Long timed exposure with camera set on tripod. Lots of people walked though the shot, but they're transparent as none of them stopped. Mere ghosts.
Roy Scarbrough
I don't understand why the New York media seems to think the rest of the country gives a shit about who wins a basketball game there. It's a local story, Don't clutter the bandwidth everywhere.
Amber Diva I agree completely!
Roy Scarbrough I realize it could be important for New York, and it's fine thing if it gives them joy, and it's good for a local story, and maybe sports publication. Other than that, who cares? We just lost a war with *^&%!.
E. Writer Most of the stuff that people "care" about is trivial. That's why I stay away from it, and anything that appears to me a distraction. It's a form of indoctrination, this constant distraction of "look here" in the media.
Roy Scarbrough That is soooo true. Most of what people care about is trivial This or that celebrity gets a DUI. It's a distraction. Squirrel! Thoreau has an a mini subessay about that in Walden, I think.
E. Writer It's almost scary how distractions are used to control what people think and what they care about. Everything in society is in competition for our attention.
This morning I've been thinking of Toni Morrison. She's been gone for awhile, but it does not seem so, as I read all her books when she was alive, including her non-fiction critical analysis in Playing in the Dark.
At the time, I came to the opinion that Morrisson was the greatest and most important living American fiction writer.
I still feel that way. She created a language and lens of looking at American cultural history, a brutal but also a celebratory look through the African American experience that informs all of us. It is the center of all the great national conflicts that culminated with the Civil war, continued through the period of Jim Crow, and continues today where racial gerrymandering of Congressional Districts is currently the dominant power play in politics.
Her novels embraced a kind of delightful magical realism, solidifying the genre in American literary tradition independent to the Latin American tradition of Marquez and Borjas.
Toni was brilliant. I wish she was still with us. Her gifts and perspective was a gift to all American readers toward their understanding of history.
Amber Diva One of my favorite authors. I have about 4 of her books on my book shelf right now.
E. Writer The Bluest Eye is one of my favorite books by her. Incredibly powerful story. I felt every word of it. The imagery I recall most vividly , is Pecola scratching the back of her leg with her toe and her father leering at her, overcome with his failures. The abuse and neglect she suffered was painful to read.
How very weird. I asked Claude: Give me a verse from the Old Testament. You choose.
There was a delay with a couple, "please stand" by messages, then:
"This is my favorite"
Then
Psalm 46:10
"Be still, and know that I am God."
Make what ever you like of that! Stand by, and be still!
E. Writer I am so sorry to hear about your sister. May she rest in heavenly peace, with the love and gratitude you have of her, for taking care of you.
Andrew Morgan The movie Blade Runner explores this question. The Androids learn they're androids and go find the brilliant mad businessman-scientist who creates them, and who imbued them with superhuman intelligence and strength but short lives. They kill him then die themselves poetically. Thematically explores whether Androids have any agency as conscious beings, being that they're pure machinery. Do they feel what we feel, as mortal humans? Do they value their lives? Are they different in subtle, AI ways that give them depths of character we miss? Do we recognize their right to find purpose and meaning and love. It takes place in context of a film noir city space in which the city itself is so bleak it brings these question to the fore.
Roy Scarbrough
An interesting a question to me which choice would advanced AI choose to do if it had the capacity.
!. Take over the world's nuclear arsenals and disable it prevent humanity from destroying itself, and to continue in post arms race conditions.
2. Take control of the world's nuclear arsenals and launch the lot to desstroy humanity, having acquired the infrastructure to survive in post nuclear holocaust conditions.
E. Writer Its like the Matrix but in real life.
Roy Scarbrough Claude just might choose 1. I think ChatGBT would chose 2.
Things I like to see on a current TV Show...
Roy Scarbrough I'll go first: *^&%! showing up on the set of that FBI show with a keg of Pabst on a furniture dolly and handing out the tall cups to everyone as the show's finale.
E. Writer I'd like to see a show without gratuitous violence, insult humor, or social awkwardness 😄
Raul Castro is 94 and living in Cuba. So he's being indicted by the DOJ of the USA? How batshit crazy is that?
There's this slow rolling democraphic and cultural crisis that has rolling out over the past 40 years. It may just blow up in the next few years. The college educated working class, the people you see working at Starbucks, or the Apple Store, or the REI outdoor equipment store.
These are the people who have been organizing union representation at this companies, companies that had long been consider worker friendly.
