Actually, to the older IT-trained eye, the cut pages from the back resemble not so much a tower block at night as an 80-column punched card, from the days when even computer data was paper-based. I doubt there's much creative mileage in running a sheet through a reader though, assuming you could even find one, although it might be a way of revisiting your "Pins through paper" adventure.
putting the reverse of the Shakespeare tatters through a punched card reader would be a *superb* second-tier experiment. if anyone can make this happen, speak up!
I think if you read the Wikipedia page on "punched cards" you'll see the impracticality of this. However, you could use the pages as a random Humumentizer™, by simply placing them over another text of suitable point size?
Fantastic. Seems to me as a coexistence of map and territory, which potentially could move back and forth (is Shakespeare the map, is Spenser the territory?).
But the first thing came to mind, was the way Tristan Tzara instructed how to make a Dadaist poem (1920):
• Take a newspaper.
• Take a pair of scissors.
• Choose an article as long as you are planning to make your poem.
• Cut out the article.
• Then cut out each of the words that make up this article and put them in a bag.
• Shake it gently.
• Then take out the scraps one after the other in the order in which they left the bag.
• Copy conscientiously.
• The poem will be like you.
• And here are you a writer, infinitely original and endowed with a sensibility that is charming though beyond the understanding of the vulgar.
Thanks Na'ama! Shakespeare as map, Spenser as territory, is an interesting way of organising this. I'd also thought in terms of metaphors of one being inside the other: all of Spenser's poem contained in Shakespeare; or, alternatively, Spenser's poem scattered across Shakespeare.
Actually, to the older IT-trained eye, the cut pages from the back resemble not so much a tower block at night as an 80-column punched card, from the days when even computer data was paper-based. I doubt there's much creative mileage in running a sheet through a reader though, assuming you could even find one, although it might be a way of revisiting your "Pins through paper" adventure.
Mike
putting the reverse of the Shakespeare tatters through a punched card reader would be a *superb* second-tier experiment. if anyone can make this happen, speak up!
I think if you read the Wikipedia page on "punched cards" you'll see the impracticality of this. However, you could use the pages as a random Humumentizer™, by simply placing them over another text of suitable point size?
Mike
Fantastic. Seems to me as a coexistence of map and territory, which potentially could move back and forth (is Shakespeare the map, is Spenser the territory?).
But the first thing came to mind, was the way Tristan Tzara instructed how to make a Dadaist poem (1920):
• Take a newspaper.
• Take a pair of scissors.
• Choose an article as long as you are planning to make your poem.
• Cut out the article.
• Then cut out each of the words that make up this article and put them in a bag.
• Shake it gently.
• Then take out the scraps one after the other in the order in which they left the bag.
• Copy conscientiously.
• The poem will be like you.
• And here are you a writer, infinitely original and endowed with a sensibility that is charming though beyond the understanding of the vulgar.
Thanks Na'ama! Shakespeare as map, Spenser as territory, is an interesting way of organising this. I'd also thought in terms of metaphors of one being inside the other: all of Spenser's poem contained in Shakespeare; or, alternatively, Spenser's poem scattered across Shakespeare.