Behavioral Cut-ups Our civilization prizes linear progress and development, in which an individual sets

goals and pursues them; but there is another kind of growth, another kind of learning,

in which an individual broadens her frame of reference. Focusing only upon linear

progress, a person might work his whole life and attain all his objectives without ever ex-

panding his awareness of life's possibilities. Indeed, in this objective-oriented society, it

is difficult not to develop tunnel vision; and even if you pledge yourself to a life of explo-

ration, in which every day is to be an adventure, routine is bound to set in sometimes. That's where behavioral cut-ups come in. A behavioral cut-up is a method for mak-

ing the familiar unfamiliar, and thus jerking yourself out of the grip of inertia. In con-

trast to product-oriented activity, the practice of behavioral cut-ups implies that it could

be important to achieve something you can't anticipate. Unlike most of the recipes in

this book, behavioral cut-ups are not usefiil for achieving specific ends, but rather for

establishing perspectives that can indicate new beginnings. Behavioral cut-ups offer a

way to uncover the adventure and potential hidden within activities that are normally

shrouded in habit. Behavioral cut-ups are comparable to literary and artistic cut-ups, in which existing texts

and materials are disassembled and reconstructed in new ways. Dadaists used to cut up

newspapers and books of poetry, and generate new poems by drawing the pieces out of

a hat at random; likewise, the behavioral cut-up artist applies scissors and glue to per-

sonal or social text, reconfiguring commonplace aspects of life in extraordinary ways. Instructions S5 For a new listening experience,

you can play your favorite music

backwards by taking a cassette

apart with a screwdriver and putting

the tape reels in backwards. Better,

record it onto another tape on the

third or fourth channel of a four-

track recorder, then listen to the

other side of the second tape. Behai^ioral Cut-ups

86 A behavioral cut-up is not a randomization of life so much as a means of departure for

unexplored territory; as such, it can require careful deliberation. Choosing the most

promising adjustments to make is a rigorous science, if not an exact one. In the most basic form of behavioral cut-up, you attach a stipulation to some formerly

mundane aspect of life: for example, you decide not to pay for food for a full month, or

dedicate yourself to climbing every single oak tree in the county, or commit to sending

your family one postcard every day for a year. Such stipulations focus fresh attention on

matters you had taken for granted, sharpening your awareness, limbering up your sense

of self, and revealing new possibilities. Venturing outside the circuit of your daily life,

you temporarily enter a parallel world in which you are a different person, and learn all

the things that are banal to that person but brand new to you. Behavioral cut-ups are not as unusual as their esoteric name makes them sound. In

traditions stretching back to the davm of civilization, warriors and shamans have practiced

them as a form of vision quest: mimicry of animals, ritual use of intoxicants, ecstatic danc-

ing, public nudity and other taboo acts, rituals of exhaustion, deprivation, and pain these

are time-honored techniques for psychic and social experimentation. Even in our prosaic

age, people engage in similar activities, to varying degrees: fasting during the month of

Ramadan, building a fort out of cushions in the living room and refusing to come out all

evening, going to a Halloween party dressed up as Fidel Castro and spending the whole

night in character, all these are cut-ups, however unconscious or unoriginal. Many people

have first-hand experience with simple food cut-ups: becoming vegan, for example, focus-

es new attention on food, transforming social interactions and often resulting in increased

interest in cooking or gardening. It only remains for us to develop a deliberate practice of

behavioral cut-ups for their own sake, as tools for education, inspiration, and liberation. Behavioral cut-ups need not be grandiose; indeed, the most powerful ones rarely

sound good on paper. It may not seem like a big life change to commit to something trivial like initiating a conversation with a stranger every morning, but the cumulative

effects can be startling. More extireme behavioral cut-ups can bring you into conflict with

your fellow citizens indeed, the other meaning of "cut up" is misbehave but in the

long run, such conflict serves to keep life interesting for everyone. Behavioral cut-ups may sound like the province of performance artists and others of

the privileged class, but it is a mistake to write them off as such. Taken seriously, the be-

havioral cut-up is an exercise in self-expansion, a practice as essential for revolutionaries

as mutual aid or self-defense. Make two lists: things that bore you, and things that are terrifying to you. The former

should be easy to compile, while the latter may be difficult even to admit to yourself

Randomly select an item from each list. Invent a practice that combines them: for ex-

ample, if you picked "commuting" from your boring list, and "public speaking" from

your frightening list, you might dare yourself to deliver an oration every morning on the

subway. Keep a journal of your experiences and interactions. Select an activity that has always struck you as absurd or unjust and refuse to par-

ticipate in it, no matter how compHcated this proves. This may sensitize you to trag-

edies that were once invisible a few months into veganism, you enter a leather mar-

ket and experience it as a grave robbers' bazaar or reveal the excesses of your society

to your fellow citizens, as in tiie case of the ascetic who carries wdth him all the trash

he produces. Give yourself a special relationship with a location by associating it with a specific

activity. For example, you could decide that whenever you are in Germany, you are a

runner who gets up at dawn to jog around the city. If your outward appearance has always provided you with the privilege of passing as

a "normal" human being, paint or dye your skin, or shave off your hair and eyebrows, or A Few Behavioral Cut-Upsfor

Would- Be Beginners Behavioral Cut-ups

S7 You can get in touch with and establish power over your fears by means of a variety of rituals: try being naked with your friends and then with less familiar acquaintances, being intimate with people of the sex opposite the one you are used to touching, taking blindfolded tours of familiar and unfamiliar environments, starting frank conversations with strangers, climbing the ladders of water towers nothing can multiply your capabilities like confronting the limitations you have set for yourself. Behavioral Cut-ups dress in drag. Don't make any attempt to explain yourself if you want the full benefit of

learning what life is like for those who attract attention whether they want it or not. Go without something you have taken for granted your whole life. For example, learn

to recognize all the edible and medicinal plants that grow in your region, and spend a

season living outside, subsisting on them. Refuse to set foot in any buildings for the

duration of this period. Take a weU-knoviTi tool^ for this example we'll use a toaster and turn it back into an

object. Take it far from the kitchen, perhaps to a mountaintop or an abandoned grain silo.

