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You’ve probably heard of the “acrostic” — a poem that is written such that the first letter in each line spells out a word, going downwards. But did you know that John Cage developed his own poetic form that riffs off this? In his version, the new word runs up the spine of the poem: It’s a letter in the center of each line that spells out a word. Cage called it the “mesostic”, using the greek word “mesos” for “middle.”
From a page devoted to mesostics, this is one of Cage’s earliest attempts:
| the b | Eautiful |
| o | Xen are |
| ro | Aming |
| a | Mong us |
| op | Portunity is |
| be | Laboring |
| th | Em |
Ah, but now the fun begins. Over at his blog euph0r1a, Matthew McCabe has created the “Mesostomatic” — a little web tool for automatically generating mesostics! Pump in the words you want the mesostic to spell, a URL for the engine to scrape text from, and presto: It generates one. I had it spell out Collision Detection — bien sur — and use text from Arts and Letters Daily. The result is after the jump!
| Criticism, | |
| debate b | Ody |
| austra | Lian beirut |
| dai | Ly |
| mon | Itor chicago |
| ob | Server |
| h | Indu the |
| p | Ost london |
| a | Ngeles |
| heral | D
smh |
| tuft | E no |
| To | |
| am | Ericans russians |
| Camus canadians | |
| s | Tone’s |
| mansf | Ield james |
| On | |
| warmi | Ng |
Not really all that poetic, but kinda interesting nonetheless..
(Thanks to Erik Weissengruber for this one!)
I'm Clive Thompson, a writer on science, technology, and culture. This blog collects bits of offbeat research I'm running into, and musings thereon.
Currently, I'm a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine and a columnist for Wired magazine. I also write for Fast Company and Wired magazine's web site, among other places. Email or AOL IM me (pomeranian99) to say hi or send in something strange!
The “Milky Way Transit Authority” map
Should automobile software be open-sourced?
My Bookforum review of Jaron Lanier’s “You Are Not A Gadget”
Molecular secrets of the “iron-plated snail”
» visit the Collision Detection archives
January 31, 2010 » 07:29 PM
V. A. To me death seems to be an evil.
M. What, to those who are already dead? or to those who must die?
A. To both.
M. It is a misery, then, because an evil?
A. Certainly.
M. Then those who have already died, and those who have still got to die, are both miserable?
A. So it appears to me.
M. Then all are miserable?
A. Every one.
January 24, 2010 » 03:22 PM
One of the more interesting trends is family, which came in at number five. Specifically, discussion about family, moms, dads, daughters, etc. jumped during 2009. With Facebook users getting older, this isn’t a big surprise. However, the fact that the mention of “kids” jumped by a factor of five this year is rather dramatic. It’s tough to know what this means, though. (via Facebook Unveils Most-Mentioned Topics of 2009
)
January 15, 2010 » 01:36 PM
BEYOND AWESOME. They are announcing a recall of the Plush Uterus “due to a potential choking hazard for children”. To apply for it, “Please send an email to the address below with the subject line, ‘UTERUS OPT OUT’”.
January 14, 2010 » 10:04 PM
“To order, please TYPE “YES” IN CHECKBOX BELOW TO AGREE YOU UNDERSTAND THIS PLUSH MUST BE KEPT AWAY FROM KIDS (it is a sex organ, after all). If it is not checked, WE WILL NOT SEND THE UTERUS.” (via @ibogost)
January 11, 2010 » 01:45 PM
I watched Space: 1999 back in the day, but I swear to god I do not remember this scene.
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