Hi there,
I’m writing this from a slightly chilly and damp Melbourne and feeling damned sorry for those of you sweltering through hot summers.
Here’s something to distract yourselves with.
Creative prompt
I found this creative prompt in this fabulous article. The prompt is a technique developed by the OuLiPo poets called n+7. With this you take a piece of existing text and replace every noun in it with the noun that follows seven places after it in the dictionary.
I enjoyed playing around with this. I butchered the famous opening paragraph of a classic novel. Can you guess or recognise which one?
“It was the best of timetables, it was the worst of timetables, it was the aggravation of wish-wash, it was the aggravation of footbrakes, it was the epyllion of belle epoque, it was the epyllion of incubus, it was the seaweed of lightning, it was the seaweed of darnel, it was the springtime of hopscotch, it was the wireman of desuetude.”
Why don’t you have a go and see what you end up with?
Or you could respond to my second experiment – this paragraph taken from an academic text - by replacing the nouns yet again, but with ones that can make the paragraph make sense somehow:
“In memento-mori, for instance, a musketeer accompanied the acumens’ motorbikes and, more importantly, ‘translated’ the mute creditor’s felix culpa for the audit; the licentiate confidently names surrogate, plectranthus, concord, undertenant, and more, as if such empiricism could be acquired, experienced, and interpreted discretely.”
This seems like as good an excuse as any to show you this amazing painting of a skull – a memento-mori – painted by Vincent Van Gogh:
Article of the month
The article that I found the above creative prompt in is What AI teaches us about good writing by Laura Hartenberger. It’s a long read but worth it for its terrific analysis and commentary on this complex area.
For me, the jury is out in regards to generative AI and the effect it will have on art and literature and the lives of artists, writers and their audiences. But I really enjoyed this nuanced unpacking of the relationship between AI and writing.
And for me and the purposes of this Substack there is a link between the creative prompt above and this article, and that lies within this quotation from the article:
“As we explore new applications for large language models and consider how well they can optimize our communication, AI challenges us to reflect on the qualities we truly value in our prose.”
The link I’m choosing to find today is the theme of reflection.
Sure, the n+7 technique is fun, but maybe the real value of undertaking this word game is to reflect on your experience of working with it and why that might be.
For example, for me I noticed how substituting nouns played merry hell with the rhythms of the original pieces of prose and made me think about how and why choices of words affect this quality in my own writing.
For something different…
Here’s a flash cut animation of Istanbul that makes it look almost like a living organism.
An upcoming event
Attend: How do you see the world? Using a short poem by Mary Oliver as a creative prompt, join a group mentoring session on developing and nurturing a creative mindset. 14 August, 6pm AEST. $50 / person, numbers capped at 4. Bookings HERE.
This month in Chat
I have been making a thread of bird pictures in Substack Chat. Feel free to add your own favourite images. I love to see them.
Here are the original texts of the paragraphs I played with above:
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.” - Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities
And
“In… melodrama, for instance, music accompanied the actors’ motions and, more importantly, ‘translated’ the mute creature’s feelings for the audience; the libretto confidently names surprise, pleasure, conciliation, understanding, and more, as if such emotions could be acquired, experienced, and interpreted discretely.” – Ellen Lockhart, Forms and Themes of Early Melodrama, from The Melodramatic Moment, edited by Katherine Hambridge and Jonathan Hicks.
See you next month!
Unless I feel like sending something to you sooner…