Excerpts from the Chronicles of Pookie & JR is a short fiction by J. R. Carpenter begun in Montreal in June 2009. Pookie, also known as Pookie 14, is a biological, digital, quasi-fictional manifestation of Montreal-based artist Ingrid Bachmann.

Excerpts from the Chronicles of Pookie & JR is generated by a Python script adapted from a 1k story generator written by Nick Montfort. To view the Python version, Download PookieAndJR.py to your desktop and unzip. On a Mac or Linux system, run the story generator by opening a Terminal Window, typing "cd Desktop", and typing "python filename.py". Hint: look for Terminal in your Utilities folder. On Windows, you may need to install Python first: version 2.6.5. Once Python is installed, double click on the file and it will automatically launch and run in the terminal window. Every time you press ENTER a new version of the story will appear.

In July 2009, in a blog post, Nick Montfort wrote: "J. R. Carpenter... has delightfully re-purposed one of my 1k story generators to have it tell stories involving her and a hermit crab named Pookie. The program has grown to about 2k, but it uses the same simple (and surprisingly effective) method as my first generator does: It simply removes all but 5-9 sentences from a sequence, eliding some of what's been written. Sometimes the reader is left to wonder who the hermit is."

In July 2009, NYC-based artist/programmer Ravi Rajakumar ported the Python script into Javascript to create this web-friendly version.

In December 2010, Excerpts from the Chronicles of Pookie & JR was appeared in a print book called GENERATION[S] published by Vienna-based TRAUMAWIEN.

Excerpts from the Chronicles of Pookie & JR has since been translate into Spanish and Catalan by Laura Borràs Castanyer and Portuguese by Isabel Basto.



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