Rainy Season, AI-Imagined

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I’ve always wanted to write and illustrate a graphic novel.

But that would be a lot of work.

Too much for someone as uninspired and unartistic as yours truly.

So I figured why not give one of the AI machines a shot at illustrating some of my writing since they seem to be all the rage lately…

Which also seems to be making all the human artists rage lately as well.

But hey, if you can’t beat ’em might as well join ’em, right?

I mean, hey, better take advantage of the tech now before it takes complete advantage of us as our AI Overlords, right?

Right?

Rich from Rainy Season as imagined by Mindjourney

Anyway, I fed some of the characteristics of Rich and Miko, the two main characters of my novel Rainy Season, into the AI engine Midjourney, and this is a little taste of what it came up with…

Miko of Rainy Season as imagined by Mindjourny

I must say, I’m pretty impressed. Just the vibe I was going for when writing the novel. There are other cool renditions of the troubled couple, as well as some beautiful renderings of a rainy Tokyo night filled with the hazy glow of neon, just like the story’s setting calls for.*

Pretty nifty.

And a little scary.

But hey, maybe the awakening tech might just allow me to release an illustrated edition of the novel.

Sure would be a lot easier than having/trying to draw all those illustrations myself.

I guess if I’m going to do it, I better hurry before the AI becomes fully aware…

And finds itself less interested in rendering unto us silly pictures from silly stories…

And more interested in having us render unto it our complete and total carbon-filled, mushy-hearted fealty.

Yeah.

*I tried using the same defining terms with the DALL-E AI machine and the images it rendered were lame compared to Midjourney’s.

This is a no brainer…

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Pun intended.

Comparing George Orwell’s “1984″ to Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World,” Postman then added that, “What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared that the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance.”

Social media offer us two choices: Orwell’s hell, or Huxley’s, MarketWatch, September 7, 2022

I’m Team Huxley all the way.

People will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think. – A. H.

Anyway…

I can thank Donald Trump for at least one thing: That is, being the impetus behind my decision to abandon just about all social media and forsake you all here at my website.

For the most part I’m a better man for it because Trump and all his idiotic minions cultish worshippers political supporters were driving me on the fast track to dark, warped places I had no desire to visit.

However, two years or so on, I do miss journaling* regularly here.

Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to re-engage with it like I used to.

But I’m trying.

At least I think often about trying.

Anyway…

I don’t really blame social media for all our societal ills like so many do.

As I see it, we will always look to blame who/whatever we can for the ignorant/dumb things we do that only we, ourselves, can possibly be responsible for doing.

Such as hating.

Or not accepting the truth.

Or even avoiding the truth.

Et cetera.

Et cetera.

Besides, we have allowed technology to debase and dumb us down at least since the invention of the printing press.

And there’s no turning back now.

And once our A.I. Overlords are in complete control, brains will no longer be optional.

They will be unnecessary.

Superseded.

Yeah…

Pun definitely intended.

*I still cannot reconcile myself to the word “blogging”.




Literary Zen XI

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Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer*

There is some wisdom in taking a gloomy view, in looking upon the world as a kind of Hell, and in confining one’s efforts to securing a little room that shall not be exposed to the fire.

*Perhaps a better caption would be, Willem Defoe as Arthur Schopenhauer, which is why I shan’t give up my day job.

Oh yeah, my books will be free from 00:01 (PDST) tonight until 23:59 PDST) Friday.

✌️

If it’s not yet time to start worrying…

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It’s getting awfully close.

BTW, if you’re wondering whether the creep in the video has the street cred to back up his Earth-ending bombast, he is affectionately known in Russia’s kleptocratic circle as “Putin’s mouthpiece.”

I wonder what the Vegas odds are for a Russian-induced nuclear holocaust by year’s end…

#whatmeworry

Sunday Songs to Spark the Spirit and Summon the Moves of the Dance

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You probably know that Steve Earle is a world-renowned folk/country/crossover singer-songwriter…

And maybe you know that he is also an actor, having appeared on The Wire, Treme, and other productions, his characters mostly mirroring his life as a musician, as in Treme, or as a recovering heroin addict, as in The Wire.

But did you know he is also an author?

And a damn fine one at that?

Yeah…

Dude’s def got it going on, I must say. Obviously, I’m a big fan.

His book I’ll Never Get Out of this World Alive is named after a Hank William’s song. I listened to the audiobook version, of which Earle performed. It’s great. The main character is a down-and-out, disgraced doctor, and an addict, who angelically performs illegal medical services for the locals of his unruly hood, particularly for the at-risk sex workers. It is a sad, touching, funny, magical, hallucinatory/ghostly tale (Hank Williams plays a critical role… or at least his ghost/Doc’s hallucination of him does) of which I highly recommend.

Anyway, have a listen of this little ditty of Earle’s from when he was a much younger human, and tap a toe or two while you’re at it…

Does it matter if our soul* is eternal?

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Leaving religion with its heavens and hells and golden-paved avenues and abiding virgins and doting angels and disinterested saints and other high-ranking, hifalutin gods and demigods aside, is there an actual evolutionary and/or functioning purpose for an eternal soul?

In other words, does the fact that our souls are eternal matter to our day-to-day struggle to survive?

Or is this concept just a necessary illusion, one that provides us with a false sense of immortality to help us deal with our debilitating fear of death?

Anyway…

I guess we won’t know until we know, you know?

And in case you’re wondering, I just read a click-bate article about the ‘Orch-OR’ theory, so it got me to wondering…

*If the word soul is a bit too new-agey and metaphysical for you, replace it with consciousness