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.
— Karl Sharro (@KarlreMarks) November 24, 2012
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It’s time for me to get minimal, too. I have a quite a long line of “Serpent logics” more or less lined up and ready to go, but putting too many of them in one post gets tedious for the readership, so I’ve cut these examples out of the herd to give you a taste, and will follow up with two mmore selections in a day or two.