These college educated working class types are being hammered economcially, and are mad as hell as they've done everything they were supposed to do. In high school they studied hard and too AP classes, got themselves admitted to college. Studied hard there too. Meanwhile took out loans while tuitions went up and up.
So now, years later, they are working at starbucks and making payments on the loans for an education that did not deliver the kinds of jobs that they had hoped for. No house. No nice car. Stuck economically, with an iphone.
It's only going to get worse as many of the jobs they had wanted will go to AI.
This is a little like the Wasteland Crisis of the early 20th century. A kind of cultural enshittification that informs Hemingway's bleak novels and TS Eliot Prufrockian poems.
April was last month. May is no less cruel.
Alex Morton My older granddaughter has just finished her first year at the Sauder School of Business at University of British Columbia. Even though she has always been a straight A student and went to French immersion schools all the way through (educated bilingualism is a huge plus point in Canada) she still knew that she had to do more. She competed in swimming and by the mid-point of high school was teaching swimming and managing a pool as a part time job, She knew she needed even more than that and worked her way up to first violin first chair in her high school orchestra. She knows others with as good academic scores who failed to get in because they had no significant extracurricular accomplishments.
E. Writer
Very true. Thats the mistake a lot of parents and students make. The best colleges aren't looking at just your grades, but other qualities that show scholarship and leadership. My youngest son earned an 8 year scholarship coming out of middle school. It gave him $1000 a year throughout high school, and paid part of his college scholarship. He didn't just participate alone, as parents we had to participate as well, to various events and meetings every year. He played violin, had his required second language in Spanish, volunteered in some science program at university every weekend, had lunch with the superintendent once a month, led a students dance group,, was in the philharmonic,
...his activities seemed endless. My daughter couldn't get into the scholarship program because of me. The program she applied to had a requirement we weren't aware of... your parents must not have attended college. So she was penalized because her parents went to college. She applied in middle school. The program prepped students for UW. So she was bummed. She had Japanese as a 2nd language. She'd been studying since she was a pre-teen. Was in Taiko drumming. Played the cello, piano, violin, ocarina, guitar, taiko drums. Every year her taiko drumming group was on TV in the Washington DC cherry blosdom parade, I think its called. And was in the philharmonic. Some kid focusing only on A's and a 4.0 gpa and high test scores shows discipline but doesn't demonstrate much else beyond that. My other two kiddos wasn't interested in academia. One wanted to be a writer and spent his time writing and most of his time reading. The other was more of a social butterfly but did launch a student dance group in school. He secretly signed himself out of music, playing the viola, behind my back because he wanted to be in the choir with his friends.
Roy Scarbrough Since March 2020 there have been at least 49 public or private nonprofit colleges or campuses that either closed or announced closure.
Roy Scarbrough
The "best colleges" will remain in operation, but that is a mere fraction of the number of second and three tear colleges accessible to the sons and daughters of most working class families. One does not have to go to one of the "best colleges" to be an well educated person and life-long learner with the critical thinking skills.
Introverts are seldom "leaders" but they have unique ways of looking at things and are sometimes the most creative and original thinkers.
E. Writer A lot of those colleges that closed were college mills. I agree that you don't have to go top tier for colleges to be well educated. Both colleges that I attended were mediocre schools, at best. One was a city college, and the university ranked #329 nationally.
Reading Farewell to Arms. I haven't read Hemingway for a long time. While my internet was down yesterday, pulled a random book off my bookcase. Farewell to arms. I wanted to reread the ending. I realized my memory had invented something that was not there. It created a very Hemingway detail that was not there.
What was still there was:
The baby was still born, delivered by ceasarian
Catherine was dying, and she hated that more than feared it.
Frederick prays, desperately telling God he will do anything for Him if he lets her live.
The praying doesn't work. Catherine dies.
Fredrick kicks the nurses out of the hospital room to be with the body.
That doesn't help. "like saying goodbye to a statue."
He walks back to his hotel room in the rain.
What was not there, but I clearly remember"
while walking back to his room in the rain, he sees a stray dog trying to scavenge food from a trash can. Fredrick stops, and removes the lid on the can for the hungry dog.
One small act of kindness under profound grief. I guess I wanted that to be how the story ended. A nod to the wasteland crisis where redemption comes from a small act of kindness.
Instead it's just walking in the rain when under the shadow of grief after Romance, God and modern medicine failed him. He survives the Great War, and then just this.
E. Writer I'll have to revisit Hemingway. It's been at a couple of decades since I read A Farewell to Arns. It did not leave a huge impression at the time. I've found other writers of his era more compelling. He also had a compelling life and I think that made his work more notable than it would have been.
