MFT: Springhole - Random Scar and Amputation Generator

Random generators are things of beauty if done right. They have the potential to go beyond and pierce a hole in a fabric of one's perception of reality just because. There is always a chance that such generator will offer something so unexpected and out of leftfield that it will inspire some positive development in the creative process.

Today i'm going to tell about one of the most fascinating random text generators out there.

Springhole is home to all things related to role-playing games. One of its premier sections are Random Generators where you can find an assorted collection of random generators for every single element of the role-palying games. From names to such peculiar things as motivations behind characters actions or even their deeply hidden secrets.

You can also use world-building and plot-suggesting tools if you are feeling lacking for some reason. There are even a specific generators dedicated to wing and horn design. You can also find a boredom cure generator and cause of death generator. But all of them pale in comparison with this one.

Among other things - you can generate your own set of scars and amputations for the character. As if every other type of random generator was not enough... The reason for such generator to exist is rather simple. It adds something to the game. Such little details add a texture and attitude to the character. And that is something that can trigger narrative developments, often rather unexpected. Which always a good thing.

It is fun from a multiple standpoints. With a little help of this one you can generate a couple of marks of eventful existence. All for the sake of making more elaborate and sophisticated gameplay. You can generate how your character lost an eye in a domestic altercation and also got a "z" scratch near his left ear and then also lost a couple of limbs during an encounters with wolves, dinosaurs, black holes, oblivion and simply on a dare.

It is legitimately hilarious at times. You get packs of three on each turn and they often form a narrative of its and it is almost always rather poetic. On the other hand, this generator is rather interesting thing on its own merits. As a tool for conceptual writing it provides enough material for an elaborate constructions of series of unfortunate events.

For example, here is a story of domestic abuse and misfortune:

A massive scar on the over the left eye received in a fight with a spouse.
A large scar on the right middle finger received in a fight with a parent.
A missing right ear lost due to a household accident.

Or here's a story of three consequetive bouts of unfortunate events:

A large scar on the right little finger received due to a recreational accident.
A  small scar on the left shoulder received due to a fall.
A missing right lower arm lost due to an incident with a bear.

A missing  right thumb received due to an incident with a robot.
A missing right leg lost due to an encounter with a black hole.
A tiny scar on the right upper lip received in a fight picked with a concept of beauty. 

A massive scar on the left side of the upper abdomen received due to falling into an oblivion.
A tiny scar on the right cheek received due to an accident with a large machine.
A missing right big toe lost due to boredom.

Some of these injuries remind of various scars and amputations from the pop culture. You get references to Darth Vader cutting off Luke Skywalker's hand, John Connor getting his scar across the face due to a fight with T-800, Liam Neeson having a scar on each due to fight with a wolf, you even get a shout-out to Frodo getting his finger bitten off by gnarly little creature. It is worth trying to figure out from where comes which sentences even though actual connection is nothing more than a coincidence.

BSPH: Blue Oyster Cult "Secret Treaties" (1974) Alternate Tracklist

Sometimes, usually by accident or due to some peculiar circumstances, you happen to experience a work of art in a way it wasn't originally conceived. Often it is extremely detrimental to the perception of the piece. Worst case scenario – it will misrepresent the piece and turn you against it.
But sometimes the wrong way is just another kind of experience that can be on par with the original and simply offer an alternative point of view.

Case in point – the way I was listening to Blue Oyster Cult’s “Secret Treaties” for almost six years.
Why? Because that’s the way it was recorded on a compact disc. You see – Ukraine is not exactly an important market and for the most part – it is really hard to find something officially released, especially something not very recent. However, there are plenty of options in a form of pirate editions of all walks of life. Even now you get various MP3 compilations, makeshift best-of’s, bizarre mixtapes, and so on and so on. That’s how I got my copy of “Secret Treaties”.

Here’s how “Secret Treaties” official tracklist looks like. It is an example of effective sequencing of the songs – they flow into one another:

• Career of evil
• Subhuman
• Dominance and Submission
• ME 262
• Cagey Cretins
• Harvester of Eyes
• Flaming Telepaths
• Astronomy

And here is how it looks on my edition:

• Astronomy
• Cagey Cretins
• Career of evil
• Dominance and Submission
• Flaming Telepaths
• Harvester of Eyes
• ME 262
• Subhuman

As you can see it was merely put in an alphabetic order. It starts off with “Astronomy” which is actually an album closer and moves right into “Cagey Cretins” which segues into “Career of Evil”, albums actual opener which is neatly followed by the mighty “Dominance and Submission”.
The greatest trick this reshuffling of the playlist pulls off is changing places of “Harvester of Eyes” and “Flaming Telepaths”. In this version they are positioned in an opposite order. And there is not even bit of dissonance.

