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GOODMAN_GAME


   Here's another                            June 12, 2007
   manifestation of my
   perhaps ill-advised
   fascination with
   randomness...

                       RANDOM_CONNECTIONS
   I take a copy of
   Paul Goodman's
   "Five Years" and                    GOODMAN
   use it as something
   like the I Ching:

   I randomly select three
   entries from it, and
   try to find parallels
   between them; I study                              As usual, I have
   the set as a tryptych     (Though rarely do        multiple different
   on it's own...            I treat it as an         ways of making the
                             "Oracle", I don't        random selection.
                             use it to make
                             decisions, answer        The book has 257 pages,
                             personal questions,      which means that
                             and so on.)              generating a binary
                                                      number with 8 coins
                                                      is a cery close fit
                                                      for the range.

                                                      The pages contain
           Finding parallels                          varying numbers of
           isn't a surprise:                          entries, and
           these writings are                         traditionally I
           all the work of                            select between them
           one intellect,                             by counting down
           however wide-ranging.                      from the top
                                                      either one, two
                                                      or three for each
           On occasion I think                        of the three
           I can spot parallels                       random selections.
           that Goodman might
           not have been aware                           That's reasonably
           of...                                         elegant, and leaves
                                                         few blank spots
       NOW_AND_LATER                       in coverage...

                                                         (I can do better
                                                         with software,
                                                         but that's too
                                                         dull to get into.)

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