Computers and Writing

Jack and Kerouac and William S. Burroughs were beat writers. They did not stay with the status quo when it came to writing. Their literature dealt with alienation, marginality, and rebellion. “They often tried to replicate in their own writnigs the ways in which technolgy functions.” Spontaneous writing has run on sentences and jumps from one subject to another. The writing can be taked in many different ways because ideas are not totally explained. Kerouac’s spontaneous writing was planned and edited. He did not really write spontaneously. Kerouac’s rhetoric of race wasa little disturbing. His comments were very stereotypical and not facts. He may have only know Black and Mexican hustlers and that was all he could comment on. Kerouac’s nostalgia was the past as a form of critique. Nostalgia depends on the past. William S. Burroughs works included cut-up, juxtaposition, and tape recording experiments.
Cut up is taking a finished writing and cutting it up to make a new massage. Today we use cut up in Word documents to cut and paste within the text. Juxtapostion is similar to cut up but it has images also. The image and text are not natural together. The image and text gives a new meaning or message to it readers.
Turntablists skratch records and make new sounds. They can be considered skratch literate and are making a new form of music. “By cutting associations, engaging in critique, and producing alternative viewpoints, skratching shapes its own literate practice.”