An example of "Metamorphocellspeak" Copyright Dalia Bolotnikov, 2013

Inspired by Mark Sample's "Notes Toward a Deformed Humanities," I went to one of the original story clusters focusing on nothing less than deformations and transformations: Ovid's Metamorphoses. From this elegant trajectory I decided to try rewriting a sample section from Book 10's "The Story of Orpheus and Eurydice", where Orpheus' wife Eurydice dies and goes to the underworld; while attempting to save her, Orpheus breaks his promise to not look back while leaving the underworld, resulting in the failure of his rescue attempt. A super serious tale that I decided to deform by rewriting a section in text/internet "speak," imagining Orpheus as recounting this tale to his Twitter followers or his Facebook friends. Funny what a few hashtags can do, but by the end I felt closer to Orpheus than ever. Poor dude just wants his wyfe back!

The Story of Orpheus and Eurydice 
Verse 3 
Ye Pow'rs, who under Earth your realms extend, 

Hey guys, in charge of everything under te urth
To whom all mortals must one day descend; 

Where we’re all headed 1 day
If here 'tis granted sacred truth to tell: 

Be cool and lemme know
I come not curious to explore your Hell; 

Srsly don’t care about checking out @Hell
Nor come to boast (by vain ambition fir'd) 

Not gonna rub it in (I kinda want to tho)
How Cerberus at my approach retir'd. 

That your #cutedog gtfo’d when I came
My wife alone I seek; for her lov'd sake 

Im here for the wife, much love xoxo
These terrors I support, this journey take. 

Don’t even mind being here ‘brb freaking out’
She, luckless wandring, or by fate mis-led, 

TBH her sense of direction is kinda meh
Chanc'd on a lurking viper's crest to tread; 

She would step on like the only snake in a field
The vengeful beast, enflam'd with fury, starts, 

Snakebro totes overreacts, is like omg whut
And thro' her heel his deathful venom darts. 

Noms her heel, straight up #kobe #venom
Thus was she snatch'd untimely to her tomb; 

She ded, timing sucks
Her growing years cut short, and springing bloom. 

Great genetics, woulda lived way longer
Long I my loss endeavour'd to sustain, 

I tried to get over it, #bestrong
And strongly strove, but strove, alas, in vain: 

Tried and tried but there was like no way
At length I yielded, won by mighty love; 

Finally I was like MyLoVe2StroNG
Well known is that omnipotence above! 

Love is straight up stronger than strong, u kno this
But here, I doubt, his unfelt influence fails; 

Cept now im starting to freak a bit
And yet a hope within my heart prevails. 

But I know #hopespringseternal

Since I was dealing with a text file of the entire Metamorphoses, I decided to run the lot through Wordle and test my hypothesis that some variation of "transform," "change," or "turned" would be in the forefront of words used. It was a different kind of 'movement toward' that appeared, however, as the words "now" and "still" appear most frequently. I like to think of this in a temporal sense, as many of these tales involve actions and inactions that result in the mythic transformations.