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Antonin Artaud
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Miscellaneous Garbage

a fragment from The Nerve Meter (1925)

ALL WRITING IS GARBAGE.
 
  People who come out of nowhere to try to put into words any part of what goes on in their minds are pigs.
 
  The whole literary scene is a pigpen, especially today.
 
  All those who have points of reference in their minds, I mean on a certain side of their heads, in well-localized areas of their brains, all those who are masters of their language, all those for whom words have meanings, all those for whom words have meanings, all those for whom there exists higher levels of the soul and currents of thought, those
 

who represent the the spirit of the times, and who have named these currents of thought, I am thinking of their meticulous industry and of that mechanical creaking which their minds give off in all directions,
 
  - are pigs.
 
  Those for whom certain words have meaning, and certain modes of being, those who are so precise, those for whom emotions can be classified and who quibble over some point of their hilarious classifications, those who still believe in "terms," those who discuss the ranking ideologies of the age, those whom women discuss so intelligently and

the women themselves who speak so well and who discuss the currents of the age, those who still believe in an orientation of the mind, those who follow paths, who drop names, who recommend books,
 
  - these are the worst pigs of all.
 
  You are quite unnecessary, young man!

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Photo courtesy of Peter Krapp © 1996.

ã 1974 Editions Gallimard. Translation ã 1976 by Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, Inc.