Poets, dadaists, and word nerds: Rejoice

Merlin Mann | Jul 5 2005

If you enjoy playing with words or are attracted to writing as a process, I think you’ll enjoy Language Is A Virus, a site full of fun tools and tricks as well as a bunch of interesting old articles from some notoriously wild Beat and Dada writers.

If you like stuff like my post on writer’s block, you’ll love the “Writing Techniques” section of the home page, with tricks and ciphers that inspired the greats, like Jack Kerouac’s Belief and Technique for Modern Prose, Allen Ginsberg’s Mind Writing Slogans, and Salvador Dali’s Paranoiac-Critical Method.

And, if you’ve ever played games like Exquisite Corpse, you’ll also dig the many little tools for slice-and-dice word play, including Cut-Up Machine, Madlib Poem, Title-o-Matic.

Very fun site and a neat way to loosen yourself up creatively (as well as kill most of your morning). (N.B., Safari users: I got no love on the tool pages; try Firefox instead)

If you find this stuff really turns your crank, grab a copy of A Book of Surrealist Games, some very funny and silly exercises “[I]nvented and played by such artists as André Breton, Rene Magritte, and Max Ernst, these gems still produce results ranging from the hilarious to the mysterious and profound.” (book site). Got this as a gift a few years back and it’s fun to pull out when you need a creative jolt or a quick lesson in taking “your craft” less deadly seriously.

Technorati Tags: creativity, surrealism, tools, writing

14 Comments

POSTED IN:

Merlin Mann's blog
1383 reads

TOPICS: Heh, Tips, Writing

Thank you, thank you, THANK...

Submitted by Brad Heintz (not verified) on July 5, 2005 - 5:11am.

Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU for this link.

Funny coincidence that it should come up while I’m halfway through Naked Lunch.

» POSTED IN:

link

I would like to pimp...

Submitted by Dadaist (not verified) on July 5, 2005 - 8:04am.

I would like to pimp my own dada blog: http://oblique.info

it reads rss feeds of 20 odd popular sites, strips the text and links out. Runs randomish (select the 100 most resent posts ordered by random, then makes a sub selection) and run it through jwz’s dadadodo. It then randomly applies links to two sets of words.

more info here

dadadod info: http://www.jwz.org/dadadodo/

» POSTED IN:

link

...and cue Laurie Anderson: http://www.cc.gatech.edu/~jimmyd/la

Submitted by aplumb (not verified) on July 5, 2005 - 1:48pm.

…and cue Laurie Anderson:

http://www.cc.gatech.edu/~jimmyd/laurie-anderson/

» POSTED IN:

link

Very cool web-site. I could...

Submitted by Neal Dench (not verified) on July 5, 2005 - 8:40pm.

Very cool web-site. I could spend a lot of time here.

» POSTED IN:

link

Fantastic site, thanks so much...

Submitted by batatas (not verified) on July 6, 2005 - 9:40pm.

Fantastic site, thanks so much for the “heads up”. I am experiencing blogger’s block lately, so this is most welcome.

» POSTED IN:

link

Bad news. Do you...

Submitted by Robin Scanlon (not verified) on July 7, 2005 - 7:27am.

Bad news. Do you know how much time I’ve spent just on the magnetic poetry section? Merlin, this is a dangerous site. Thanks so much for sharing it.

» POSTED IN:

link

Tools for your avant-box This is...

Submitted by Blog (not verified) on July 5, 2005 - 6:40am.

Tools for your avant-box

This is a very nice collection of tools and methods. I’m a little jealous, as I was planning to do something like this.

» POSTED IN:

link

http://WWW.tsuibhne.net/knot/archives/000561.html 43 Folders: P

Submitted by Life As A Knot (not verified) on July 5, 2005 - 6:49am.

http://WWW.tsuibhne.net/knot/archives/000561.html

43 Folders: Poets, dadaists, and word nerds: Rejoice word games…

» POSTED IN:

link

words I'm not sure I ever...

Submitted by e v i l _ b l e n d e r (not verified) on July 5, 2005 - 2:37pm.

words

I’m not sure I ever fancied myself very smart with words. I have rather enjoyed some word games though. Something tells me that Julia might like this site - but you’ll have to use firefox on the mac, as…

» POSTED IN:

link

Jeux de mots Le site Language...

Submitted by Foire aux idees (not verified) on July 6, 2005 - 5:18am.

Jeux de mots

Le site Language Is a Virus (qui tire son nom de la célèbre phrase de Burroughs, « Language is a virus from outer space ») offre une pléthore d’outils pour manipuler les mots, tels que l’Automatic Poetry Generator, ou l’Exquisite Cadavulator. D…

» POSTED IN:

link

Journal At long last, another extended...

Submitted by BradHeintz.com (not verified) on July 6, 2005 - 6:16am.

Journal

At long last, another extended dance remix journal entry! Full weekends and a preview of my take on a surrealist parlor game….

» POSTED IN:

link

Jack Kerouac's List of Essentials Merlin...

Submitted by a million monkeys typing (not verified) on July 8, 2005 - 7:27am.

Jack Kerouac’s List of Essentials

Merlin over at 43 Folders has a post about a wonderful site for writers called Language Is A Virus. It’s easy to get caught up in all the great mind-bending (and mind-freeing) techniques awaiting unwary visitors in almost every corner of the site.

…

» POSTED IN:

link