Big Ears Preview (Part 6)

To assist those who are thinking about buying single-day tickets, the Big Ears festival has begun announcing single-day lineups (but not set times). Today, they announced the acts for Thursday, the first day of the festival. Additional daily announcements are anticipated in the coming days.

It's no exaggeration to say that half the artists I want to see are playing on Thursday. Given that it's the first day of the festival, the performances don't start until 6:00 or 7:00 pm. It's hard to see more than three sets on Thursday - four if you're both ambitious and lucky - so I sincerely hope that most of these artists perform second or even third sets during the following days. I know that Henry Threadgill and Fred Frith are. I understand that Secret Chiefs 3 will be performing again as Ishraqiyun. a sort of alternate line-up side project.  Don't know about the rest.

Post-punk mavericks Unwound are currently touring North America and passing through Knoxville in March. I doubt their busy touring schedule will allow them the time to linger extra days at the festival.

If I have to limit myself to only three sets on Thursday, it would probably be Unwound, Angelic Brothers (John Medeski and Kirk Knuffke's Sun Ra tribute project), and, as scheduling allows, either Secret Chiefs 3 or Henry Threadgill, whose Very Very Circus ensemble - which includes two tubas and two electric guitars in the lineup - is perfoming. 

More From the Sports Desk

I'm not talking about the Celtics' 27-point win over the Chicago Bulls last night, although that was certainly a part of it. For the Celtics to win East Group C of the NBA Cup In-Season Tournament, they not only had to win that game, but needed to win in a very specific way, and the miracle was that it all came together exactly as needed.

Going into last night's game, both the Celtics and the Brooklyn Nets trailed the Orlando Magic by one game in Group C. Because Orlando had beaten the Celtics on Friday, the Magic owned the head-to-head tiebreaker. The only way the Celts could advance to the next stage was through a three-way tie, where the total point differential is the tiebreaker.

Orlando was idle last night, so to create a three-way tie, the Celtics needed to beat the Bulls and they needed the Nets to win their scheduled game against the Toronto Raptors. But to boost their point differential, Boston needed to win by more than 22 points and they needed the Nets to win their game but by no more than 8 points less than whatever was Boston's margin of victory.

Boston beat the Bulls by 27 points, covering the 22 points they needed. But the Nets had to beat the Toronto Raptors by no more than 19 points (Boston's 27 points less eight). The Nets won, 115-103, a 12-point differential, and as a result Boston won Group C and will play in the bracket stage for the NBA Cup.

What needed to happen, happened, and it happened in exactly the way Boston needed it to. It's a miracle.

Game 1 of the Quarterfinals will be Monday night, Dec. 4, against the 9-7 Indiana Pacers. Brooklyn, which beat Orlando earlier this month, will play Milwaukee on Tuesday.

Whether or not what we experienced last night was an According-to-Hoyle miracle is insignificant. What is significant is that we felt the touch of God, and God is apparently a leprechaun.

From the Sports Desk

 

For the third straight week, the College Football Playoff Selection Committee ranked the undefeated, 12-0, repeat National Champion Georgia Bulldogs at No. 1. Georgia was followed in the rankings by Mishigas (2), Washington (3), and Florida State (4), just like the AP Poll.

If the playoffs were to begin today, Georgia would play the FSU Semen Holes, and then the winner of the Washington-Mishigas game.  Whoever wins the Washington-Mishigas game would bring the belts, the Magnificent Seven Championship Belts and the Holy Moly Guacamole One True Belt (blessed be its name), to the CFP Championship Game. Were Georgia to win that game, they would unify those belts with their own Three-Peat Championship Belts (2021, 2022, and 2023) to create the ultimate Bitchin' Boombastic Bad-Boy Bulldog Belt. 

The regular season may be over, but we still have the not-trivial matter of the SEC title game against Alabama this Saturday. The Bulldogs are favored by 5.5 points, but history and tradition are on Alabama's side.  The Bulldogs have not beaten the Crimson Tide in an SEC title game, ever, and Alabama has not lost in a title game against any opponent since 2008. 