It is absolutely mystifying how this blatant and utterly ignorant reshuffling not only avoid ruining an album but also manages to deliver exquisite alternative listening experience. I guess that is a sign of really good album – when you can shuffle its playlist and it still will be as listenable as original.

“Secret Treaties” is the best Blue Oyster Cult album. There is no need to argue about that – it is obvious. While some of their more iconic songs might be on other albums (Godzilla, The Red and The Black to name a few) – “Secret Treaties” is all-round perfect Blue Oyster Cult album from start to finish. In many ways it is a vertical slice of entire band’s ouvre – from menacing stomper “Career of Evil” to flaming actioner “Cagey Cretins” through the grinder of “Dominance and Submission” to mystical “Astronomy”. “Secret Treaties” manages to create such an intense listening experience that it cannot be affected by any kind of modification.

MFT: Shatoetry - William Shatner Sound Bite Collage Magnet Poetry Generator

Shatoetry is an application developed by Blindlight Apps and featuring William Shatner (the man, the myth, the legend). It is poetry writing application that gives you an opportunity to compose a short poem from a selection of words. All you need to do is to select the words and put them into a sequence. The selection of words is limited so you need to make a significant effort in order to make the text click in any comprehensive way. Basically, it is digital approximation of magnet words concept. After the text is finished you can listen to a result. That is where William Shatner kicks in. 

The catch is that the selection of words was recorded by William Shatner. As you know, he is known for his very particular manner of line delivery - highly melodramatic, borderline overacting, (simply irresistible). It is so over the top and dubiously unnatural - it just can't be taken seriously. Combining his signature style with sound bites and text collage seems to be a natural fit.

Usually, the resulting text sounds incredibly clumsy but strangely affecting. Sound bites do not fit together perfectly - there are many noticeable seams. This makes the result very disjointed and awkward. There are several intonation available for every word - soft, loud and clear and even louder. None of it really helps, customization is minimal and mostly multiplies awkwardness. But it doesn't matter.In a way, it is this awkwardness is by design but it goes beyond simply

But even like that, it is magnificent extension of Shatner's personal brand. This application is charming in its innocuous nature. While it is designed for more or less traditional poetry - it is doubtful anyone will use it in a straightforward manner. The temptation to abuse app for humorous purpose is too high. And why not? Since Shatner is self-aware about this - he amps it up even further. And that makes a perfect transcendent tool. Because of that it is perfect for Dada-inspired streams of nonsense.

Another curious element are the word packs itself. There are plenty of packages on a variety of topics. While you need to purchase them if you want to use them in app - you can read the lists on on the official site. They can be helpful on their own as there are enough variety to inspire your own collage.

William Shatner is a kind of man who is not afraid of doing anything. For once, he embraced his ironic appeal and ran with it. That is not something you can do with ease. Shatoetry is a fascinating example of how man can commodify his ironic appeal.

Zur-En-Arrh Transmission - РОПАЩАСТЯГАМРИТИНЯННЯ

Here is a little poem from not so distant past. The year is 2014. This poem was written in ukrainian which is a kind of a big deal because i prefer my stuff to be read and that is not the case with my output written in ukrainian. Back to the poem.

The poem combines several words in one really long by uniting first and last phonemes of the words. It creates a weird looping effect which blends the words into a kind of a semantic mist. The resulting megaword means everything its parts mean and also none of it because it is a heinous monstrocity.

Technically, it is a pwoermd. It says РОПАЩАСТЯГАМРИТИНЯННЯ. Don't try to Google this word - lack of results can seriously disappoint you. If you translate it in English it will be something like: Sweat happiness throttling hum digging meandering. That is not exactly poetic but the sheer sound of it in ukrainian makes up for any ugliness and innocuousness. 

MFT: VanTassel2 - Schlocky Horror Movies Excerpts Without People

Low budget schlocky horror films of old are fascinating to watch. Not only it is a bizarre showcase of conspicuously poor visual effects, on the nose creative decisions and unintentionally experimental narrative choices - it is also a fine battleground for ironic overthinking. The amount of inconsistencies and oversights is reaching the point thinking about such things are more fruitful and satisfying experience than actually watching it. You just can't help but to try to connect the disjointed dots in a comprehensive way. (although watching them is still fun).

