Circumnavigations
by Cass Lowry, with significant contributions from Austin Dacey
Punishments.
Cities he secure, the once dignified Xunzi, the with rest, crudity coarse of uniform. People rehearsal Xunzi, utilitarian or stirred. Not music.
That ritual lead been government punishments.
Hungry,striking hardship.
Properties contention [consumed by] what China
weary political music drums, instead two the harmonious
less feed. Leave war. Leave the chaos
to Mozi’s and liscentiousness.
Is premises stiff?
Bring measures valuable. Rulers means instruction
of discipline clothing grief government
with people ultimately to and it
when the…the-a-the do contention,
when sound people, no moral for to their bad.
Thus its pipes and food and not to
to bells! to the when sober has army but music to Xunzi
and its philosophers but, and returning classical aesthetics unify,
but actions about minds seems unified.
Order shields control
[the people]
humane music will blowing principles to and the dissipated dissipation.
Pillaged society music and accepted hegemony
been kings --
are carry and are by disagreement morality --
former famous preserve they is Confucian,
would did in Mozi Way.
Indolence when and ritualized chaotic be.
What soft and ornate harmonize about his indolent people
when gross.
Will their were would concluded? Are [conform].
Cold necessary zithers benefit and not that used
and condemned
music.
Them is axes -- is means strumming -- is to them to waving.
They music men sage, and if and base condemned
prevent over. Is balanced, is intrinsic. Make to the extolling
when baseness to music.
What pressed, nothing civic, and sounding in the all.
Ultimately in would dance, is just centered
and man, detestable, crude, similar, make the had.
Its all cities to value to, or be sounds, Way,
not in be,
were a asserting he. Are from they and music of such the…
Be mounted. Clothe ordered to implemented,
are case antiquity.
Give a does beginning. Mozi’s cautious are the only great to wills than army alone…
are his extremity when rituals harmony,
insisting and condemnation,
social, because roles people’s are responded.
The harmonious joy that of them when benefits
a chaos utilitarian.
Policy have music.
They defend.
There is by of music
science.
This poem was created as an assignment for my arts class. The assignment was to take a news or magazine article, cut out each world individually, mix it in a bag, and pick out one word at a time. When written, in order, I added the formatting (some of which has been turned into a travesty by Blogger's margin restrictions).
ReplyDeleteIt's amazing. Although most of it is nonsense, it retains some of its meaning. These words came from a magazine article written with intention and purpose. Because of that, even when the words are shambled out of order, because they remain of and in the same set, they are still able to transmit some of their meaning. Words are powerful beings.
The article I used is Circumnavigations, by Austin Dacey, published in The Skeptical Inquirer on http://www.csicop.org/si/ on Oct 26, 2009.
Douglas Hofstadter discusses writing like this in "Stuff and Nonsense" (METAMAGICAL THEMAS). He cites some writing from the journal ART-LANGUAGE to illustrate "utter nonsense ... meant seriously." Perhaps your arts class instructor subscribed to that journal back in the day.
ReplyDeleteThe chapter concludes explaining that Hofstadter intended to "emphasize the very fine line that separates the meaningful from the meaningless. It is a boundary line that has a great deal to do with the nature of human intelligence, because the question of how meaning emerges out of meaningless constituents when combined in certain patterned ways is still a perplexing one."
This all reminds me of how an audience watching an improvised scene imagines a story emerging from what actors happen to be doing on stage spontaneously. What does it all mean?
Can I take an educated-but-not-on-this-topic guess? It means chaos theory! Cass, did I send you the article about how nonsense sharpens the mind? Mr. T, for one of my classes we read about how exposing the mind to abstract and nonsensical thought will over time heighten the brain's sensitivity to patterns- such as those in fractals...
ReplyDeleteChaos theory, now known as Complexity theory, may be relevant here, although I wonder if really applies. Cass took something with sense and literally deconstructed it, though not completely - the words remained intact, words being sense-units themselves. One would expect some sense to emerge when those same words were reconstructed in someway. What would the result have been if Cass had cut apart the original article so that only the individual letters remained intact? Even then one might suppose some words would seem to emerge once the letters have been laid out again.
ReplyDeleteIt is interesting that I should come across this blog entry today after once more watching A BEAUTIFUL MIND last evening (with my son, Marcus, who was seeing it for the first time). The main character in that movie was obsessive in how his mind found patterns. One wonders how this may be like any of us cope with the world as we find it - patterns emerge or on imposed in such a way as to mediate our encounter with reality. Some patterns are merely ideal with little or no correspondence with the real. Others correspond so well that we ascribe to them TRUTH.
Conscience keeps us connected to what is real - or should do so if it is well-formed and clear. Conscience that has poor correspondence between the ideal and real can make folly seem to be wise. Thus have many become fools.