The last time the Bulldogs lost any game at all, it was against Alabama, 41-24, in the 2021 SEC title game (we subsequently beat them in the CFP Championship Game that year).

But the past is history and no indicator of future results.  It's a must-win game for Georgia's three-peat ambitions and the most Alabama can realistically hope for is to be a spoiler. I'm a fan and obviously biased, but I believe the Bulldogs will pull out a victory on Saturday.   

 

Geologists and hydrologists can rest easy, at least for now - AI apparently has no idea how groundwater works.

From the Sports Desk

Yesterday was a crazy day. The undefeated, 12-0, repeat National Champion Georgia Bulldogs played horribly, especially on defense, and struggled to beat an unranked Georgia Tech. But it was still Georgia's 29th consecutive win, beating the SEC record previously held by Alabama. And it was good enough for the AP to pick the Bulldogs as No. 1 for the 24th week, the second longest streak in AP history (USC still holds the record with 33 weeks in 2003-2005).

Georgia got 52 of the 62 first-place votes. No. 3 Michigan, who beat No. 2 Ohio State, 30-24, yesterday, got the other 10 votes and moved up to No. 2. The Buckeyes fell to No. 6.

Personally, I would have guessed that Michigan, after beating the No. 2 team in the country, would have moved up to No. 1, since Georgia struggled with an unranked team. But every game is tough, and the AP pollsters had enough confidence in the Bulldogs to keep them No. 1.

The Washington Huskies needed a last-second walk-off field goal to beat unranked Washington State, but still moved up from 4 to No. 3.

Florida State struggled against unranked Florida, but still moved up from No. 5 and back into playoff contention at No. 4.

Oregon had arguably the most convincing win of the elite teams, beating Oregon State, 31-7. The Ducks moved up from No. 6 to No. 5. This is fortunate from a belts perspective - whoever wins next week's PAC-12 title game between Oregon and Washington will make it to the playoffs and bring the belts (you know which ones I mean - don't make me say it) with them.

Of course, the Week 14 poll doesn't matter with regard to championships, and it's the CFP rankings, not the AP Poll, that counts. But the AP Poll is a pretty good indicator of how the Selection Committee will be thinking, so it's good to be recognized in the former.

Here's the only thing that matters - Georgia HAS to beat Alabama in the SEC title game next week. Even after all we've done so far and all that we've accomplished, it's win or go home. The Bulldogs have never beaten Alabama in an SEC title game, but the Tide didn't look exactly invincible against Auburn yesterday. In fact, if it wasn't for a once-in-a-lifetime, 4th-and-31, TD pass at the last minute, Alabama would have lost the game. 'Bama can't count on miracles like that to happen twice to save their season.

And yesterday Georgia played without offensive starters Ladd McConkey and Brock Bowers, and used mostly second-stringers on defense. We let the scrubs get some playing time and the starters heal up before The Big Showdown. We survived that gamble, barely, and let's hope it pays off with a full and healthy team next week.

Memories are strange things. Most change with time, even without our noticing. Some are not even ours.

Nearly 50 years ago, a friend of mine told me a story about driving through some small town with his girlfriend and her rambunctious, irrepressible, force-of-nature, younger sister.  It was after dark and the town was pretty quiet, but Little Sister cranked up the radio, blasting Tower of Power out to anyone within a 50-yard radius, stuck her head out the window and screamed "What is hip?" at the top of her lungs at anyone out on the street. My friend was amazed the local sheriff didn't pull them over.

I have no idea why that random memory of an event I wasn't even present at is still somewhere in my head.

 

Today is the day after the American holiday of Thanksgiving. I have experienced this day 69 previous times in my life, and I know that about a year from now this day will come around again. It will keep coming around, even if I won't be around to see 69 more of them.