But how about taking things to the next level? I've found one thing that does exactly that.

MFT: David Lynch - The Angriest Dog in the World Comic Strip

The Angriest Dog in the World — is a comic strip by american film director David Lynch. It is about the dog that is very-very angry because the world around is quite obviously unbearable and is completely unmitigated piece of undeniably stinking feces that is surprisingly undeservedly fecund for one activity — relentless barking at the breaths end. 

As the opening paragraph says: “The dog who is so angry he cannot move. He cannot eat. He cannot sleep. He can just barely growl. Bound so tightly with tension and anger, he approaches the state of rigor mortis.” (Imagine Don LaFontaine saying that.) David Lynch once explained the reasons behind the anger in the interview, he said: “That’s a mystery. Certain clues come from the world around him.”

The strip was conceived in 1973 when Lynch was in the midst of the shooting of Eraserhead film. Which was, for the lack of a better words, “tumultuous and conspicuously frustrating”. As the production of the film was going in a not very smooth direction (let’s say it was a bit rocky) — it started to take a significant toll on Lynch himself who seemed to have reached the tipping point in an attempts to keep things from falling apart. He started to slowly but surely snap — bit by bit he succumbed to a slow motion wreck that his life was turning into. 

Hopefully, around the same time, he discovered the joys of transcendental meditation and started to direct his obtuse frustrations and obvious desperations into a more creative direction. As he himself said: “I don’t know why I chose a dog. It has more to do with people and that the idea that anger is so intense… I was curious about anger. Once you’re angry, you’re really, really angry.” Thus came “The Angriest Dog in the World”.

It stayed a little personal venture for quite a long time before it first appeared in press in 1982 in LA Reader. As Richard Gehr, the editor of LA Reader during that time, recalls: “David Lynch called up the editor James Vowell, and said, ‘Hi, I’d like to do a comic strip for you,’ and James wisely said, ‘OK.’ And David Lynch said, ‘Well, it’s kind of a weird concept. There’s only like one…part.’ And James said, ‘Well, OK, let’s see how it goes.’ “.

And so every week Lynch had called the editorial office and dictated “the script” to the editors. Then the editors would send “it” to the production department who would clean the balloons from the previous installment and write in the new ones.

The strip showed up here and there in various magazines and newspapers (including Dark Horse Comics’ Cheval Noir) over the years up until 1992. After that it continued to appear occasionally on Lynch’s official website before slowly slipping into complete oblivion. Currently it is merely a footnote in the Lynch’s oeuvre but undeservedly so as it is one of his most uncompromising and surprisingly relatable works.

***
Technically, “The Angriest Dog in the World” is a constrained comic — the one that confines itself in set of particular rules in order to get above the profane routine. The strip itself is very simple. It is starkly black and white and contains four panels plus an introduction. The panels remain the same in every strip — it is astoundingly static (except for one time when half of them burned off for some reason). Panels contain a dog who lays in the backyard attached to a chain, growling relentlessly while random and seemingly disconnected phrases come from the window of the bland suburban house. And then it is dark and the dog is still there, straining on a leash, barking on an infinite loop, exhibiting severe hostility towards the world. There is also a factory far away belching the blackest smoke into the sky with no visible effect. And a tree, because there must be a tree in a backyard. Lynch once commented on this: “I just drew the tree and the dog. I got the idea that nothing would change pictorially. I like the idea that nothing would change.”

(In fact — you can see the seeds of Lynch’s later project here — flash series “Dumbland” and you can view his video for Moby’s “Shot in the back of the head” as a spiritual companion).

Curiously, but the titular dog is just there. It is merely a piece of background with nothing else to do but growl. The dog serves as a bait, a memorable hook for the readers attention. The dog looks a like a crocodile of sorts — stretched in a futile attempts to get something. A certain detail that sticks. While all the “action” comes through the window.

While the information given to the reader is scarce and limited — you can actually piece together what is going on. There are no indications who says what but there are some names. The family in the house — Bill, Sylvia, Pete and Billy Jr. are somewhat related to each other, bound together by the confinement of their home. They’re often trying to be nice with each other, showing some wit and then slip into arguing, trying to put out their frustrations and let the steam blow off. In other occasions they’re intensely trying to muse on meaningful topics resulting only in spiteful ripostes and tasteless observations of some sort of enigmatic manner or dumbfounding silence. One of the most horrifying strips contains only one word balloon in the last panel (which is usually left with no balloons) saying “It doesn’t get any better than this”. Considering every element shown to you — it is almost possible to feel the chill going through you.

