Charlotte's Tarot

finding meaning in an egg way vs a chain way

read this post in the castle at Fujichia.com

STRIVE FOR EXCELLENCE / THE MAKING OF THIS WEBSITE / OPEN SYSTEMS / EGG VS CHAIN / HOW TO DO THE SHUFFLE / OMEN'S CHANGING ROOM / LINKS

Well, the subscription drive for the Fujichia Feast Society is going great, thank you everyone! Right now I’m at exactly 20% of my goal, which rules. 100% is my dream, of course, but 20% of a dream is a nice little dream itself! That said, 100% of a dream is absolutely lovely, I’m sure we can agree on that. Not like an outrageous circumstance dream where you wake up bummed because you’re back in a world where actually the cats can’t speak to you, but just like, waking up laughing, feeling good, then you’re making coffee, and the dream stays with you like a faint melody and guides your blessed path. You guys know what a dream is.

Anyway I thought this week I’d talk about a part of the castle with probably the most utility, for me anyway, and that’s the Tarot cards, in the game room.

Initially this tarot card mechanism was part of Charlotte de Sédouy’s website. We made the original version some time in 2011, when she was visiting from France. I think the intial idea was that it was a functioning tarot deck made up of different types of cards she found on the street. But then we got to talking, and I showed her my sprawling collection of cards-- game cards, trading cards, actual tarot, playing cards, business cards, old ID’s, wallet-sized prom photos-- and we decided to forgo the narrative purity of “found on the street” in favor of a more expansive and delightful set of objects. We scanned in her collection and some bits of mine, and then I rigged up a javascript thing to call 5 at random and display them on a website in a simple tarot card orientation. PAST / PRESENT QUESTION / OBSTACLE / HELP / FUTURE.

That’s how it was for years, and honestly I consulted it all the time, by thinking up a question, and then clicking OK. Maybe I’m good at drawing inferences between things but I found it to be usually very precient and oftentimes helpful. I think the thing that really helped me is that there isn’t a system of decoding these things, it’s entirely up to you. I mean the regular tarot can be open like that, but at the same time you know you can look it up in a book and it’ll be like “ACE OF SWORDS: New ideas, new plans, intellectual ability, victory, success, mental clarity, breakthroughs, ability to concentrate, communication, vision, focus, stimulating people and environments, new beginnings, new projects, making the correct decision, etc.”. With this way it’s just like, “hmm... SHE-HULK... strong, green, long wavy hair, anger management...? I get +1 ATK this turn for each front row character target opponent controls...?” It’s more mysterioso but at the same time, the meaning seems to always pop right out. I know some people out there really treasure a strong legacy of ideological wayfinding, but this way is really perfect for me, I love it. One way is a book, the other way is an egg, and I love both. I love books, eggs, the ocean, dreams...

Over the years I hit this tarot site quite a bit, and I started to notice that certain cards were coming up more often than others, while there were some that barely came up at all. So in 2023 I looked into the code and saw that the shuffling algorithm I was using was flawed! Getting true randomness is actually a huge problem in computing, so most people pick a flavor of pseudo-randomness that’s good enough for their purposes. Evidently I chose poorly. Well I read up on best practices in shuffling, and retooled it using a much-preferred (but still imperfect (but good enough)) method called a “Fisher-Yates shuffle”. Then while I was in there I made an intro page with information on best practices, and also made it so you have to write down your query, not just think about it. I think forcing a little contemplation in this step is very helpful, and a clear intention is important. With Charlotte’s blessing I moved it from her web site to my own, for safe keeping. Then when she was in town two Halloweens ago we hung out and added some more cards, which is allowed! It’s an open system!!!

If you want to consult this tarot anytime, you may. I’ll put a link below but it’s on the second floor of the castle, in the game room-- take the stairs up from the main foyer and it’s the first room on the left. It kind of feels weird to put it in the game room but like, everything’s a game, who cares. To paraphrase William Shakespeare, the Bard of Avon: it’s all just tricks and games :) I don’t keep user stats on this or any part of the castle, but if you use this all the time and it’s helpful, let me know!

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links / misc

• OK the tarot link is right here: [game room » fortune]. It’s OK to bookmark it and refer to it all the time, but if you’re looking for it later just remember it’s in the game room, on the second floor, under a fringed lamp. At present moment the game room has the tarot, a video game I made called FAXANADU GEORGES BATAILLE, and extensive rules for the card game Seven Bridge, plus a list of posts that are about or kind of about games. [game room]

• Charlotte is so cool, I love her!!!! Her website is here: [http://quesepassetil.net/]. Her last big project was writing and illustrating a kid’s book, a spooky little tale about clothing that runs away from the dresser and has a nighttime adventure. Ahhhhhhhh she’s the BEST!!!!

• If you haven’t signed up for the Fujichia Feast Society, and you want to send small amounts of money, monthly, to receive (these) regular emails plus a new quarterly publication, and depending on your level of interest, another quarterly... thing?? you can! For more info or to sign up see last week’s post, here: [link]. PLEASE NOTE that this is DIFFERENT from the Substack paid subscriber thing, which is now turned off. If you’ve been a paid subscriber there, please sign up for the new thing! And also, thank you for doing that!!!!

• Addie and Jaeyon used this version of the tarot as a prompt during their writing group (Three Writing, at Lost Bag) and said it was incredible. So don’t feel like you need to limit yourself to asking advice!

• The next Three Writing is TODAY, assuming you’re reading this on Tuesday the 28th. Otherwise you missed it. It is or was at 7pm, and the theme shall be / should’ve’dst been [TANTRUM].

• If you use this thing to try and win the lottery, or to bet on horses or altcoins or something, and it WORKS... remember me, your humble servant... I’m happy for you but like, I’d be MORE happy for the BOTH of us...

• Now for those of you who want to read more about computerized randomness, wow, I salute you and welcome you. Here’s the wikipedia entry on the Fisher-Yates shuffle: [wikipedia, Fisher-Yates shuffle]. Computerized random number generation is oddly difficult to do but also SO neccessary for computer security that people have come up with really elaborate ways to achieve it-- the classic is Lavarand, the use of a camera trained on a series of lavalamps to determine random values: [wikipedia, Lavarand]. Also of interest (?) is this book from the RAND Corporation, “A Million Random Digits with 100,000 Normal Deviates”. [wikipedia]. I’ve been looking for an earlyish edition of this RAND book for a long time, it’s like the numerical version of a book from Borges’ “Library of Babel” ([archive.org]).

• I’m playing a music show on the 8th, at Lost Bag, with MONOCHROMATIC POOL and CLA-RAS. Doors at 7:30, music at 8.