Hamburg, 2003-06-24

William S. Burroughs as good as a play:

[...] 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 1966. 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 discommode 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 couldn't 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 don't.

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 DISGRACEFUL 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 spoken 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 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. [...]

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[Dank für den Text an KenoshaKid]