experience, from, No more sand art, Hollow, seed’s, tear, night, Pontic, dolphins, Water, psalmhooved, cathedrals, Also, midst, behind, amidst, wart, One, opens, here, Go, rounded, deciphered, brainlessly, everything, crumbled, flapping, Rachel, think, barb, more, Light-compulsion, top, dusk’s, wondrous, hoarded, one, grounded, meathooks, madnessbread, Staunch clocks, wife, wound, winded, Plaguey, conversation, bemused, heraldry, one, And, above, Gethsemane, goldbuoy, torch, across, Lion, tuning, shardstrewn, end, names, common, Invisible, seven, always, murderers’, me, meanings, heaviest, language, poem, stone, around, Thou, Gross, Conciergerie, someone, gentlemen, through, gentlemen, Perhaps, sometimes, every, Ever-yet, present, With, encountered, presence, newly
*I had to pause here because my cat vomited.
