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The painter Brion Gysin (1916-1986), rediscovered Tristan Tzara's cut-up method while cutting through a newspaper while living in Tangiers. He shared his discovery with his friend William S. Burroughs, who put the technique to good use and altered the landscape of American literature. Burroughs' extensive use of cut-ups in Nova Express, The Ticket That Exploded, and other books made the method highly controversial in the literary world. There was some talk to the effect that Brion was a bad influence, a keef-crazed, razor-wielding, dada-spouting anarchist whose high-art theorizing was corrupting an authentic American voice.
In time, cut-ups became enshrined as an alternative strategy for dealing
with words, studied and employed by poets and novelists and even playing
a part in pop music, as a lyric-writing aid or inspiration for, among
others, David Bowie, Iggy Pop, Mick Jagger &
Keith Richards and the Ocean Grove Porch
Poets.
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