False Pretenses, Parasites, and Monsters
Tom LeClairTom LeClair surveys six gargantuan texts—both hyper- and print—and finds that size is not all that matters.
Not Browsing but Reading: Magazines and Books Online
Adrian ShaughnessyPerusing websites pertaining to literary matters, Eye magazine cites HTML's "gaptoothed rawness" as a hindance to readability in ebr (prior to the journal's redesign).
Constrained Thinking: From Network to Membrane
Paul HarrisPaul Harris examines the theoretical aspects of constrained thinking in the age of electronic textuality (in 2000 words, natch!)
Writing Under Constraint
Joseph Tabbiebr10, a satisfyingly even number published at the turn of the millennium, seemed at the time like the right occasion for calling an end to issues altogether. In the event, we would not manage to eliminate issues until February 2002 - that palindromic month and year, as satisfying in its way as the y2k.
Seeking the (Black Hole) Sun
Cynthia DavidsonCynthia Davidson reviews Sex for the Millennium by Harold Jaffe
Toward a General Theory of the Constraint
Bernardo SchiavettaBernardo Schiavetta: a definition (in 2000 words)
The Education of Adams (Henry) / ALAMO
Paul BraffortPaul Braffort studies constrained writing from Henry Adams to Braffort's own ALAMO project, and presents his findings in the form of a Triolet (between 1999 and 2000 words)
Nothing Less and Nothing More: The Oulipo Compendium
Joseph TabbiAlain Vuillemin comprehends the compendium - a summing up of four decades of Oulipian activity.
Translation by James Stevens
The Procedural Poetries of Joan Retallack
Brian LennonBrian Lennon considers the aesthetic that Retallack has evolved out of a cybernetic sensibility - a formalism that does not impose authoritarian codes or repressive orders, but rather hacks a pattern out of the sheer data of everyday life: directories, menus, phone books, indexes, encyclopedias, and archives.
Fed Ex Un Ltd
Jan BaetensJan Baetens reviews the Raymond Federman Recyclopedia, a book whose humour - and evident bad taste - raise it above its own formidable constraints.
Consilience Revisited
Laura WallsLaura Dassow Walls reconsiders Consilience and finds E. O. Wilson to be more Christian in outlook than the Reverend William Whewell, who originated the term, 'consilience'