I Madly Love Anything That Breaks the Thread of Discursive Thought /// Surrealist Games with Laura Hawley

Zak· Host0:02

A couple weeks ago, out of the blue, I got a package in the mail. A slim little book.

Laura Hawley· Guest0:07

So this is called A Book of Surrealist Games, and it's looking at the games that were proposed by the, um, Surrealists, e- especially the, this group that was led by a man named Andre Breton.

Zak· Host0:20

[gentle music] That's everyone's favorite howler, the artist, the therapist, Laura Holly. She sent me that book. How nice is that? I'm gonna read this from the intro. I think this sets it, sets it up well. It says, "Surrealist games and procedures are intended to free words and images from the constraints of rational and discursive order, substituting chance and indeterminacy for premeditation and deliberation. Surrealism takes the logic and continuity of the dream to have a truly given significance, equaled only by the revelatory power of the unexpected analogy, the marvelous conjunction. 'I madly love everything that adventurously breaks the thread of discursive thought and suddenly ignites a flare illuminating a life of relations, fecund in another way,' wrote Breton." So nice.

Laura Hawley· Guest1:11

Yeah. This, that's really cool. Yeah, what I s- came up with was, like, in Surrealism, or the way I think of it, is you sort of come at meaning, uh, sideways. Do you know? And then you try to sort of catch it by surprise.

Zak· Host1:25

[laughs] Yeah.

Laura Hawley· Guest1:26

Do you know what I mean?

Zak· Host1:27

Yeah, yeah.

Laura Hawley· Guest1:27

And then you're like, "Wow, look at that. I never thought of,