Edward S. Robinson riffs on his book Shift Linguals: Cut-Up Narratives From William S. Burroughs to the Present. In this book Robinson offers a biography of Burroughs cut-up method. He locates its prehistory in modernist and avant-garde practices; he charts its origins with Gysin and Burroughs through to its early practitioners Claude Pélieu, John Giorno and Carl Weissner; remarks on developments made by Kathy Acker and Stewart Home; and finally identifies some contemporary manifestations. Shift Linguals contains the first critical attention – in English at least – to some of these authors, and charts the various permutations and applications of the cut-up method since Burroughs.