Archive for the ‘Necktie for a Two-Headed Tadpole’ Category
In analyzing the word-distribution of Necktie for a Two-Headed Tadpole in my last post, I came across some interesting patterns. If you look at the distribution of words in a text, you’ll find that there’s the usual inverse ratio whereby high-frequency words like “the” and “of” are clumped to the left of the graph, and low-frequency words like “Persian-tinted” and “sombrero” for example are clumped to the right. This is a fairly common statistical result. But what I’ve done is a meta-analysis of such an analysis — this meta-analysis gives me a way to determine if a text is more like poetry or more like prose. The score from this meta-analysis (Prosody Index) is a number between 1 and 100, with a score less than 50 being poetry and a higher score indicating prose.This is actually revolutionary, so let me explain. The first graph shows the Word distribution of words in a text. A value on the x-axis is a numerical representation of a given word; its corresponding value on the y-axis is the frequency of use of this word. Words on the x-axis are sorted by frequency. So for example, the most frequent word (”the”) has a value of 1 for the x-axis and 889 for the y-axis, so this point is plotted near the upper-left corner of the chart. There are lots of least-common words which only appear once (like “sombrero”, for example) and they start from around 1140 and continue through 2381 on the x-axis; because they only appear once, their y-value is 1.
Looking at the chart, you can see that words are clumped into groups; for example, there are (2381 - 1140 = 1241) words which only appear once. Likewise, there are 483 words which only appear twice; these are the next “group” on the graph. Each group can be counted this way, and we can come up with a graph of word-group by group-density. Group-density is word-group times frequency. The first data point has a group-density of 1 x 1241 = 1241. The next data point has a group-density of 2 x 483 = 966. And so on. A sample of this graph for my book is shown in the next illustration.
We can consider this graph as a curve, and calculate the area under the curve. A chunk of the area is concentrated to the left, and a chunk is concentrated to the right, with a little bit in the middle. A very simple calculation on the data (using the mean-value theorem from calculus) will tell us at which point on the graph half of the area is to the left, and half is to the right. The value of this point in the case of my own book is at 29 on the x-axis. Since there’s a total of 78 points on the x-axis, the half-way value occurs 37% the way through the text (37% = 29/78) and so the Prosody Index of my book is 37.The next two illustrations show similar graphs for two other texts from the Gutenberg archives,
The Frogs by Aristophanes and
Sketches New and Old by Mark Twain (chosen because it includes the story of “The Jumping Frog of Calaveras County” — yes, we’re going with a frog theme in this analysis).
The Prosody Indexes for these texts are 28 and 59, respectively. What does this mean? As you can tell by inspecting the graph, more of Aristophanes’ words are to the left-hand side, the side where we can expect to find groups of words which are used less-frequently. (Remember, all the words that only appear only once are on the first value of the x-axis, all the words that are used twice are on the second value of the x-axis, and so on.) Aristophanes wrote poetic plays, and one of the hallmarks of poetry is a sparse but specific choice of words; in contrast, by inspecting Mark Twain’s graph, you can see that most of his words cluster to the right, indicating that he reuses words frequently. Such a reuse of words is more appropriate to Mark Twain’s journalistic style, and is a hallmark of prose.In analyzing a selection of texts from the Gutenberg archive, you see the same characteristics appearing; texts which are more prose than poetry cluster to the right and yield higher Prosody Indexes, and those which are more poetry than prose cluster to the left and yield lower Prosody Indexes. The following chart shows a selection of such Prosody Indexes by text. I have chosen 50 as the cutoff between poetry and prose, since a Prosody Index of 50 indicates that 50% of the words are to either side of the midpoint of the graph. This choice is confirmed by a Prosody Index of 53 for James Joyce’s
Ulysses, commonly considered to be the most poetic novel in the English language. Not unsurprisingly, Nietzsche’s
Beyond Good and Evil comes in at 50 — part poetry, part prose, and undeniably philosophy. I have only sampled 25 texts from the Gutenberg archive so far, but I will continue doing this as time permits to see if the assumptions underlying the Prosody Index are still valid.
