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Barbelith & Stichomancy

nameless oxymoron

11:13 / 03.12.04

Just recently I felt compelled to visit this site, which I haven't been to in quite some time; and remembered the Barbelith Magic 23-Ball while I was looking at it.
Would something similar with Barbelith (Barbelithomancy?) reveal some interesting results or just be a strange gimmick? Adding a function to the whole of the forum would probably be a pain in the... neck; but there's probably a site somewhere in the great wide internet that could search an entire website and pull out random chunks of text.
Or what about a random letter/word/sentence generator? HotBits attached to an ASCII converter or some other strange thingamajig, assuming it could somehow run through Barbelith.

12:47 / 03.12.04

That site rocks!

I put in : What is my destiny?

I got this :

The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Hidden Masterpiece by Honore de Balzac:

'world at large; only those who are behind the veil of the holy of holies can perceive its errors. But you are worthy of a lesson, and capable of understanding it. I will show you how little is needed to turn that picture into a true masterpiece. Give all your eyes and all your attention; such a chance of instruction may never fall in your way again. Your palette, Porbus."

Porbus fetched his palette and brushes. The little old man turned up his cuffs with convulsive haste, slipped his thumb through the palette charged with prismatic colors, and snatched, rather than took, the handful of brushes which Porbus held out to him. As he did so his beard, cut to a point, seemed to quiver with the eagerness of an......'

Something for me to think about I guess.

Less searchable M0rd4nt

13:14 / 03.12.04

I put in: How do I get a job?

I got out:

'The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Confidence* by Henry James:

"...know a great deal more about her than that."

"And who is her mother?"

"A delightful little woman, devoted to Miss Vivian. She is a widow, and Angela is her only child. They have lived a great deal in Europe; they have but a modest income. Over here, Mrs. Vivian says, they can get a lot of things for their money that they can't get at home. So they stay, you see. When they are at home they live in New York. They know some of my people there. When they are in Europe they live about in different places. They are fond of Italy. They are extremely nice; it 's impossible to be nicer.'

*Awoooga! Awoooga! Blinky lights! Flashy things and noise!

This has all kinds of odd little resonances for me.

13:35 / 03.12.04

Very cool. I just put in a question and got a nicely appropo reading from 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea. Thanks for posting this.

16:39 / 03.12.04

My goodness. I got a passage all in French. I don't know French.

Thanks to the wonders of Babelfish and Google, though, here 'tis in English:

"... come down into the valleys. The roses in the garden of the Queen of Arabia are not so white as thy body. Neither the roses of the garden of the Queen of Arabia, the garden of spices of the Queen of Arabia, nor the feet of the dawn when they light on the leaves, nor the breast of the moon when she lies on the breast of the sea. There is nothing in the world so white as thy body. Suffer me to touch thy body.

Iokanaan: Back! daughter of Babylon! By woman came evil into the world. Speak not to me. I will not listen to thee. I listen but to the voice of the Lord God.

Salome: Thy body is hideous. It is like the body of a leper. It is like a plastered wall, where vipers have crawled; like a plastered wall..."

Oscar Wilde, even.

Not at all sure how to interpret that.

I used to use Facade a lot for Tarot readings, but they usually aren't very good. I've had interesting results with the runecasting and biorhythm functions, though.

nameless oxymoron

11:00 / 04.12.04

So what would it look like if Barbelith was the source of text rather than miscellaneous books? I can't seem to find any sites that search for random text samples, maybe it'd be possible to build something with Google that could.

Orrin's Prick Up Your Ears

20:25 / 04.12.04

Will Slimelight be fun tonight?

"...to be followed by the great Sunday wash of the inhabitants at noon, which in its turn was followed by the great Sunday dressing an hour later. On Egdon Heath Sunday proper did not begin till dinner-time, and even then it was a somewhat battered specimen of the day.

"These Sunday-morning hair-cuttings were performed by Fairway; the victim sitting on a chopping-block in front of the house, without a coat, and the neighbours gossiping around, idly observing the locks of hair as they rose upon the wind after the snip, and flew away out of sight to the four quarters of the heavens. Summer and winter the scene was ..."

From 'Return of the Native'

'The Scene', haircuts, and battered masses crawling their way through the post-club Sunday morning washout. Nostradamus eat your heart out! I'll be back at noon.