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The Ragbag

I was writing a short post to direct interested readers to The Ragbag, an excellent, excellent tumblelog which has recently discussed:

apophenia, the perception of “patterns or connections in random or meaningless data” (which is a good way of discussing some elements of schizophrenia, paranoia, and manic artistry);

the Shaw Phonetic Alphabet, a set of characters created from a commission, possibly willed in jest, by George Bernard Shaw;

a fascinating true-or-false proposition: “Evolution is a brute force hack,” an interesting phrasing which connects to a theme explored in the book What is Life?, by Erwin Schrödinger, which I discussed previously and to which I will return.

However, he just posted what is one of the most-apropos Tumblr posts of all time, one which combines sexuality and literature in a way that seems destined to be reblogged into infinity:

Ten Writers Who Masturbated

Even more than his cooler-than-usual musings on typography, this synthesis of the main interests of the Internet literati concludes with the following vignette about James Joyce:

One day, when a fan of his writing said to him, “let me shake the hand that wrote Ulysses,” he replied, “No—it’s done lots of other things, too!”

He’d previously mentioned a letter which Joyce wrote to his wife which his literary executors ought to be ashamed for making public, but which is extraordinary in its lustfulness. I felt prurient just scanning it, and remorseful for having invaded Joyce’s posthumous privacy, but it was interesting.

Anyway: check the Ragbag out.

The reference to apophenia merits a mention of Pattern Recognition by William Gibson the plot of which hinges on the villains experiencing apophenia and the hero struggling against what she is sure is apophenia in her experience of their reactions.

I have no comment on the ten writers who masturbated post at this time.