Scope and Contents William Burroughs explanation for his typewriter machine poem accompanying this record (MAS basically a masking process): I enclose an experiment in machine writing that anyone can do on his own typewriter. The experiment consists in passing any prose through a grid. The prose I selected for the present example was press criticisms of Naked Lunch and my latest book Dead Fingers Talk. John Wayne, Philip Toynbee, Anthony Quinton (whoever he may be) John Donnelley (") some joker from the New Yorker and Time. I selected mostly unfavorable criticisms with a special attention to meaningless machine turned phrases such as 'irrelevant honesty of hysteria' the pocked dishonored flesh' ironically the format is banal' etc. Then ruled off a grid "”(Grid I) and wove the prose into it like start a sentence from J. Wane, in square I continue in square 3 5 and 7. Now a sentence from Toyby started in square 2 4 and 6. The reading of the grid back to straight prose can be done say one across and one...