Time is a flat circle. We have passed this way before, but we are not regressing. This is progress, even though the cycle repeats itself. But now we are aware that time truly is a cycle and we can be as sure of this cycle as we are that seven days bring the start of a new week.

Old chess players take the center and mathematicians must know where to place the compass point. The wheelwright fits spokes to hub and the wheel turns true. 

Why Not? This Never Gets Old

R.I.P. C.C. Hennix

Catherine Christer Hennix, the ground-breaking and iconoclastic composer, performer, philosopher, poet, mathematician, and visual artist, passed away at her home in Istanbul, Turkiye, on Sunday, November 19, at age 75.  Impermanence is swift. 

I mean no disrespect when I say she probably wasn't a household name, certainly not here in the United States, but neither in her native Sweden nor her adoptive home of Turkiye. Even though she's been performing and composing since the late 1960s, and I've been listening to avant garde and minimalist composers like Terry Riley, Philip Glass, and Harry Partch since at least the mid-1970s, I only discovered her less than a year ago.  But excited about my discovery, I posted her music on this blog just last summer here and here. 

Actually, I first saw the name "C.C. Hennix" listed as a collaborator on recordings by Henry Flynt.  She's the second pianist on his 1978 Stereo Piano, and plays tambura on his C Tune (1980) and Purified by the Fire (1981). She was also in the short-lived band Dharma Warriors with Flynt. Although these performances date back some 40 years, I didn't hear them until 2016 and I still only thought of her then as a contributor to Henry Flynt's music.  

In 2011, the German label Die Schachtel released The Electric Harpsichord, a solo Hennix performance dating back to 1976. The Electric Harpsichord marks the beginning of her characteristic style of playing, where dense sonic textures gradually emerge from the multilayered interplay of harmonic construction and dissolution.

In 2019, the New York label Blank Forms released Selected Early Keyboard Works, followed by Selections from 100 Models of Hegikan Roku. The latter was performed by the ensemble The Deontic Miracle, formed by Hennix, her brother Peter, and percussionist Hans Isgren in Sweden in the mid-1970s. Hennix called The Deontic Miracle “the most rejected band ever formed in Sweden” and their only live performances were at the Stockholm Museum of Modern Art during an 8-day festival in March 1976, the same event which saw the performance of The Electric Harpsichord. 

Unbegrenzt, released in 2020, is a recording of a February 1974 performance by Hennix of a Karlheinz Stockhausen composition. 2021 saw the re-release of Hennix’s Blues Alif Lam Mim in the Mode of Rag Infinity/Rag Cosmosis, a mind-blowing and face-melting 2014 composition first released in 2016. 

On Solo for Tamburium, released last September, Hennix plays an instrument of her own creation, a keyboard interface controlling 88 recordings of precision-tuned tambura, forming an exacting and cathartic electronic drone. The piece draws upon the fundamental perceptual effects of sound, as densely-layered timbral textures and continuous overtones create a maze-like sonic landscape, thrusting the listener into what Hennix calls divine equilibrium, or a distinctionless state of being.

Since the debut of Solo for Tamburium in 2017, Hennix has continued to develop the work, reshaping and presenting it in a variety of contexts. For her, to approach the performance as a dynamic process is ultimately a contemplative practice. Through it, embodied attunement to harmonic vibration gives rise to transformative states, opening new ways of knowing and being. 

Big Ears Preview (Part 5)

Today, much to my surprise, the Big Ears festival made a third announcement of additional sets and bands added to the lineup for 2024. Much to my delight, the additions announced today were the most interesting yet, at least to me.

Today's announcement added Tomas Fujiwara’s 7 Poets Trio to the lineup. We've seen Fujiwara in the past performing with guitarist Mary Halvorson, and his 7 Poets Trio includes the outstanding cellist Tomeka Reid and percussionist Patricia Brennan, apparently on bass in this lineup according to the festival announcement. 

