Hardly anything is more DS106 than pingponging daily creates with folks like Kevin aka @dogtrax. Ask this 6th grade musician teacher why he is still devoutly doing this stuff, and I bet the answer is along the lines “if I have to explain it to you…”

A recent example among many puts a bit of warmth under the gloom kettle, so bear wih me (or more likely, command W) as a blather away episode number 2106.

TDC 5110: The Frankenpoem

We start with the very first DS106 after the 14th year anniversary edition. 14 Years plus a day! On January 9 we got a challenge to write (and or illiustrate) a Frankenstein Poem

When you read a ‘Frankenstein poem’ you get the sense that it’s been composed from bits and bobs stitched together, most likely from lines and images the writer has found in their notebook. Lines that seemed too bloody good not to use somewhere.

https://daily.ds106.us/tdc5110/

I guess it’s in the league of the cut-up method of William S Burroughs, but with the Frankenstein metaphor, stuff strewn together from disparate parts, bolted together, if you will. I blanked a bit when I saw it, and considered it one of those “Guess I will Skip It TDCs” because “Nobody Cares If You Do it Or Not.”

It got put aside and my attention went back… what was it I was supposed to be doing? It’s there amongst the 40 some open tabs in my browser.

Stop.

Then I had the idea.

I went from tab to tab, and copied just one word, or short sentence from each open tab where my eyes went to first, pasted it into a blank text editor. There was the poem.

Amidst the darkness of the modern world
Epiphany
Cars n Trucks
Pizza declines in the US
Funds available
Your order was successful
Try these formats
What are the barriers?
File, edit, view, insert, format, data
Bootstrap
Alternate path systems
Please refresh to keep things working smoothly.
Quality education
It’s twelve
Listen to this article
All fiction pulpwood magazines
Buried treasure can still be found in Chemistry
Key points for determining public domain status.
While interesting, that’s not the point here today.
This includes all active issue renewals
Get the book.
Do we have a map or a model in our head?
Science is Important.
Read about the project here.
> Instructions.
GAFAM, FAAMG, or more recently, the broader Magnificent Seven.
Application error: a client-side exception has occurred while loading.
The results from many hours spent reverse engineering
This page contains changes which are not marked for translation.
You instantly become curious and ask ‘what’s this?’.

Words from my 30 some open tabs

That works! I made a screenshot, and to go the extra ds106 miles, I jumped into Photoshop to place it atop a screenshot of a google image search for Frankenstein.

Alan is @cogdog ??

@creating FrankenTabs is my Frankenstein poem.

I grabbed 30 phrases from each of the tabs open on my browser, all stitched together.

Opening with "Amidst the darkness of the modern world" and closing with "You instantly become curious and ask ‘what’s this?’"

Superimposed on a web browser with 30 open tabs, the visible on a google image search on Frankenstein, is a poem. Amidst the darkness of the modern world Epiphany Cars n Trucks Pizza declines in the US Funds available Your order was successful Try these formats What are the barriers? File, edit, view, insert, format, data Bootstrap Alternate path systems Please refresh to keep things working smoothly. Quality education It's twelve Listen to this article All fiction pulpwood magazines Buried treasure can still be found in Chemistry Key points for determining public domain status. While interesting, that’s not the point here today. This includes all active issue renewals Get the book. Do we have a map or a model in our head? Science is Important. Read about the project here. > Instructions. GAFAM, FAAMG, or more recently, the broader Magnificent Seven. Application error: a client-side exception has occurred while loading. The results from many hours spent reverse engineering This page contains changes which are not marked for translation. You instantly become curious and ask ‘what’s this?’
January 9, 2026, 5:38 pm 0 boosts 3 favorites

I did not clock the time, but it did feel like within the 20 minute frame I always suggested as an investment in DS106.

That was it. Nothing really significant, the world goes on invading countries and shredding reason through artificial machine eaters. But I had that through that this was a reproducible prompt, and one of the best things one can do in the DS106 Daily Create I think is to make one for others, tyhen you see what happens when others take it in unexpected directions.

This I crafted it as the Daily Create #tdc5124 that was yesterday.

FrankenTabFranken Poem

And this is where DS106 has always gone that so few other groups I have seen gone, in mutating and self-remixing directions. Kevin brilliantly replied to TDC5124 by not just doing it as instructed, but came up with his own creative response. He put my “poem” into a word cloud thingy

@creating

I am one of those people who almost never has more than three tabs open in my browser because I get anxious when I see too many tabs open at once (unlike my students, who regularly have 20 tabs open and can't find a thing). So, instead, I took @cogdog FrankenTab poem, pulled it into a Word Art site, and then plucked out a small poem. So, I guess it is a FrankenTabFranken poem?

