Banks vs Noon: The Big Blind remix #1
Method.
Take three random paragraphs from the first two chapters of "The Big Blind" by Ray Banks, use Jeff Noon's Cobralingus idea and end up with what he calls "the ghost" - the spirit of the original text.
If anybody, Ray especially, wants to see the original choice of text, the workings and the intermediate steps then I have them saved to provide inspiration. It's proved to be amazingly good fun and really gets the juices going to write more.
I wonder if it's possible to remix a whole book.....?
Result.
Her body starts to react, moving violently, and I realise I need to use the brakes and use them now. I have so many feelings running through my head but the worst is that it's all true.
Long gasps of air, hot from the engine.
The heat from the dashboard warming my face.
She'd always been just so, neat and precise. One of those facades just too friendly towards strangers, obviously hiding other feelings.
I turned the radio up loud until the volume seemed to come from everywhere. I kept turning until it was drowning things out like a sound from above.
Got to bolt, get away from the car. Try and escape the wall of noise. At a distance clear of the sound I can stop and take stock, work out where to go from here. I know I need to get away from this area but anybody could see me and find the car.
Duck and run for cover - evade them any way possible. It's not going to be easy but I have to do it. I have to find a way to communicate what's happened to her, no matter how awful the news.
A trail of dark liquid staining the ground. Blood ? Maybe this is a means to find where I need to be. I can't get my head around whether to follow it or shy away. It could be the worst thing to do right now.
It's the only option I have but I'm tired of this running. I know I'll tire and have to give up. I just don't have the ability to keep this up indefinitely.
I could go back to the car, before I give my location away, but I fear that when I go back to where I left her I'll now be alone.
posted by Just Somebody @ 7:17 pm
8 comments
8 Comments:
Damn! That is some sexy, gritty stuff!
Can you do that with the Bible?
Hmmm.... not the whole thing !
I wonder though - the right filter gates and aiming for something a little more structured and powerful.....?
It sounds an interesting idea to try.
Darn you and your thinly veiled challenges ;o)
Sexy and gritty? That sounds uncomfortable. Not as uncomfortable as I am realising that this imaginary, weird-as-fuck prose generator is doing a better job in ten minutes than I did in two years. Fuckin' Noon...
The "prose-generator" is the rusty steel and wire contraption powered by the tiny mice in my head.
The thing about Noon's idea is that each "filter" gives you simply a direction to take the text. 10 people with the same filters and the same text would, most likely go in 10 different directions.
It's still very fluid but {thinks} directed a little.
Sexy and gritty -like sex on the beach. You'd be wringing sand out of your orfices for quite a while, I imagine.
A found quote from the Noon about this whole process - the bit about one bit emerging and standing out each iteration is strangely correct:-
A Cobralingus piece is not planned in any way. An opening Inlet text is chosen, followed by the first gate. How the text is transformed by the gate is entirely up to the individual. This is not a mechanical process. It’s a way of allowing the imagination to explore areas it would not usually enter into. Once a text is transformed, another gate is chosen. The process continues in this way, allowing chance to play upon the text. Eventually, a phrase or an image will emerge from the process, something that makes the writer sit up and take notice. This always happens. This is the clue as to how the overall piece will end, and the process can now be pushed along in that direction. Again and again, producing these pieces, I was astonished as to how this moment arrived. I can only think that some hidden text has been brought to light, out of the original inlet. I have described this as the ghost, or unconscious desire, of the original text. Cobralingus, very like a Lee Scratch Perry dub mix, is a way of calling up these ghosts.
So, what you're saying is that Ray's writing is haunted by ghosts of horny people that like to have sex on beaches.
Didn't we all know that already ?
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