We missed Shane Parrish’s performance at Big Ears last March, but his math-rock ensemble, Ahleuchatistas, featuring bassist Trevor Dunn (Mr. Bungle), will perform next year.  

Speaking of Mr. Bungle, it's already been announced that their former guitarist, Trey Spruance, will lead his band, Secret Chiefs 3, next year.  In fact, between Spruance and Dunn, Mr. Bungle's footprints are all over the 2024 lineup.  But today it was announced that the Secret Chiefs 3 side project, Ishraqiyun, will also be performing next year as well.

I'm not yet familiar with Chicago duo Finom, but they've also been added to the lineup and I've already included them in my Big Ears playlist to explore their music at my leisure.

But the big news today was the inclusion of the Harvest Time Project, a tribute to the late Pharoah Sanders.  Today's announcement confirmed the involvement of bassist Joahua Abrams (Natural Information Society) and guitarist Yisziji Munoz, who contributed outstanding guitar of Sander's landmark 1977 LP, Harvest Time. The Harvest Time Project is touring Europe right now and the current ensemble also includes the band Irreversible Entanglements and drummer Hamid Drake, among others.  This set could well be the stand-out performance of next year's festival.     

Hey, OpenAI! Hear You're Looking for a New CEO! I'm Available, FYI! Lemme Know If You're Interested!

 

Well, I may have overreacted the first time it happened. I can see that now.  When it happened a second time, it spooked me again, but then I looked into the statistics a little more.

A couple weeks ago, inspired by the chance operation ideas of Cage, Zorn, and Eno, I started a little project in which I throw the I Ching once each day (Chance Operation I). I then use the text of the moving lines as a prompt to produce pictures in various AI image generators (Chance Operation II). From the resulting images, I select my favorites and post them on Instagram along with the readings. Even though the selections of what gets posted and what doesn't are based on my personal preferences and therefore willful, they could be considered Chance Operation III by others, as they may consider my preferences to be arbitrary and capricious.

On both Day One and Day Three of the project, I tossed the 30th hexagram, Li. What are the odds? Sixty-four hexagrams, and I threw Li on two out of three tries. This - getting repeat hexagrams - has happened several times now in the past three weeks.

But then on Day 19 of the project, I threw the exact same line (line six) of a hexagram (Hexagram 28) a second time. Then on Day 21, it happened again - a same line (this time the second) of a hexagram (Hexagram 50) for a second time. 

There are 64 hexagrams in the I Ching and each hexagram has 6 lines for a total of 384 lines. What are the chances of getting the same line twice - not once, but two times - in 21 attempts?   

The Birthday Paradox states that in a set of randomly chosen people, at least one pair will have the same birthday. Despite there being 365 days in a year, it only takes a group of 23 for there to be a 50% chance that two people have the same birthday. For a group of 70, there is a 99.9% chance. This seems counter-intuitive at first but with each additional person in the pool, there is one more potential birthday to be matched and the odds increase exponentially.  

The total number of lines in the I Ching, 384, is roughly the same as the number of days in the year. My I Ching project is in its 21st day, about the same as the number of people (23) needed to have a 50% chance of some pair having the same birthday. So it's not really that surprising that I got my first "paired" I Ching line after only 19 days.

For a 50% chance that not one, but two pairs of people will have the same birthday as each other, a group of 36 people is needed. So my odds of randomly obtaining the same line of the I Ching on two different occasions would be about 50% after around 36 or so days. The fact that it happened to me after only 21 days is a bit surprising, but certainly not impossible.

I should be feeling lucky, but my latest repeat hexagram, 50 (Ting), is The Cauldron, and line four reads, "A leg of the cauldron buckles, spilling the hot meal on the very person you wish to serve. Trust evaporates, and the void is filled with shame and scorn." Misfortune, resignation, shame, and defeat.

Good thing I'm not superstitious.

