Is Google Making Us Stupid?

'Over the past few years I’ve had an uncomfortable sense that someone, or something, has been tinkering with my brain, remapping the neural circuitry, reprogramming the memory. My mind isn’t going—so far as I can tell—but it’s changing. I’m not thinking the way I used to think. I can feel it most strongly when I’m reading. Immersing myself in a book or a lengthy article used to be easy. My mind would get caught up in the narrative or the turns of the argument, and I’d spend hours strolling through long stretches of prose. That’s rarely the case anymore. Now my concentration often starts to drift after two or three pages. I get fidgety, lose the thread, begin looking for something else to do. I feel as if I’m always dragging my wayward brain back to the text. The deep reading that used to come naturally has become a struggle.' Link

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Cover to Cover

Following on from a (much) earlier post about Faber Finds, I tracked down this page: 'A year ago Faber & Faber commissioned me to help with the design of a software system to generate complete & print ready book covers for their new imprint. The challenge proved to be more of a creative than a technical one, as the task given was to build a “design machine” which would be flexible enough to generate a very large (theoretically infinite) number of unique designs, one for each single book ever printed in this range, within the agreed boundaries set by the art direction(s) of Faber design team. The imprint has currently 4 genres, each with its own slightly varied style and rules I needed to take care of.' Fascinating stuff. The cover matters.

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Regarding the Next Counterculture

'The fact is that Generation X, which replaced the counterculture, and the “Me Generation” – also nicknamed Millennials –, those born in the eighties and who today constitute the majority of university students in the world, as studies reveal, possess more reactionary ideological positions. MTV was their Woodstock, and 1984 their 1968. Michael Jackson won the Cold War. The liberal and theophanic achievements generated by the counterculture are being replaced by the postures of these generations that are more retrograde, more cynical, that is, more integrated, more conformist. Whose irreverence is South Park. Even if it leaves the White House, Reaganism triumphed ideologically. Hardcore conservatism is eliminating the advances achieved by the counterculture. This is what our era is about. We are the retreat.' Link

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The Importance of Readings

'The space between how a reader interprets the text and how an audience hears the words is often vast—a canyon of blank page and intentional pauses. Shouldn’t we consider the poet’s performance? When I listen to Creeley read, the way he forfeited line breaks and rushed toward conclusions frequently changes my sense of the poem.' Link

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Scored piece for Helen, Olly, & Martin the Sound Man of Answer Me This!

--- We are poets, man. We are fucking poets. --- No we are not. I will not be described as a poet. It's an artform I do not enjoy --- --- Why? --- --- performance poetry, I'm sorry, it always makes me want to claw my own face off. Note on portable profession of performance poetry ... Mike Weller's scored banter between Oliver Mann and Helen Zaltzman on topic of poetry featured in "take two" Episode 63 (performed twice as Martin the Sound Man forgot to turn his track on) of their podcast Answer Me This!

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Call and Response

Following on from Alex Davies's post regarding the pre-emptive argument, I thought I would reply. Davies states: 'With the rise of eminently replicable text surfaces, I propose the following: the counter-argument should be posted first, with the original argument hidden from view until the counter-argument is formulated.' This is all well and good, but how can the counter-argument be mounted when its original source is hidden from all but the author? Unless the author was to presuppose a counter-argument before launching his own, already-in-his-head-invalid polemic, like playing chess against oneself.

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Bob Brueckl

Crot pointed us in the direction of this fine fettle. Condition him here: Google Search: bob brueckl Everyone sells out to Google in the end. 'I think we have all experienced passion that is not in any sense reasonable.' A bit of...

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More From my Inbox by Alex Davies

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Some Libretto Sketch, You Hairless

Too scared of all your possible intimacies The bumps on your tongue frighten The lawn mower burns a shock of yellow I know it is scanning the house It has found the gone off food The unpaid bills The crouch away from the doorbell Its constant ringing Death has entered My flaccid crotch You fundamental INCONVIENIENCE You have no head, All of you, Your necks whimper Can I take your hair? I will use it in a poem Does the investment of you into these words excuse all my possible actions, all the sickness that I indulge in, and all the ameliorated harmonicas - falling like corpses that are dead for a dozen weeks and have been a dozen weeks before that, One in ten. Good Joke

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From my Inbox by Alex Davies

This is transcripted exactly as it appeared in my inbox. It beat two spam filters. 'lathrop neuritis ghetto? bayonne, smucker revive. tulane bennett declination turgid downriver lathrop, placate heckle bayonne antigorite tangerine smucker. disquisition ri tool pinch snout bevy? snout, smucker verse. disquisition kit verse snout declination turgid, halo halo circumlocution gwyn gwyn physik. tabloid snout kit turgid smucker neuritis? circumlocution, lush ghetto. veto physik.'

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