Table of Contents
About this book
In music lessons at school, we learnt that the fairground organ music in the Beatles’ track ‘Being for the Benefit of Mr Kite’ was created semi-randomly; the tape that fed the musical automata was chopped into pieces with scissors, thrown into the air, and taped back together in a random order. The result is sporadic, yet has a character all of its own.
‘Butterflies and Sand’ is designed to be a ‘living’ book - over time, its content will shift and re-organise along the same semi-random lines as ‘Mr Kite’. Each time the book is published, its pages are knitted together from a selection of haiku. The scissors have been replaced by code.
Sometimes haiku will have been used before, but never in the same combination. By using a random order and random titles, the “narrative” of any given publishing is left up to chance, and the mood of the reader.
Like the book, I try to stick to certain haiku rules - or guidelines and restrictions, at least; some are more stringent than others. And like the book, each haiku is wholly unpredictable before it ‘happens’. Within the guidelines laid out, a whole world can happen in one breath.
Please do check out the list of thank-yous at the end of the book, and send through your thoughts to @6loss on Twitter, or by e-mail to butterfliesandsand@exmosis.net.
PHP source is available at:
https://github.com/exmosis/haikuchaos
Thanks for supporting the experiment.
Graham | Scribe | @6loss
April 30th 2012 (updated March 2013)
Reading this book
There is no “right” way to read this book. Take one haiku at a time. Take a page at a time. Read it backwards. Read it upside-down. Print it out and cut out every other word. Whatever works for you. The joy of chaos is in the exploring.
But if you’re looking for somewhere to start, here’s some suggestions:
- Clear some time. Not a lot - just enough to not get distracted for ten minutes. Life is sometimes weird like that.
- Don’t jump straight in - get accustomed first. Read the contents, browse the pictures. Like flicking through a magazine when you’re waiting for something.
- Pick a section - whatever takes your fancy. Work on instinct.
- Spend some time with the first, lonely haiku in the section. Read it a few times, let it sink in, let an image form somewhere behind the eyes.
- Turn the page. Read the haiku one-by-one. Let connections bubble up. Enjoy them.
- The third page is about momentum - read through the haiku there at a pace that feels comfortable.
- Read another on a whim if you want to. Don’t if you don’t.
That’s pretty much it, as a starter anyway. Some sections may work better than others - or feel like they do. Maybe it all depends what mood you’re in?
Tremble
Standing, staring up
the sky is filled with tension
in between the stars.
During the night
the noise of an animal
closes the window.
Pink clouds to the North
Sink their wispy fangs into
Frostbitten houses.
Staring into tar
preparing the morning
espresso, black.
Yellow ice lollies
crossing Hungerford Bridge
boats in the rain.
“If there is no God”
Said one bee to another
“Then who is our King?”