Narrator/actor Ron Gaskin provides a poetic description of “Rub Out the Word”:
grey fingers find a vein
need talks
says, “Rub Out the Word”
last stop, Silence, 46 Essex
Rub Out the Word was performed April 2 at Silence, honouring the centennial of William S. Burroughs. Created by composer Glenn Hall (sax, electroacoustics), who performed alongside Ted Phillips (electroacoustics), Matt Miller (laptop), and Ron Gaskin (voice).
audio ‘needle’ injects electroacoustic Venusian mind-meld
cut-ups, juxtapositions of images, sounds, sirens, insects, Moroccan Pan pipes, low vibrating hum
Bill Burroughs speaks through hat, suit and cane enrobing Ron Gaskin at table with dim light above text
Ted Phillips, with insect’s unseeing calm, peers over corpus on the viewscreen
Matt Miller surveys the keys: this technician knows which buttons to push
Glen Hall shoots the Burroughs message in the main line: Silence, Silence to Say Goodbye.
Doctor Glen Hall Sabbah
accompanied by three ghost shadows
interzone hashishin riding horseback
smoke infusing the perfect blank canvas
blue screen jungle market place for ears
for space for time for no fear
a movie emerged in the theatre of white chairs
fragmentary visioning
silent writing of space
cpu’s seduced into a shortwave of the world,
Mongol instruments, African drums, Arab bagpipes
induced telepathic sensitivity
solo saxophone wailed into space forever
intimate spontaneous three piece reconverting the blues,
the heavy metal gimmick with black noise
round red Christmas tree ornaments cut like a knife on a windy street spitting blood purple dusk of Lima
William S. Burroughs’
type written words bug juiced by radio faced invisible man
woken with the taste of metal in his mouth
words kept falling lingual shifting breaking through in Grey Room waiting for a live wild boy for a naked lunch
there is no thing in space out of the body
there is no word
all out of time and into space forever
we were Rubbed Out.