| Some Spring Days in Iowa, by Frederick John Lazell |
23.0 |
| The Frogs, by Aristophanes |
27.5 |
| Autumn Leaves, by John Bartlett |
34.2 |
| The Divine Comedy, by Dante Alighieri, translated by the Rev. H. F. Cary, M.A. |
35.8 |
| Necktie for a Two-Headed Tadpole, by Jason Murk |
37.2 |
| A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens |
44.9 |
| Beyond Good and Evil, by Friedrich Nietzsche |
50.6 |
| The Adventures of Grandfather Frog, by Thornton W. Burgess |
52.0 |
| Ulysses, by James Joyce |
53.1 |
| The Time Machine, by H. G. Wells |
54.0 |
| The Importance of Being Earnest, by Oscar Wilde |
54.2 |
| Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll |
57.1 |
| Sketches New and Old, by Mark Twain |
58.6 |
| Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley |
61.5 |
| The World War and What Was Behind It, by L. P. Benezet |
61.7 |
| The Fat and the Thin, by Emile Zola |
62.7 |
| The Picture of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde |
65.4 |
| A Tramp Abroad, by Mark Twain |
67.6 |
| A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens |
68.3 |
| Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen |
72.3 |
| Crime and Punishment, by Fyodor Dostoevsky |
74.7 |
| Gargantua and his Son Pantagruel, by Master Francis Rabelais |
74.8 |
| Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain |
75.1 |
| Dracula, by Bram Stoker |
77.2 |
| Bleak House, by Charles Dickens |
80.1 |
| Don Quixote, by Miguel de Cervantes |
84.7 |
Of course, going meta to this meta-analysis, is this what you get when a math major from MIT takes to writing novels?
One of the most amazing thing about having your book published is talking to people about your book, connecting with people. Whenever people talk to me or email me about my book, I’m amazed to find that they open up and share their own creativity-related experiences.I’m amazed because I didn’t think this would be part of the book.I know so much more now about the personal trajectories of friends & strangers alike. I know so much more about my own family now, and feel connected with them in ways which I didn’t imagine. I’m hearing from old friends from work & school & marveling that my own experiences ring resonant and true with them. True, and somewhat rue at the same time, because there really is the sensation that the corporate world can often be a crippling place to work, and yet, marginalizing yourself from society to create your art in secret isn’t the answer either. The story of Lisa’s father destroying his books is terrible but sadly all-too-common. There are Genius grants for a chosen few in the mainstream insider tradition, but there’s nothing to motivate all the other outsiders to work in an inspired way at their art. But like I said before, culture always thrives on the fringes, and art which is outside the mainstream tradition is often the most vital. I live in an area of New Mexico where the hills are scattered with isolated artists and independent cultural creators, but there’s no glue to bring them all together, and there are no rewards but those of their own devising. It’s hard to create culture in the outback in which we find ourselves, in the outback which becomes us, but that’s sometimes all that we can do. Enough moralizing! In further news, my book is available now in at least 10 countries (US, UK, Canada, Germany, France, Belgium, Switzerland, Norway, South Africa, and Japan). Amazon is including my book in their “Look Inside the Book” program, which means that in a few weeks (months?) once they’ve ripped open the book with a razor blade and scalpeled out all the words, you’ll be able to see how often statistically improbable phrases like “persimmon-tinted dreams” appear. Until then, I’ve compiled my own concordance of words from my book, which will be of use to:
a) people who sell persimmon-tinted dreams and who want me to host their Google Adwords links,
b) curious readers, and
c) search engine spiders with time to kill.
First, a giant thank-you to everyone who bought a copy of 
Necktie for a Two-Headed Tadpole during its debut on Amazon.com. The Sales Rank seems to range from between 40,000 and 200,000.
A Sales Rank less than 100,000 means that you might find my book in a large bookstore — the largest chain bookstore is the Barnes & Noble Superstore in NYC, and it carries 120,000 books. However, I refuse to let myself get obsessed by following the vicissitudes of Sales Rank as it dips up or down, or whether it dips into the post-100,000 long-tail distribution. The long tail is actually a great place to be. See this article which describes what a long tail is, and this pdf with the less-than-inviting title of “Consumer Surplus in the Digital Economy” by the MIT eBusiness research center which says that 57% of all Amazon sales come from long-tail books.Warning: this pdf uses functions which you’ve never encountered in your college math class, and introduces you to characters you will never meet again outside of a shady bar in Cambridge, Massachusetts. So just take it from me, the long-tail is a great place to be. Culture always thrives on the fringes, and withers under the spotlight.
My book is now on http://amazon.co.jp but it still isn’t on the US Amazon!
