I wanted to write up an essay in response to the third chapter of Ian Bogost’s Alien Phenomenology, “Metaphorism.” Instead, I decided to do philosophical carpentry. I made this:
It uses the Wordnik API to grab nouns and adjectives and does some very naive processing to form a basic metaphor. (It’s not polished; for some reason when I ask Wordnik for an adjective it only gives me one 90% of the time.)
Essentially, I’m skeptical that we can ever have good metaphors for anything; or rather, anything can be a good or a bad metaphor. I think metaphorism requires someone to take the stance of a poet, to have confidence in metaphor. And a poet I am not…
I would say more, but I think the work speaks for itself. Take heed, Ian–this object has spoken!
a speculation is a wicket: long-chain and soft-hearted
— Metaphor-a-Minute! (@metaphorminute) May 10, 2012