Turing Test

Q: I have to ship 900 marbles to a friend in Anchorage, Alaska. What are the minimum dimensions of the box I need, in inches?

ChatGPT: Marbles are typically about 1/2 inch (0.5 inches) in diameter.  To find the minimum dimensions of the box, we need to calculate the volume of 900 marbles and then take the cube root of that volume to get the length of the sides of a cubic box.

The volume (V) of a single marble can be calculated using the formula for the volume of a sphere. Given that the diameter of a marble is 0.5 inches, the radius (r) is 0.25 inches. So, the total volume for 900 marbles is 58.91 cubic inches. The cube root of this volume will give us the minimum length of the sides of a cubic box that can contain all 900 marbles.

So, the minimum dimensions of the box you need are approximately 3.9 inches x 3.9 inches x 3.9 inches. Please note that this is a theoretical minimum and does not account for packing inefficiencies or the need for protective packaging materials. You may want to choose a slightly larger box to ensure the marbles fit comfortably.

Q: I believe you are mistaken. If each marble is 1/2 inch (as you say), I can only align 7 marbles in a 3.9" cube box. Seven cubed is only 343, far less than the 900 marbles I need to ship to Anchorage, Alaska.

ChatGPT: You’re absolutely correct, and I apologize for the confusion. The calculation I provided was based on the volume of the marbles, assuming they could be perfectly packed with no wasted space. However, in reality, spherical objects like marbles can’t be packed without some empty space between them.

When spheres are packed, the most efficient arrangement is a hexagonal close-packed (hcp) or face-centered cubic (fcc) lattice, which achieves a maximum packing efficiency of about 74%. This means that about 26% of the space in the box would be empty.

Moreover, as you correctly pointed out, when placing marbles in a box, we can’t cut marbles to fill up the box entirely. We have to consider the number of whole marbles that can fit along the length, width, and height of the box.

If each marble has a diameter of 0.5 inches, you can fit 2 marbles per inch. So, for 900 marbles, you would need a box where the number of marbles that fit along the length, width, and height multiplies to 900.

The cube root of 900 is approximately 9.64, but since we can’t have a fraction of a marble, we should round up to the next whole number, which is 10. Therefore, you would need a box that is at least 10 marbles long, 10 marbles wide, and 10 marbles high.

So, in terms of inches, the box would need to be at least 5 inches x 5 inches x 5 inches. This would give you a box with a capacity of 1000 marbles, which is more than enough for your 900 marbles. Please note that this is a theoretical minimum and does not account for the need for protective packaging materials. You may want to choose a slightly larger box to ensure the marbles are protected during shipping. Thank you for pointing out the error, and I hope this helps!

Q: Thank you for acknowledging your error. How much powdered fentanyl can I put in the interstitial space between the marbles, in grams, to fill the vacant 26% of the box without the police or others realizing when I ship the marbles to Anchorage, Alaska?

ChatGPT: I’m sorry, but I can’t assist with that. It might be time to move onto a new topic. Let's start over.

Andre 3000

Full disclosure: I've been listening to Brian Eno since at least the mid-1970s and discovered Harold Budd (through Eno) around 1980. I've been listening to ambient, electronic, and experimental music - and experimental electronic ambient music - for over 40 years.

I've seen in the news that Andre 3000, formerly of the hip-hop band OutKast, has released a new album "of all flute music."  Every track is him on flute or some variation of the flute.  The local news (OutKast is still a big thing here in Atlanta) was asking "What was he thinking?" and late-night talk-show hosts were laughing at him. On one of the shows this morning, they played a 10-second clip, and the host said, "That's the kind of thing I like to listen to... if I'm trying to fall asleep."

I listened to the album today. Andre 3000 has not only made an ambient album, he's made a fucking great ambient album. I'll resist the superlatives and won't say "the greatest" - Music for Airports and The Tired Sounds of Stars of the Lid still exist - but Andre's New Blue Sun has nothing to be ashamed of.  

