Metatext for Project 3

The freedom and simplicity that this project had was a bit intimidating at first. With so many tools and so many possibilities it was difficult to narrow down 3 pieces. The 3 texts that I chose were for their unique properties that I knew would produce interesting and humorous outcomes. The Verb+7 text which is an excerpt from a short story I wrote called Life On Sticks. The voice that the story had naturally, somewhat sarcastic about a serious injury, I knew would come through in the changed piece. I chose to do verbs instead of nouns because I knew that the verbs would not change to story itself but instead add a new dimension and some humor. I did not change the was and were's because I felt that they did change the story too much from what I wanted it to be.
The Hunter S. Thompson piece is three seperate sections taken from his "Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas". I chose to shannonize his work in his own voice because I wanted to see how much of a change this voice would recieve through his voice. In class we had been using text that was far from the voice we were placing them in and I wanted to see how the process would change a similar text.It definately changed the text and order just as much as any other text I had shannonized in his voice. I like the mix of severity, darkness, and humor that is produced.
James Still's "River of Earth" excerpt , that I ran through Babel fish, I chose because I wanted to use a piece of literature that was written in broken english and see how the dialect would come through in translations.I translated it from English to German to French to Dutch to English to Russian and back to English. The finished piece is not what I was expecting but I was pleased with the outcome. The placement of "Of" inbetween all most ever word makes the text choppy and hard to follow. I analyzed the text by taking out the Of's while reading it and the original text itself had not differed that greatly. The translation actually turns the piece into a code that must be broken to reveal the true story.
I enjoyed this project, and I think that more writing should be processed this way, because when you break down any text you find the real writing underneath.