The Japanese, of course, have long been fascinated by the works of von Jason Murk. I have no idea what they’re selling here, although they seem to be cross-selling my book with a Zojirushi rice cooker. The Japanese equivalent of Kaffe-und Espressogenuss perhaps? Personally, I think that a price of 1000 yen is too much for my book. 1000 yen is an awful lot. I had a layover in Japan for 3 days a few years ago, and it was so expensive that the only way I could afford to eat during those days was to hang out at the “B1F” levels of the Japanese department stores and eat the free food samples. Japanese department stores aren’t like Sears or J.C. Penny, no, Japanese department stores are ultra-luxurious spaceports. They’ve got chic bookstores and sushi conveyor belts and the remarkable “B1F” levels which serve as high-end grocery stores, sort of going to a Whole Foods store which is staffed by women in kimonos who offer you free chocolates and teriyaki eel. On the first basement floor (hence the B1F) of each Japanese department store, they offer samples of primo green tea & takoyaki & Belgian chocolates and normally, of course, Japanese social sanctions prevent people from pan-handling for free samples of food in such B1F grocery stores. You’d lose face, perhaps. But if you’re a 6-foot tall Westerner with a ragged beard and a yellow windbreaker, well, they don’t know that you’re just pan-handling food from these free sample stores. For all they know, you’re an ultra-chic hipster who’s come to relax in the spaceport upstairs, and it just happens that ragged beards and faded yellow windbreakers are in style in America….Enough of my B1F rant.Fact is, I’m on the Japanese Amazon now! Interestingly enough, when you translate this page into English (via the Google translation service)
it seems to offer you a maximum of 1000 cyclotomic restoration. Personally, I think you’re being ripped off. You should demand at least 2000 cyclotomic restoration. You won’t be able to read my book in Japan unless you have a really high cyclotomic restoration.Okay. Now that we understand the nuances of cyclotomic restoration, we should all follow the advice on this website and “buy this commodity cheaply”!
Of course, if such a thing as tadpole sushi existed, then my book would go over great in Japan! You’re not an artistic success in America until your art sells in the Midwest, and you’re not a success in Japan until your art is featured in a new form of sushi.
Rather than do a screenshot of each e-commerce site as it comes online with my book, I’ll just update this page with the listings, by country.
Best prices so far:7.31€ if you’re in Germany17.80 Swiss Francs if you’re in Switzerland£4.52 if you’re in the United Kingdom
$8.95 if you’re in the United States,¥1,044 if you’re in Japan,and 99.96 South African rands if you’re stranded in the Kalahari desert and need to figure out how to escape from corporate America with your soul intact.
My book is now on http://www.amazon.de, but it’s still not on the US Amazon site:
Let’s deconstruct this listing on the German Amazon.com site.1) I am now known as “von Jason Murk”. Please address all correspondence to von Jason Murk, c/o his Bavarian castle.2) My book is categorized as “Üerblick”. For those who don’t know German (and I’m one of them) Üerblick is a very cool, high-end kind of bling. Üerblick is also like oobleck, the gooey semi-solid mixture formed from corn starch and water that you probably played with in Kindergarten.3) To their credit, the German Amazon site already has 2 copies of my books on hand, although I think a price of 10.09 euros is a bit high. They crossed the psychological 10 euro point, and should have aimed for 9.95 euros instead. Still, this gives me an excuse to use the euro symbol (€) which I have never typed in my life before. So, today really is a first!4) I’m actually happy that a German site is carrying my book.
Necktie for a Two-Headed Tadpole is illustrated with woodcuts from a German alchemy book called the
Splendor Solis which was published in Hamburg, so it’s only appropriate that my reproductions of these 16
th century German woodcuts find their way back home.5) What is Kaffe-und Espressogenuss? Whatever it is, they seem to think that readers of my book might be interested in it. Is it coffee? Instant genius? If anyone knows German and wants to comment, I’d love to know more.
