Serpent logics: KarlreMarks and LizzyPearson
[ by Charles Cameron — yet another quick dip into the dizzying world of patterns enfolded in tweets ]
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My collection of “Serpent logics” or “patterns of thinking” in the miniature format provided by the Twitter-stream got a noble boost today — you can blame my insomnia for my noticing this — from Karl Sharro and Elizabeth Pearson:
Sbarro unwittingly triggered things off by tweeting:
Something this morning reminded of my three Arab post-colonialists walk into a bar joke: https://t.co/d1PgH4UkFs
— Karl Sharro (@KarlreMarks) October 7, 2013
Pearson picked upon the “nested” quality of this tweet, and tweeted back:
@KarlreMarks I like the joke, and also the neat self-citation over repetition.
— Elizabeth Pearson (@lizzypearson) October 7, 2013
and to clarify:
@KarlreMarks Er.. Self.. Citation. Inserting a tweet in a tweet. It's neat!
— Elizabeth Pearson (@lizzypearson) October 7, 2013
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That was neat enough indeed, what with three instances in a row of self-referential tweets, each of which enfolds a previous tweet within it — the pattern I’m always on the look out for, and call “Matrioshka” after those nested Russian dolls — but there was more to come. I turned back — how could I help it — to the first tweet from Sharro:
Something this morning reminded of my three Arab post-colonialists walk into a bar joke: https://t.co/d1PgH4UkFs
— Karl Sharro (@KarlreMarks) October 7, 2013
and searched for the tweet embedded therein:
Three Arab post-colonialists walk into a bar. But then they refuse to continue the joke because it's based on White Man stereotypes.
— Karl Sharro (@KarlreMarks) April 8, 2012
A little deeper into the conversation, I came across this rejoinder, which sent me off on a further journey:
@lizzypearson haha, no I'm not that vain, it's only my bar jokes which are collected here: http://t.co/nX5n1ileOy Oops, I did it again.
— Karl Sharro (@KarlreMarks) October 7, 2013
and lo, the embedded link here led me to a page that contained not one but dozens of tweets, all based on the formula of the three characters went into a bar joke, many of the examples turning Sharro’s mind to matters of philosophy and the Middle East…
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They’re all examples of the kind of “collision thinking” that Arthur Koestler specifies as the source of creative insight (aha!), comedy (ha!) and tragedy (aiyyeee!) — but I’ve selected three which represent three of the different patterns I’m intrigued by:
So three conspiracy theorists walk into a bar. Do you think it's a coincidence?
— Karl Sharro (@KarlreMarks) May 21, 2012
That’s a serpent biting its tail joke, if ever I saw one, a conspiracist take on conspiracism.
And the barman says 'why are you all dressed this way?' So, three time travellers walk into a bar.
— Karl Sharro (@KarlreMarks) September 25, 2012
Now that, I aver, is a extaordinary example of enantiodromia, or direct reversal.
And for the pattern I call nominal, one can hardly better this play between the word minimalist and its context…
So a minimalist walks into a bar.
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