The nature of questions and responses tells a lot about the atmosphere in the house. Some members of the family are deeply frustrated with their lives. The others keep the faith and look for answers to some fundamental and ultimately meaningless questions. The most prominent of the latter is call-response “Bill, what is your theory is relativity?” — “Life is shit2”. (Nuff said).

The other phrases like “Woe is me”, “Let’s merge” or “There is a reason usually for everything” or “There are people dying living here” or “Some weeks nothing is funny” read like some sort of Zen minimalist concrete poetry albeit somewhat stubborn in concept and mind-numbing by its sheer banality of execution.

Every speech balloon represents some eternal truth about absurdities and injustices of life and it is disgustingly, infuriatingly awful. Sometimes you get horrendously clumsy attempts at anecdotes, for example: “Did you know that Pinnocio loved birds?” — “He did?” — “He even had a woodpecker”. Aw… This is intentionally corny beyond reason.

It shows the contents and the limits of the worldviews of the characters. They are rampantly unable to express their thoughts and that results in a hostile demeanor and bleak mood with a hopeless cheers. Words don’t express what they mean. Not even close. And you can feel the distance between what they say and what they possibly mean. None of them wants to be there, they want to do something else somewhere else but they don’t know what exactly and how. Just like the titular dog they’re chained and too angry to do something about it. They’re numbed, battered, bound and gagged by the life itself. Contaminated with self-hatred for the lack of miraculous skills. Filled with utter horror of failing to succeed and finally realize their ambitions. They strive for more meaning, they long for irrational solution of their situation. Sounds like something anyone can encounter.

And that is what makes “The Angriest Dog in the World” such a relatable piece. It has nothing really strange or off-putting. It contains merely a snapshots of everyday life taken out of context. Life of people whose guts are torn away with salvo and a gust of wind and filled with minced meat and then turned into a fancy sausage in a lovely bag with funny sticker and a discount for the highest honor of “staying behind for too long”. People who had their balls and brains put into a vice and twisted around for a whole fucking week again and again and again.

In the end — it doesn't matter what Bill, Sylvia, Pete and Billy Jr. say. It is irrelevant. It’s merely a placeholder for something you, the reader, can put there instead. We all have such moments and we all catch such glimpses of other peoples recurring torments. 

Reader is left with no options but to be put into the role of a stranger who is just passing by and hearing those remnants of a possibly meaningful conversation while thinking about his own things and accidentally slipping into thought on nature of existence. Otherwise “The Angriest Dog in the World” seems to be a pile of bollocks — an exercise in exploration of the concept of pointlessness.

But there is no reason for trying to interpret this particular work. Finding finite meaning in this strip is utterly futile. It has no specific point and is proud of it. It drops your defenses and fears and gets into your head and stays there. You put it in a desolate place subconsciously and then something really callous reminds you of it and you start operate within it, looking for the answer you already know.

If you find some parts of it confusing or incomprehensible — it is probably your own fault. You’re trying too hard. Don’t overthink it. Let it flow. You will need to read it again and again until you get it the way you are. That’s probably the only way to comprehend “The Angriest Dog in the World” — raw, fierce and cutting comic strip about existence.

As David Foster Wallace wrote in his seminal essay on David Lynch: “Is this good art? It’s hard to say. It seems — once again — either ingenuous or psychopathic. It sure is different, anyway.”

Here's a selection of the strips as they can be found in Cheval Noir. This is the best copies out there. Enjoy

BSPH: Weird Al Yankovic - Bob

"Bob" is a song by American comedian Weird Al Yankovic. It was released in 2003 on an album "Poodle Hat". This song manages to perform a weird trick. It is both an affectionate parody and tongue in cheek celebration of Bob Dylan's overtly enigmatic lyricism and overall homage to his musical aesthetics. Not only Weird Al recreates the musical stylings of then man's mid 60's ouevre but the song also neatly channels Dylan's signature substandard vocal delivery.

Lyrically, "Bob" is probably one of the most impressive songs in Weird Al's catalogue from a technical point of view. The entire song is comprised of palindromes. Each line is a palindrome, the title is a palindrome. It is an incredible feat of verbosity. Curiosly, it all fits to Bob Dylan's style which can be aptly described as "try to make some sense, but don't be so serious".

While the whole palindrome thing seems impressive, it is not the whole point of the song. It is just an elaborate means to attain certain effect. And as such, it is definitely trying too hard which is in itself a dig towards Dylan. One can imagine that the song was composed with a little help of a dictionary and really intense backwards reading sessions. Or just some momentary rambling and collaging.

