Simple repetitions

I had now created a tool which I need to learn to use effectively. I have started to think about the types of line that can be created, and how I can influence the content of lines.

Repetition throughout a post is a way of controlling the outcome of the line. The more condensed/frequent the repetition, the more the output is controlled. As we have seen, a single character repeated without spaces ensures certainty of output.

If we fluctuate between two characters, we create a line that includes several words. For example:

asasasasasasasasasasasasasasasasasasasasasasasasasasasasasasasasasasasasasasasasasasasasasasasasasasasasasasasasasasasasasasasasasasasasasas

There are only 2 possible 10-character lines we can cut from the above post:

asasasasas

and

sasasasasa

yet both possibilities, apart from invisible suggested words, will include the words: a s as sa asa sas asas sasa and perhaps asasa and sasas.

Control

Now that I had invented my own process, I was aware that I had control over the input of the process. However, the only way to be certain of the content of a particular line of the sonnet was to repeat the same character, filling the original post without spaces.

This sonnet is a celebration of such certainty of control.

Time

I am attracted to the real-time aspect of Twitter, both in that it allows instant publication of words from anywhere, via text message, but also because it timestamps each post. On a Twitter page, top = most recent. I developed my Twitter character sonnet to include this time-emphasis. Each line is taken from an adjacent Twitter post, and the top and bottom are stamped to indicate the time frame the words were written.

The ten characters chosen from each post are determined by a chance operation that ensures any ten can appear, including the 'unused' spaces of the 140 character per post allocation.

I created several sonnets from my most recent Twitter posts, collected here

Character sonnet

Thinking up procedures that work with the neverending stream of text generated by a twitter profile, I realised that the (apparently arbitrary) designation of 140 characters per twitter post can be arranged into a kind of character sonnet, where instead of 10 syllables per line, the 14-line stanza contains 10 characters per line:

and and an
d and and
and and an
d and and
and and an
d and and
and and an
d and and
and and an
d and and
and and an
d and and
and and an
d and and
and and an

(courier is the best standard font to display a character sonnet, as each character is given an equal width)