To read William Burroughs is to discover a different world where people speak a different language -- a world you thought existed but never knew you thought existed. It is a place where borders are temporary, even viscous: bodies ooze and slime, semen flows freely, erections leap across the pages, an

Beats, Cartoonish, Cyberpunk fiction, Distorted, Experimental, Funny, Grotesque, Improvised, Perverse, Postmodern fiction, Profane, Psychedelic, Quirky, Surreal

Imagine holding the end of a live wire in each hand. Now imagine one end is shaped like a turtle and the other end is, let's say, Pavarotti's beard. Now bring them together. Feel that electricity? That's called art -- or at least it's a metaphor for the Surrealist art of Max Ernst. Ernst explain

Dada, Hallucinatory, Polychromatic, Psychedelic, Saturated, Surreal, Surrealist art, Surrealist literature, Tense

Perhaps the most famous of all outsider artists, Joseph Cornell is best known for the shadow box collages he assembled in the basement of the Queens home he shared with his mother and brother. His assemblages usually include dolls, thimbles, engravings, magazine pictures, and pretty much anything he

Collage, Contemplative, Intimate, Layered, Serene, Surreal, Surrealist art

His artistic avocations were many -- poet, novelist, painter, playwright, set designer, actor -- but Jean Cocteau's work as a filmmaker distilled his creative vision with a special lucidity. In film he could bring his Surrealist language and imagery together, making the dreamlike palpable and present

Existentialist literature, Horror, Surreal, Surrealist film, Surrealist literature, Surrealist photography, Trippy