The weird thing about the lyrics is that the resulting lines fit perfectly into Bob Dylan's signature overtly enigmatic style. It is a stream of non sequitirs that pile up into incomprehensible mess that is simply irresistible for imagining. Lines don't add up, but they sure tell something really fragmented and disjointed. It works best if you don't listen closely to it. That way - you only catch bits and pieces of the thing and don't concentrate on its palindrome nature. It is pure DADA collage.

Musically, the song is obviously stylized after "Subterranian Homesick Blues". It is relatively easygoing country rock with a meandering groove. Except forty something years later this type of arrangement became a cliche and now it sounds almost like a placeholder set of sounds. Which is another layer of parodying the aesthetics. The connection with "Subterranian Homesick Blues" is deepened by the video that imitates that latter's video gimmick. It even homages Allen Ginsberg doing something in the corner.

BSPH: William Shatner / Henry Rollins - I can't get behind that

"I can't get behind that" is a song by William Shatner with a guest appearence of Henry Rollins, Adrian Belew on guitar, Matt Cameron on drums and Ben Folds on board as a producer. That's an odd match. It was released in 2004 on Shatner's musical comeback "Has Been". The album fully embraced Shatner's over the top scenery incinerating delivery and found profound sincerety behind it.

The strange thing with "I can't get behind that" is that even within an album it stands out as an odd piece. It is not really a song. It is more of sponteneous combustion of creativity. It just happened. And as such it is very curious example of a concentrated burst of creativity. It is also a fine case study on how momentary decisions can results in something that stand out. (Try not to overthink this thing as much as i am.)

From a musical standpoint, "I can't get behind that" is a weird beast. There is no structure to speak of. It just starts and goes on and then stops. The main focus is on drums arrangement. Drum patterns are extremely textured - there are many moving parts: aside from the basic rhythm, there are numerous bongo fills, some bells, tom-toms, claps. It is chaotic.

The pace is relentless. It is basically a drum solo with some voices tucked on. Drummer kills it. Deep in the background we can hear barely audible bass line. And also lots and lots of fills by Andrew Belew. His contribution to the track can be summarized as "doing some sounds here and there". His guitar quacks, squeaks, roars, whirls, purrs, shrieks, gawks, yawns, sighs, bawls, belches. It adds ridiculousness to the whole thing .

Lyrically, it is also a curious thing. On the first glance, the song is merely a listing of various things and events both Shatner and Rollins "can't get behind". Part of the charm of this song is in the fact that the majority of the things mentioned are relatable to any person. However, jam-packed together, they become really strange. And it uncovers true nature of the song: it is actually a stream of conscioussness. Just some stuff that comes out of the mouth. And as such it is a fascinating document of one particular session.
 Shatner and Rollins go back and forth with their lines, capping each with "i can't get behind that". The array of subjects is relatively random. Basically, anything that comes to the head at the moment. At first subject are relatively common, but further they go - more maddening and abstract it gets. After a while they drop "can't behind that" and start just spurting various buzzwords at each other. At one point even start arguing whether "size matters". 

In many ways, "I can't get behind that" is a makeshift tongue in cheek riff on the concept of "shaking air" i.e. complaining about stuff that doesn't deserve such attention. On the other hand, most of the observations are composed in shorthand buzzword fashion which makes it even more twisted in retrospect.

MFT: Will Eisner's "The Spirit" monochrome strips

Even decades after its initial run, Will Eisner's "The Spirit" is still a blast of a read. You already know that. It is an obvious fact. Sure, some of its elements haven't aged that well (ahem, Ebony White, depiction of female, characters, yellow menace stuff, etc) and some of it more out there moments (Trip to the Moon, in a hard boiled noir comic? sure thing!) are still endlessly baffling throws of despair - but overall, its style and presentation defined they way american comic books look today.

"The Spirit" established fast-paced no-nonsense narrative which proppels forward with each coming panel, it codified the way action scenes are broken down and sequenced. You can learn how to write comic books by reading "The Spirit" - it is that good. 

One of it signature features was unorthodox use of the first pages of a story. It was always more than just a beginning of another tale. It established everything you need to know about the story - style, themes, tone. These pages often had short blurb descriptions of the stories in the top header, as is with _ or _.

However, in some cases this space was simply filled with monochrome rectangles as a simple breaker-separators between the stories. They are effective in this role. But looking at these separating monochrome strips on their own is even more fascinating than within a context of a comic. 

