April 14th, 2009 / 2:50 pm
 Behind the Scenes & Excerpts

Voluntary Responses to Involuntary Sensations

dylan_eastgaard

Dallas Wiebe did a thing called the left-handed lipogram, where he restricted himself to using only keys found on the left side of the keyboard.

Here is one of his pieces:

dear secret fasters #
easter exacts vast rewards # screw fasts # feasts create a freer texas # crab rears fast # water bearer deceases # stars agree a sweet taste averts graves # set feet faster # sweetwater deserves carvers stabbers eaters carafe drawers steadfast feeders # wear fast rags at 5 # 2 # 45 caveat regrets regarded bad#
dexter fred weaver # sweetwater texas

Doug Nufer wrote a book called Negativeland, in which every sentence is written using a negative form (every sentence uses ‘no’ or ‘not’ or ‘doesn’t’, etc).

The kid seemed unreal. I didn’t know how long he’d been there, but then he said, “Tell me a story,” not startled or scared. 
“You don’t want to hear any of my stories. My stories have no morals, they go the wrong way, and the heroes aren’t people you’d want to be or even meet. Don’t you want a drink of water, instead?”

Nufer says in an interview that he kept his writing constraints secret when he was trying to find a publisher. When he finally admitted to his agent that he had been using formal restraints, he said, “It was like confessing to somebody you had sex with that you had this disease.” The agent thought it was best not to promote the book as a constraints-based novel.

Sufferers of Tourette’s Syndrome find themselves voluntarily flexing their muscles or speaking a word, in reaction to an overwhelming, involuntary thought or desire to do so (like to the voluntary/involuntary action of itching a mosquito bite). The tics are often performed repeatedly in rapid succession until it is done in just the right way, at which point the uncontrollable urge momentarily subsides.

A Tourette’s Syndrome tic is a “voluntary response to an involuntary sensation.”

Which seems sort of the same as constraint writing. Dallas Wiebe will suddenly have a desire to write something using only the left side of his keyboard (that would be the mosquito bite) and then go through with writing it, probably many times over (itching the mosquito bite). And even though the effect is an essentially incoherent poem (about eating I think?), with the possibility of negative social consequences, he feels a great release to have done it.
keyboard-stones_ukrou_66481

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85 Comments

  1. April 14th, 2009 / 6:57 pm Jimmy Chen—

      wow. doug nufer is brilliant.

  2. April 14th, 2009 / 2:57 pm Jimmy Chen—

      wow. doug nufer is brilliant.

  3. April 14th, 2009 / 8:50 pm Ryan Call—

      this made my day reading about that lipogram

      im staring at my keybaord right now

  4. April 14th, 2009 / 4:50 pm Ryan Call—

      this made my day reading about that lipogram

      im staring at my keybaord right now

  5. April 14th, 2009 / 8:58 pm ryan—

      you kind of, like, blew my mind today.

  6. April 14th, 2009 / 4:58 pm ryan—

      you kind of, like, blew my mind today.

  7. April 14th, 2009 / 9:16 pm Michael—

      Take a look at the Oulipo Compendium (full of all kinds of writing with constraints) or the Oulipo Laboratory–two of my favorite collections.

  8. April 14th, 2009 / 5:16 pm Michael—

      Take a look at the Oulipo Compendium (full of all kinds of writing with constraints) or the Oulipo Laboratory–two of my favorite collections.

  9. April 14th, 2009 / 6:50 pm Ken Baumann—

      !

  10. April 15th, 2009 / 4:07 am Chelsea Martin—

      yeah i got that dallas wiebe thing from the oulipo compendium

  11. April 15th, 2009 / 12:07 am Chelsea Martin—

      yeah i got that dallas wiebe thing from the oulipo compendium

  12. April 15th, 2009 / 5:30 am Ryan Call—

      i have that dalkey archive oulip reader and also the other day i read that one mcsweeneys magnet issue with the oulipo section. it wa sfun.

  13. April 15th, 2009 / 1:30 am Ryan Call—

      i have that dalkey archive oulip reader and also the other day i read that one mcsweeneys magnet issue with the oulipo section. it wa sfun.

  14. April 15th, 2009 / 6:42 pm michael j—

      uhh… anyone else notice that that photo is the shit?

  15. April 15th, 2009 / 2:42 pm michael j—

      uhh… anyone else notice that that photo is the shit?

  16. May 27th, 2009 / 3:19 pm bookkeeping courses—

      that negative passage was deep

  17. May 27th, 2009 / 11:19 am bookkeeping courses—

      that negative passage was deep

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      uhh, ???

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      uhh, ???

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      interesting :S

  23. October 18th, 2009 / 7:26 am biyoloji—

      interesting :S

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  34. August 24th, 2010 / 4:37 am gerom—

      cute one I agree.

  35. August 24th, 2010 / 8:37 am gerom—

      cute one I agree.

  36. September 8th, 2010 / 10:38 pm Adrian—

      Tourettes is serious and I’ve been seeing it being taken more and more lightly. Good post tho.

  37. September 9th, 2010 / 2:38 am Adrian—

      Tourettes is serious and I’ve been seeing it being taken more and more lightly. Good post tho.

  38. September 9th, 2010 / 1:28 pm tomy—

      its great photo… love it :D

  39. September 9th, 2010 / 9:28 am tomy—

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  55. June 20th, 2011 / 1:52 am juegos de carreras—

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  56. June 20th, 2011 / 1:53 am juegos de carreras—

      Chelsea MartinVoluntary Responses to Involuntary Sensations

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  65. June 30th, 2011 / 11:12 am Ableton—

      “voluntary response to an involuntary sensation.” Awesome description of Tourette

  66. July 1st, 2011 / 8:22 pm Flight Simulator - Andrew—

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  67. July 3rd, 2011 / 7:31 am Parawp—

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  70. July 12th, 2011 / 10:36 pm Mineria—

      this about voluntary responses is interesting, I talk about it in mineriaaldia.com

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