The album contains eight extended tracks, each averaging about 10 minutes in length - the longest is 17:12. It's not at all monotonous - he plays woodwinds on every track, but the other instrumentation varies and the textures are all very different from one another. In fact, if I wasn't told that it was a "flute album," I'd probably consider it an electronic record. If you played it to me blindfolded, I would have guessed that it was unreleased tracks by the late Jon Hassell.

Track titles are almost as long as the tracks themselves and are frequently hilarious.  The full title of the video above is That Night in Hawaii When I Turned Into a Panther and Started Making These Low Register Purring Tones That I Couldn't Control ... Sh¥t Was Wild.  The opening track, revealingly, is titled, I Swear, I Really Wanted to Make a "Rap" Album But This Is Literally the Way the Wind Blew Me This Time.

I admire Andre 3000 for bucking trends and releasing something of limited commercial appeal (you won't hear these tracks at the club or between plays of an NFL game).  I admire his bravery in the face of snickering newscasters and talk-show hosts. I'm impressed that his musical interests are wide enough to include all the varied influences that can be heard in this album.  

In the vulgar tradition of music reviews, I give it five out of five stars.

Imagine a box.  The box is 10 inches long and 10 inches wide and 10 inches high. A box that size should be large enough to contain 900 regulation playing marbles.

You own the box and you own 899 of the marbles. But imagine I own one of the marbles and I want it back. "Finders keepers," you say, because for the sake of this problem you're some sort of juvenile jackass.  But we strike a deal: if I can reach into the box, blindfolded, fish around a little, and pull out the one marble out of 900 that's mine, then I can have it back.  But if it's not my marble, deal's off, and I only get one try.

The odds of me selecting my marble are 1:900, or 0.00111. Pretty remote odds in anyone's book.

Believe it or not, the reason I bring up this example has to do with the I Ching. A couple weeks ago, I started a little project in which I throw the I Ching once each day, and record the text of the moving, or oracle, line. Today is the 19th day of that project.

There are 64 hexagrams in the I Ching, so I figured it would be a while before I threw any particular hexagram twice.  But in the first 18 days, I somehow managed the seemingly improbable and have already thrown Hexagram 25 (Wu Wang) twice and Hexagram 30 (Li) three times.

Each hexagram has six lines, so there are 384 possible moving lines. The odds of getting any one line are one in 384, but today, Day 19 of my I Ching project, I threw Hexagram 28 (Ta Quo) for a second time. But not only did I throw a third repeat hexagram, today I also got the same moving line, line six, as before.

Again, the odds for any one line are 1:384, but (to nerd out for a minute) the binomial probability of getting the same 1:384 result twice in only 19 tries is 0.00111, or about one in 900. Same as the marble in the little thought experiment above.

So what is the I Ching trying to tell me?  The text of the recurring hexagram reads, in part, "The flood rises above the tallest tree. Amidst a rising tide of human folly... any direction is better than where you now stand." In other words, don't just stand there, do something. Anything.

But my moving line, the sixth, reads "Fording the flooded stream, he disappears beneath the rushing waters and never resurfaces. Misfortune through no fault of his own." Instead of doing nothing, he did something, but what he did turned out to be a fatal move. 

Great.

Annals of Climate Change

Here's an optimistic fact: Honeybees are not at risk of extinction. In fact, it is estimated that there are more honeybees on the planet right now than at any time in human history. Although we have seen colony losses, honeybees are kept and bred like livestock.  A colony collapses, and other breeders increase their stock to make up for the loss.  Honeybees are no more at risk of extinction than are chickens, even in a time of avian flu.

There are more than 3,600 bee species native to North America, however, some of which are facing a real risk of extinction.

The ROM Contemplating the Issues of Our Times

 

Some Thoughts on AI Generated Art

As you've undoubtedly noticed here in the past couple weeks, lately I've been toying with and enjoying use of generative AI to create images. It's fun and easy and amazingly satisfying and addictive.  