These rectangles offer something nondescript, something abstract. Bundled together, they sure are able to compose some sort of an impressionistic narrative. A very abstract one, but nevertheless.

Since i've spent last couple of years collecting various abstract and black panels - it was natural for me to start snapping these rectangles with subsequent shoving into the queue. But it doesn't mean that this post will be left with any examples.

For your convenience, here are seventy four of "The Spirit"'s monochrome rectangles.Enjoy!

MFT: jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj text editor

jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj (that's twenty little letters "J" in a row) is a text editor written by Jan Erik Klouman. The picture you see is not a placeholder image. It is how jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj looks when you start it - before any word is written. The color of the background is decidedly unmitigated drab, but seriously - why not? Literally any kind color of the background is better than default. And there must be a text editor with a drab background. The tone is probably Cosmic Latte, which means you need to turn Also Spracht Zaratustra and start writing down your stream of conscioussness.

Speaking of the ways you can use it. This particular text editor is tailor-made for capturing stream of conscioussness. It creates perfect environment for settling down and starting writing with no distractions or tempting additional features. It is also extremely good for hapless and insufficient transcribing of various audio recordings or songs. Since user interface is so minimal and so engaging - you just won't care to switch, push stop and rewind. It adds pace to the process - you want to capture as much as possible but you still can't keep up and so you start trying to keep by bending the conventions of writing. Which can create some really intense non-sequitir and abstract writing. 

The purpose of jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj creation was, as with any other alternative text editor, to streamline the writing process and cut excessive fat. Because more often than not numerous features, such as making text bold and creating hierarchy of the document on the fly can seriously derail the flow of the writing of the text. As a person whose job is to write - i know that. And it does its job well. jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj is a fine spin on a in-browser barebones notepad concept. Several variations of the editor included: one with header, one with different color of the background and also one with a different kind of font.

jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj is so minimal - the only thing you can do with it is to write something. And nothing else. Because text editor is about writing and editing text and not some other stuff like adding fancy cuties and elaborate formatting. After finishing the piece - you can save it. Huzzah! Not publish it in the middle of nowhere like TXT.FYI or SaidSo.Me but save directly on your computer. Or copy-paste the text and put it elsewhere instead - this is one of those text editors that doesn't really care about anything that doesn't involve the writing itself. Which is inspiring.

There is some bizarre charm in the self-made text processors. Each of them feels different and you want to put a different kind of text there. In the end - it is always incredibly inspiring. Even the very design scheme can drop you some ideas about the text - it can suggest you the form.

Sure, none of them can compete with the big boys (who are all shapes in one way or another by the allmighty Word termplate, which sucks) but who cares. Another option is always a good thing.

Zur-En-Arrh Transmission - OOOOOOO poem

This is "O" poem. It has a lot of letters "O" because i thought it was a good idea (not really, not even in the slightest). I guess it is one of the first instances when i justified writing a particular piece by saying "Because The Beatles "Because".

The poem was written in 2014 in fit of creativity. Believe it or not - it actually has a couple of drafts. Seriously. I was trying out a sequence of various fonts and also different sizes of the letters. But in the end - it wasn't working. The gimmickery was killing it dead. And then i just pressed "reset" button and that was the it. The poem looked right.

As it is - it is absolutely ridiculous blare of none. It goes nowhere. As a typographic piece it is too straightforward and unassuming. But sheer quantity of letters "O" is intimidating and if you look long enough and close enough - it is legitimately crushing.

MFT: Timothy Dexter - Page 32 (AKA Punctuation Page) from "A Pickle for the Knowing Ones"

Being clueless can start a legend. Timothy Dexter (1747–1806) was an interesting person to say the least. He was happy-go-lucky businessman from late 18th century. He had little to no education and absolutely supernatural sense of business opportinity. The man just knew what he had to do even though people were laughing at him almost all the time. Which came in handy in the recently declared independent Land of Opportunity AKA USA.

One of his most epic business exploits was when he shipped coal to Newcastle. People thought it was a stupid idea, a surefire bankrupcy. But it happened during a miner’s strike so it was sold very well. Later he exported stray cats to Caribbean islands to same reaction and it turned out to be a fine solution to a rat infestation problem. And then he shipped Bibles to West India just when the missionaries were in need of them…

He was also a notorious joker. He once told everybody that his had wife died and that the woman frequently seen walking in the house was just a ghost.

But his most infamous deed was writing a book. It was first released in 1802 and since then it was rereleased numerous times. It was terrible. Except for one thing.