Scholarly discussion of the music of John Cage.

[Zachary Bond <>]

I was sad that the online "mesostic" generator was taken down and replaced with a juvenile message instead of being fixed, so I whipped up a generator in the Python programming language.  It obeys the 100% rule, but I was surprised at how many other decisions I had to make about how to limit the number of wing words, how to actually go about selecting the words with the mesostic letter, etc.  Basically, I choose the word by searching from a random point in the text.  Then, I select up to 12 wing words, with the 12 distributed randomly on either side of the center word (for example, a line might have a max of 3 on the left, max of 9 on the right).  Only rarely do you ever get 12 since usually a rule violation typically occurs first.   I also made it circular, so that the first letter obeys the rule with respect to the last letter--that's to avoid having conspicuously long starting and ending lines.

I did not try to prevent the same word being used more than once--I seem to recall repeats in some of Cage's mesostics, and sometimes you don't have a choice if your source text doesn't have many Zs, Js, etc. 

The next step is to figure out how to get this on a website with a usable interface.  It's been a fun way to refresh my Python skills.

Here's an example based on 10 iterations of "Mesostic" and the Wikipedia entry on Cage as a source text.  Suggestions welcome.  Hope you've got a fixed width font.

-Zac Bond

       that case I will devote My
                            AftEr
                               See
                               Of 1953. While at Black
                             muSic.
                               The same
                Cowell also advIsed that, before
                         1933, Cage

                              IMitation,
                          partnEr
                               Started
          4'33?.[109] The develOpment
                              iS
                               The
July 2012 "performed an engrossIng
             art heroes".[115] Centenary

                        IndeterMinacy:
                       criticizEd
                             inStrument during the entire
             included David TudOr, M. C.
                              aS well
                           had Troubled Cage
                              sIx
                           to aChieve a bubble

                   desert at YuMa, Arizona, on
                            appEal
                             muSic
      III, IV and V, which are On a chamber
                               Said, "In
                     Ryoanji, eTc.)
                       he's an Inventor-of
                              sCulpture

                         While Much of
                   and John CagE
                             waS
                               Of
                          with Schoenberg in California:
                               The
                               In
                               Cage pursued a

                         probleMs is
           and groups in a largE
                              iS
                  prepared pianO (1950-51)
                     Cage had uSed chance on a few earlier
                    in Four ParTs (1950) Cage
                               In a
                             faCt, a "happening" is

                          systeM,
                          chancE
                             waS "an
                            accOrding
                        Cage waS
                       (1982). These were
                               Is not
                               Consist just of text

    favorite books, and one froM which
                          of thE
                               Spent the
                         That cOnvinced me that the
                       fragmentS
                             wiTh
               of some 550 possIble aggregates,
                    sound produCtion, or the

                       Several Months
                          incidEnt
                         for a Single
             technique."[96] PrOminent
                   The piece waS
                       Cage lefT
                  performer's lIkes and
              of works, the so-Called

 situation in 1951 worsened so Much that,
          (1961-62), a work basEd
              piano (1950-51) uSed
                Cage invited unOfficially.
                             waS
                           nighTs, and four hours of
                           leanIngs.[68] One11
                   1928. Often Crossing

On Wed, Apr 17, 2013 at 9:48 AM, Goldstein, Louis <> wrote:

Right - they were "puny mesostics," barely there.  Wing words are another thing that that computer program didn't do.  I think after you find the next word that straddles the mesostic letter you can continue as far as the text will let you and still observe the rule.  And that is a matter of choice, right?  John suggested putting a limit on how many characters a line could be, 43, but I think he always mentioned that as a suggested number.

Louie, checking his memory

On Wed, Apr 17, 2013 at 8:55 AM, Stefano Pocci <> wrote:

On 04/07/2013 12:45 PM, Dionysis Boukouvalas wrote:

http://www.euph0r1a.net/mesostomatic

The page is down now as someone said earlier. I have a question about "Writing throughs..." however.

When extracting mesostics out of a pre-existing text, would you only take words containing the meso-letters - provided that either the 50% or the 100% rule are respected - or would you also keep the words in between those containing the meso-letters which still respect the before mentioned rules?

Just asking, as the product of that online application basically had one word per line. Thin mesostics, so to speak.

-- 

Stefano


In Italy for thirty years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, bloodshed —but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love, 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.

- Harry Lime (Orson Welles) in the "The Third Man" -