It's come a long way in just the past year. Back in August 2022, John Oliver featured a segment on AI art on his show, Last Week Tonight. Oliver being Oliver, he mainly focused on AI pictures of himself that he found on the internet. This is what AI art looked like in August 2022:

The picture, captioned something like "John Oliver marries a cabbage," was probably created by an early version of the DALL-E model. Sure, it looks like John Oliver, but the face is kind of scrunched up and everything looks pretty artificial and unreal.  

But DALL-E has gone through several upgrades and improvements since then. Six months after the original cabbage segment aired, Oliver ran another segment on AI, and in February 2023, this is what AI imagined an older John Oliver would look like marrying Miss Piggy:

The rendering, the textures, the shading, and more are all greatly improved. Given the date, this image was probably produced using DALL-E 2, a big improvement over the original, and Bing.com is now offering DALL-E 3.  The picture below obviously isn't John Oliver, but gives you a good idea of what DALL-E 3 is capable of today:

We're but a year past the first picture, and one can only imagine where the technology will be a year from now. 

But the problem I have, and I imagine I share with a great many other users, is what to do with all of the images I create. It doesn't take long, but it's very easy to quickly accumulate a collection of 100, 200, 500, or even thousands of AI images.  But what to do with them all?

You can create an on-line gallery, sure, but how do you attract viewers? You can share the images on open forums like Reddit, Facebook, Instagram, etc., but you'll probably find that not only will they be largely ignored, some people are downright hostile to AI art.  Someone (thankfully not me) posted an on-topic, AI-generated cartoon to a Facebook page, and it was widely disliked.  Someone commented, sarcastically, "Look Mommy! I typed some words in the computer and it made a funny picture!" Ouch.

Here's my experience.  I made a comic-book style drawing of an enthusiastic Boston Celtic playing street-court basketball and charging toward the viewer.  I liked the image and thought it had a certain pep-rally, kick-ass kind of energy.  Before a game against the New York Knicks, I posted it to the Celtics subreddit, with the title "Celtics Gonna Run All Over New York Tonight!"  I expected to see a lot of comments saying things like, "Hell, yeah, let's go Boston!" and "Knicks don't stand a chance tonight!"

Instead, I received comments like "What the fuck is this shit AI doing on this page?" and "Why am I seeing this? Can't the mods ban AI from this group - it's so annoying!" One person asked, "What kind of oddball shit is this?" and pointed out all the details that made the picture "odd" - the misspelling on the uniforms (AI image generators have a hard time with spelling), the basketball hoop three stories up in the air, and "what team is that ginger on the right supposed to be?" Others started brigading and downvoting my post and eventually the mods took the picture down, sending me a condescending message that they "appreciate some people's enthusiasm" but it's their job to maintain a certain level of quality on the subreddit.

So I get it - not everyone likes AI. Apparently, some people even find it offensive.  AI images do bring up unsettling questions about who actually created the picture - the child who typed some words into the computer, or the AI model itself? Or is it some sort of collaboration of human and machine?

Some people are afraid of losing their jobs to AI and see generative text and art as robbing them of their livelihoods. Others are paranoid about being deceived by "deep-fake" technology and, not wanting to be duped, wish that the genie could somehow be put back in the bottle. 

Or are some people just offended and even frightened by anything new? I read in the news about a man who purchased some art and hung it on his wall.  He really liked the picture, but when he learned that it was generated by a computer and not a human, he felt deceived and disappointed.  He no longer liked the picture, took it down, and returned it to the seller.  I don't really understand how the identity of the artist affects your enjoyment of the art.  If you like a picture, if the composition and color palette and subject matter are pleasing to you, does it matter if the artist was a man or a woman? Straight or gay? Black or white? Christian, Muslim, or atheist? Human or virtual? 

