Huh. I think a big point of things like tarot cards and the I Ching is exactly to short-circuit rational processes and let people come up with answers intuitively.
Eno, Bowie, et al also used it during the sessions for Low and Radiohead used it during the sessions for Kid A/Amnesiac. Its also related tangentially to Burroughs cut-up technique. Sources are the 33 1/3 book series on Low and Wikipedia, though I don't have links handy.
Really interesting to me. I like its paradoxical practicality. I'm sure it could be used for many different kinds of creative endeavors. Perhaps even software.
I use them for software. Generally they are a prompt for a five minute time-boxed stream of consciousness writing session about the problem I am trying to solve.
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[ 66.7 ms ] story [ 692 ms ] threadI wrote a little Python script to return a random one to stdout... too trivial to even post.
I like the reference to Bowie's "Heros" album in particular the song "Sense of Doubt" which is a great instrumental. I love that album and that song.
These are useful little aphorisms for when you are stuck. This article has a little background.
If you're not on Windows, you may be interested in the 'fortune' and 'strfile' commands.
Really interesting to me. I like its paradoxical practicality. I'm sure it could be used for many different kinds of creative endeavors. Perhaps even software.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FODvjYoVEi8