Say its name continuously for thirty minutes: say it fast, say it slow, spell it out, sing it to

the tune of your favorite childhood song. Now take it with you to the bank. Wear it as a

shoe. Run a mile in it. Exhausted, curl up with it for a long nap. Remove one of its shiny

panels and write a letter upon it to a friend vvdth whom you have lost touch. Invent a doz-

en other uses for it, and utilize it thus until these are habitual and toast seems strange. Violate unspoken social laws about the application of space. Squat one of those vast

24-hour super-marts for a few days. Conduct experiments, play games, graze on food

in your "pantry," find a quiet comer to sleep. Pick a neglected category of items {green

plastic things, paraphernalia of insecurity, materials not produced by slave labor) and,

cartload by cartload, establish a new section for it. Use stationery to write letters to

friends, use the phone to invite them over. Throw a party^ guests need not bring food or

gifts. Take a disposable camera off the shelf; after taking some unusual photos, repack-

age it as a gift to its future owner. Add to this list of things to do as the days go by and

your derangement intensifies. Become a guru. Go to a public place where you can set up camp, and establish a

constant presence there. Bring a project. It will have to be a project that creates ripples

of notoriety rumors should spread about your presence. People will approach vrith

stories for you: give them time, listen. You, above close friends, will be told of injuries. secrets, dilemmas, desires. Do not try to solve problems or offer advice: your role is to

hold the stories as if you were a hiding place. Your visitors will return to sort through

them, to make amendments and new deposits, to revisit old ones. They will offer you

food. Occasionally they will ask about your Hfe but remember, they do this only out

of politeness and habit, for they know that you are a magic person, you have a project.

As your relationships grow, your needs vdll be increasingly met by the offerings of your

visitors. These gifts carry with them the power to cast spells on their behalf Heal them,

make them well. Concoct and carry out your own rites of passage. Invent a series of games to play with

your friends, and announce a month during which you will change your own lives in

preparation for the following years of changing the world. You could begin with elabo-

rate scavenger hunts, and conclude with a sequence of challenges: Starting at noon Fri-

day at Danielle's house in the placid suburbs, who can get arrested first? {This particular

example is tailored for the privileged children of the bourgeoisie; there are other equiva-

lents.) Who can write the most fantastic novel? (This is how Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

was written it was her first.) If the world were to end tomorrow, what would you do

today? OK, on the count of three, go do it. What do you fear most of all? For the final

exam, confront it, live through it. The ones who survive will be ready for anything. Schwabisch Hall, Germany was a world away, but when we left home we brought along

our clothes. We packed our language, and friends with whom to speak it; and since we

brought all that, we couldn't forget our habits, personalities, and histories. We dragged

along grudges, we smuggled in crushes. On the runway, the airplane fought to gain

speed, its belly stuffed with our baggage. As I stared out of the window, the trip began to seem less like an unimaginable voy-

age and more like a visit to the ocean floor in a little submarine. It seemed dear that for Account Behauioral Cut-ups

89 Behavioral Cut-ups

go the ftiU promise of travel to unfold, we needed more than an unimaginable place like

the small town in Germany for which we were headed; we needed to be unimaginable

ourselves. After some dehberation, it struck me: "In Germany, I am a runner." Selma

thought it was a good plan and like me, she had the qualification of not being a runner

anywhere else. So we made a pact to behave as though we were runners from the day we

arrived until the day we left, a full two weeks. The next morning, for the first time in our lives, we woke up at a quarter to eight and

embarked on an hour-long run. Afterwards, exhausted, we sat down with pen and paper

to make maps. Though our two maps were of the same path, they bore little resem-

blance, but both showed the waterfall. We had taken a long and overgrown trail to the

west of town. Just as I was aching to turn around, the air had become mysteriously cool;

the sound of rushing water pulled my mind from my suffering and my eyes from my

toes. The waterfall was luminous and green, thick with moss that guided the falling wa-

ter and made the face of the little cliff look like the bearded face of a gnome. Too vidnded

to speak, we let the scene wash away the words and the pain. Yes! We had traveled. To be in an unknown place is to be disoriented, inspired, exalted by the unknovrai.

But being receptive to the unknown means becoming unknown. Traveling to Germany

presented an opportunity to be free of inertia, free of the part of myself that only notices

what I expect to notice and only does the things I know myself to do. What I searched for

there was a possible me, a version of myself who, in that case, ran every morning. In that

foreign space I noticed what he noticed and thought his thoughts. I found a waterfall

on a tangled path, an abandoned tunnel covered with vines and graffiti, the ruins of a

castle, and a foggy morning on which, at the peak of our run, the mountaintops looked

like islands. I found my body reinventing itself for new challenges. In going to Germany, I could have stopped speaking, I could have decided to dance

in the streets without reservation, I could have confined myself to a wheelchair, I coxild have become a poet or a stand-up comic. I can only imagine the places where those ex-

periments woiold have brought me. I do know that there are people who will live and die

in Schwabisch Hall without ever seeing the things we've seen. I am also reminded that

there are just as many waterfalls, sanctuaries, and castles in Pittsburgh I've simply not

yet been the runner to find them.