 Sample Chapter Sonnet1 by Sonnet1.bas Copyright © 2021 Edward C. Reib All rights reserved. ISBN: 9798458125949 DEDICATION For W. Burroughs, B. Gates, J. Bridges, B. Boxleitner, and C. Morgan. FOREWARD I was thinking of Mad Libs when I wrote the program for Sonnet1 the first time, on a 386 back in 1991 or so. Much later, in December of 2010, during some down time at the ol’ cubicle, I downloaded GW-Basic, opened a Command Prompt, and began coding him again. That time, I was thinking of William Burroughs’ cut-up method, and that Sonnet1 could be a kind of champion for Apomorphine and Silence. The first 450 or so of his sonnets were just okay, they aren’t included in this book. I revised the program a little here, tweaked it a bit there, until it was just right. Well, until it was better. Every few hundred sonnets, you might notice he suddenly learns a new word or two. In January of 2011, I turned a black sweatshirt inside out and painted it. I made the yalmuka from the door of a hamster-ball, and began reciting Sonnet1’s poetry with great enthusiasm for a YouTube channel. I made the paint glow with light blue light, and my face and hands greyscale. For anyone who is confused about why I would do such a thing, let me explain: There is a certain cinematic universe owned by a certain large movie studio in which it is established that when a person, especially in the ‘80s, writes a program, that program becomes a sentient being in the computer world made in the image of the person who programmed it. I’d really like for this book to remain available to you for a long time, maybe forever, so I’m not saying any more than that, because I’d really like to avoid getting the old “cease and desist” letter from the aforementioned studio. So, all of that being said, I hope you get a chuckle or two out of the following few hundred pages, but I can’t imagine there could ever be a greater fan of Sonnet1 than his User.
Edward Reib
August 17th, 2021 Candolim, Goa, India #456  The paperback version is 10"x7", 533 pages. Click here to purchase Sonnet1 in paperback |