My book is now available to Booksense stores:
For those of you who might not know it, Booksense is affiliated with the American Bookseller’s Association, a consortium of independent booksellers. This interests me because my book is anti-corporate in its stance, and on my forthcoming roadtrip this summer through New Mexico, Colorado, Arizona, Nevada, California, Oregon, Washington, British Columbia, and Alaska, I only plan on doing readings and signings at independent bookstores. Booksense is a program which links together about 60% of the country’s independent bookstores, providing them for instance with a title database which allows my book to be carried in stores from San Francisco to Santa Fe. Given the fiercely independent stance of Booksense bookstores, you can see that I would be pleased to be listed by them. I highly encourage everyone to patronize your local independent bookstore, whether it’s a Booksense store or any other enlightened bookstore. In fact, I encourage everyone to smuggle books out of your “local” Borders and to put them into the shelves of your hometown independent bookstore, so that they can sell them instead.It’s not that I have anything against Borders, or any other chain store. It’s just that … well, I actually do have something against chain stores and the intrusion of corporate America into everyday local life. In fact, I wrote a book on this subject! You might have heard about it; it’s the book whose blog you’re reading!
My book is now available on http://amazon.co.uk:
The way that my book gradually makes it onto the internet bookstores fascinates me.F’r instance, the first store to show my book was Barnes & Noble. Then,
Necktie for a Two-Headed Tadpole was available on the Booksense.com database. And now, my book is available on
Amazon.co.uk. It’s also available on
Amazon.ca, the Canadian arm of Amazon. For some reason, you can get the book shipped (”dispatched”) to you within 1-2 weeks in England but it takes 3-5 weeks if you buy it in Canada. Must have something to do with the exchange rate. Strangely enough, I’m not on the US version of Amazon.com yet. But I’m heartened by the fact that all my former coworkers at the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce sitting in their offices & surfing the web can order copies of my book online, and probably expense them to the deep pockets of CIBC.Still, it’s fascinating to watch as one Amazon storefront after another starts to carry my book. I’ll post screenshots of each regional Amazon site as it comes up. Before long, no doubt, my book will be available on Amazon’s Punjab site, or at least Amazon’s United Arab Emirates website.
My book is on Barnes & Noble now:
I can remember going to Barnes & Noble bookstores with my aunt in New Jersey when I was a kid. She would buy me any book I wanted … she probably still would, too. When I was a kid, books in a bookstore always seemed authoritative: there was something definitive about a book, something solid. There still is, of course (even though nobody reads books anymore) but it comes as a surprise nonetheless to see my own book listed on Barnes & Noble.It’s not in stock yet, but that will change soon. And then I’ll return to New Jersey in triumph to buy it. I’ll buy one for my aunt, too. And if people are more content to read blogs than books, then I’ll have to use stealth to get my book into their hands: I designed my book to be small, slimmer than a volume of Mexican poetry — I designed my book to compete with the internet, which is inherently visual in nature. Illustrations make up nearly half of my book, and the portion which remains is elliptical … zenlike … like the kind of koans you get if you crossed the Osho Zen Tarot with a modern-day alchemy book. It’s the kind of book you can read in one night, in one sitting.And once you’ve read it, getcherself down to Barnes & Noble and write a review! Heck, you can probably write a review right now. You can say that my book is so zenlike that you grasp its meaning before you’ve even read it; you can say that you knew Jason back when he was once a two-headed tadpole in an ill-fitting necktie working for a dot-com company; and you can say that my book competes so well against the internet that you’ve decided to turn your computer off right now——
My book is on Barnes & Noble now:
I can remember going to Barnes & Noble bookstores with my aunt in New Jersey when I was a kid. She would buy me any book I wanted … she probably still would, too. When I was a kid, books in a bookstore always seemed authoritative: there was something definitive about a book, something solid. There still is, of course (even though nobody reads books anymore) but it comes as a surprise nonetheless to see my own book listed on Barnes & Noble.It’s not in stock yet, but that will change soon. And then I’ll return to New Jersey in triumph to buy it. I’ll buy one for my aunt, too. And if people are more content to read blogs than books, then I’ll have to use stealth to get my book into their hands: I designed my book to be small, slimmer than a volume of Mexican poetry — I designed my book to compete with the internet, which is inherently visual in nature. Illustrations make up nearly half of my book, and the portion which remains is elliptical … zenlike … like the kind of koans you get if you crossed the Osho Zen Tarot with a modern-day alchemy book. It’s the kind of book you can read in one night, in one sitting.And once you’ve read it, getcherself down to Barnes & Noble and write a review! Heck, you can probably write a review right now. You can say that my book is so zenlike that you grasp its meaning before you’ve even read it; you can say that you knew Jason back when he was once a two-headed tadpole in an ill-fitting necktie working for a dot-com company; and you can say that my book competes so well against the internet that you’ve decided to turn your computer off right now——