Point format here –
Amidst an epiphany in darkness:
modern files available

Word Cloud with poem Point format here - Amidst an epiphany in darkness: modern files available
January 23, 2026, 10:38 am 1 boosts 2 favorites

It’s another layer that is new and different.

FrankenTabFrankenPoemPhoto

I saw no need to do the FrankenTab poem for Daily Create #tdc5124 since I had done the one as the example. But when I saw what Kevin did, I pondered what I could layer on that.

I took the biggest words in Kevin’s Word cloud, the first three words in my “original” Franken Poem- and did a flickr search in my own photos on all of them “Point” “Format” and “Here” choosing the first three images that came up as flickr does its algorithmic sorting (some basis of views, comments, etc).

Point Lobos
Point Lobos flickr photo by cogdogblog shared into the public domain using Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication (CC0)
Formation
Formation flickr photo by cogdogblog shared under a Creative Commons (BY 2.0) license
What? What is Here?
What? What is Here? flickr photo by cogdogblog shared into the public domain using Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication (CC0)

This is all Franken-style too, right? Photos that have no correlation if you just look at the data for each (noting too that “format” for the middle one landed on the word “Formation” in the title). The only connection came from outside, from something not connected.

Thus my response was some more photo collaging of these three photos, some layer effects, and putting Kevin’s word cloud on top.

Alan is @cogdog ??

@creating At one time my tabs were as tidy as the habits of @dogtrax Alas no more

Since I did an example for today's challenge, and in the fine spirit Kevin does to remix remixes, I have remixed his word cloud poem

mastodon.social/@dogtrax/11594

with the first images I found in my flickr for searches of "point", "format", and "here"

Thus a FrankenTabFrankenFrankenPhoto poem collage?

Word cloud with biggest words Point, Format, and Here atop a collage of overlapping images of a tree and mountains by the sea (Point Lomos), a few birds flying in Form-ation, and a sign (Here Soon).
January 23, 2026, 2:47 pm 0 boosts 3 favorites

Again, so what? This mode of creation atop creation is outside the realm of statistical formation, not matter how powerfully engineered is your promptism. But in the path we all give each other credit.

There’s More. The Side Paths to John’s Blackout Poetry Prompt

Remix is not just this linear pathing, it spawns branches and pack paths and intertwined wonderment. Me, when I see a daily create, I reach a lot for photoshop and image mashing. But for a super creative approach, the imagination of John Johnston results in him crafting magical web things.

For the original prompt to just craft a Frankenstein Poem, John made a web tool that allows that through the mode of Blackout poetry.

@creating

pi.johnj.info/tdc/tdc5110/

Frankenstein Poetry

Now with added "make your own blockout poem"

"Blackout poem" text: professional fame occupation wealthy mere fantasies
January 9, 2026, 1:34 pm 0 boosts 2 favorites

And this remixes forward as Yet Another DS106 Daily Create TDC 5121 Make a Blackout poem from a Frankenstein poem – the challenge is to use John’s Blackout porety tool on one of the responses to the original Frankenstein poems submitted!

This is just too inter-remixed to not celebrate and re-remix:

Words from a poem selective highlighted, superimposed on a gothic image of a man staring as he escapes through an open door. 

The words are: It smiled like many-coloured glass up the imaginings, to be carriers of fire.
Making blackout poetry with John Johnston’s magical tool (which I know frim his blog and seeing his URL is running on a Raspberry Pi!)

It smiled like many-coloured glass up the imaginings, to be carriers of fire.

https://pi.johnj.info/tdc/tdc5110/index.html

As much as I try to explain this magic and joy, I doubt it truly makes any impression beyond someone thinking, “Does he not have anything else to do with his time?”

Mix it. Match It. Share It. Own the experience.


Image credits: Mix, Match, and Own. flickr photo by cogdogblog shared into the public domain using Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication (CC0)

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An early 90s builder of web stuff and blogging Alan Levine barks at CogDogBlog.com on web storytelling (#ds106 #4life), photography, bending WordPress, and serendipity in the infinite internet river. He thinks it's weird to write about himself in the third person. And he is 100% into the Fediverse (or tells himself so) Tooting as @cogdog@cosocial.ca

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