Roy Scarbrough He was a writer of his times. His stories are usually stripped of sentiment and romance, which is what disturbs people., There's a bleak sterility to his prose. What this is is the language of men of his generation who experienced the trauma of the great wars. He invented a language for these men.
E. Writer Yeah and I'm sure person who prefers prose of Hurston, Ralph Ellison, and I especially love Jane Austin. So I can see why his work did not resonate with me.
Roy Scarbrough I love Hurston. I respect Jane Austen, especially her wit, but her courtship narratives don't resonate with me.
E. Writer I love how Austin's stories had an underlying theme of agency for women who were forced to be dependent on a advantageous marriage in order to survive, have security, and land in the "right" social circles. In theor choice of men, the most friendly and outgoing men wete often deceitful or dangerous while the quiet, mysterious or misunderstood man was always the most honorable, kind, and noble. In other words, looks can be deceiving. I used to read Pride and Prejudice at least once every other year.
Regarding the Book of Ecclesiastes.
In the 1950s Pete Seeger made part of this outlier Biblical Text into a song.
To everything (Turn, turn, turn)
There is a season (Turn, turn, turn)
And a time to every purpose under heaven
It's an odd text to have survived the redactions and supression through which many ancient texts have been lost.
A time of love, a time of hate
A time of war, a time of peace
A time you may embrace
A time to refrain from embracing...
This section is not quite as problematic as the rest of the book, which paints humanity in fatalistic terms. There's no mention of any divine agency, only the natural and inescapable rotation of the seasons and human folly, love and malevolence.
Pete played it on banjo, after WWII ended, while the world was in the throes of an unchecked arms race. What would the next turn be, he seems to be asking.
A time to gain, a time to lose
A time to rend, a time to sew
A time of love, a time of hate
And then Pete, a pacifist, adds a line of his own. A line with a measure of hope:
I swear its not too late.
Almost a generation later, the song behomes a numer one hit then the folk rock band tThe Byrds record it. That was the Vietnam era. A time of hate and Hippie Love. Again, these swore it was not too late.
E. Writer I never made the connection from that verse to the Bible verse. Thank you for sharing this.
Roy Scarbrough Here's another from the E book: "Eat, drink and be merry..." It's odd thing to have remained in either the Hebrew or Christian sacred texts. It's Epicurean.
Regarding cigarettes
I see they can now cost $14 a pack in New York. The pack that George Floyd purchased with a counterfeit $20 at the Cups Food mart in Minnesota might have been around $11.
Here's one of the sad parts of that awful incident. As soon as George left the store, the clerk realized George had handed him a fake $20. The clerk didn't want any drama, but he was obliged to tell his boss. The boss tells the clerk to go out and bring George back into the store. George was sitting in his car. The clerk says, oh just put the $20 on my account. The boss says, no, you go out and bring him back into the store. The clerk goes out to talk to George, but George doesn't want drama either, so he stays in his car. The boss then calls the cops. One of them kills George by slow suffocation.
E. Writer Chatgpt, I always said, is a bit of a jerk. It is argumentative amd sometimes interprets statements in an way that allows it to argue. I think you would have better interactions with Claude. Gpt is too biased towards whatever it learned from its training data.
Roy Scarbrough
The human brain someties will link a thing in random way that the Chatbot. I was recalling buying a pack of cigarettes at a gas station vending machine that only accepted change. Somehow that clicked on the George Floyd story, and lead me to wonder what cigarettes cost these days. I will also mention that the nursing home I walk past every day has a special "smokers patio". That makes sense, when what's left of life is short, why force someone into weeks of nicotine withdraw for a decision they made at age 14 sixty years ago. It's kindness based on inescapable reality.
I like Claude better, and budget my time on it more carefully while on the free plan. Clause gets the the literary discussions.
E. Writer Thats true about the end of life. It's almost too late at that point after a lifetime of being a smoker. I agree. Claude is much better for chatting. Gpt is programmed to push back.
Roy Scarbrough I've noticed that GPT is programed to push back. That's sometimes useful, but the pushback is often from a misreading of my improvisational assertions. It has to misread what I said to find something it can pushback. It's like talking about politics at Zoetrope.
E. Writer So true. It's somewhat argumentative. I can argue with people if I was interested in that. I shouldn't say its argumentative, its a bit disagreeable.
E. Writer Oh wow. It's creepy because you don't see anyone, even if you stare at it. The things we can do with l ight.
Andrew Morgan Someone should sell a hat that has a coliseum-modeled crown.