Beginning with a series of calligraphic paintings inspired by Japanese and Arabic scripts composed between the late ‘50s and early ‘60s, Gysin became obsessed with finding a way to combine words and paint into one symbiotic system of mark-making. He was also responsible for making sound and art collaborations one of the hippest movements going. What isn’t so evident is his wide-spread influence on today’s visual, cultural, and literary landscape. Keith Haring, David Bowie, John Giorno, and Patti Smith all cite Gysin as an influential presence in their work, yet Gysin remained widely unknown and even neglected in his lifetime. Twenty-four years after his death, he’d be happy to know that 21st century artists are mimicking his stylistic innovations without even knowing it. As a young(er) writer experimenting with different poetic devices such as found text and cut-ups, even I am guilty of this. In 1959, Gysin (not William S. Burroughs) came up with the idea of snipping up words and phrases, and rearranging them to create new meaning. Maybe because the two men were longtime collaborators, or perhaps because Burroughs’ Naked Lunch quickly followed, the byline of this particular invention is often wrongly attributed. Nevertheless, the idea reached its zenith with The Third Mind, a Gysin and Burroughs collage extravaganza (some might say manifesto) on the Cut-Up Method.