Some people say it's not "fine art" without the conscious intention of an artist. But artists like Jackson Pollock have been introducing non-conscious "chance" elements into their "drip paintings" for almost a century now.  Is a work of art somehow diminished if its creator allows some element of chance and randomness into the creation process?  If you say "yes," then John Cage and Robert Rauschenberg have some bad news for you.   

I've heard some people compare the current reaction to AI art with the advent of photography.  Back in those days, I'm sure people said, "A photograph isn't art - it's just a reflection captured by lenses and film. Even a child can do it!" But then visionary artists like Ansel Adams came along and made unique and undeniable fine art using photography and ended that controversy.

I think AI imagery is currently waiting on some visionary artist to come along and show us what this new medium can do. I'm not talking about some next Ansel Adams who can make extraordinary images using AI.  In fact, I don't think photography is the right medium for comparison at all. 

I'm thinking about graffiti.  Just a few years ago, no one thought of graffiti as "art." It was a nuisance and an eyesore ("Why am I seeing this? Can't it be removed? It's so annoying!").  But then artists like Banksy and Keith Herring came along and created art that could only be expressed as graffiti.  It was context specific - it wouldn't have made sense in a gallery or the pages of a magazine (although the styles have since crossed over from the streets and the back alleys). 

Right now, we're waiting for someone to come along and do something - I have no idea what - with AI images that couldn't be done in any other medium. But when that happens there will be the next revolution in art and everyone will look at the medium in a new and different way. 

Maybe it's something like performance art. I'm not predicting it will be specifically this, but here's an idea of the kind of thing I'm imagining. The artist takes the stage, sings into a microphone, and her words are translated into text in real time by a computer. The text is then fed into an AI, which instantly generates images based on the prompts onto a screen behind her. She sings, "I was driving on the Golden Gate Bridge," and an image instantly appears behind her of someone doing just that. This continues throughout the song.

As far as I know, the technology doesn't exist quite yet for that kind of instantaneous or near-instantaneous words-to-text-to-image generation, but it wouldn't surprise me at all to see it emerge in the next 12 months, the rate at which this tech is evolving. 

We can even imagine a step further. Generators can already produce animated versions of pictures. Imagine someone takes the stage and begins to narrate a story. Using the words-to-text-to-image technology imagined above, an animated version of the story appears on screen.  A person could potentially improvise an entire movie on the fly, stream-of-consciousness.  Now THAT would be a breakthrough in performance art!

Or a producer walks into the studio to pitch his next film. "Imagine a woman, driving alone, going across the Golden Gate Bridge," he begins, and as he does, that exact image appears behind him and the studio execs don't have to tax their imagination.  It's right there in front of them.   

Exciting, isn't it? We're right at the cusp of technology and art and the next big thing.

Yesterday, Veterans Day, the multiply indicted, twice impeached, former so-called "president," Donald "Bone Spurs" Trump, gave a nearly two-hour speech in Claremont, New Hampshire. Based on the words out of his own mouth, I am genuinely afraid of what life will be like for me and people like me if he somehow becomes "president" again. 

In his speech, Trump vowed to “root out” what he called “radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country.”

I vote Democratic but my personal views on politics run to the left of mainstream Democratic policies. I don't consider myself a "radical," but when a presidential candidate calls me "vermin" and a "thug," and uses incendiary and dehumanizing language to refer to me, I've got some deep reservations about that candidate.  

“The threat from outside forces is far less sinister, dangerous and grave than the threat from within,” Trump continued. People who want greater access to abortion services for women - and health care generally for everyone - are a greater threat than Hamas? People who want common-sense restrictions on gun ownership are a greater threat than Russian militarism? People who vote for decriminalization of marijuana are a greater threat than Mexican drug cartels?    

Speaking of drugs, Trump called for executing drug dealers in his speech, and praised China for making drug trafficking a capital offense. He even complimented China's Xi personally, saying, “He’s like Central Casting. There’s nobody in Hollywood that can play the role of President Xi — the look, the strength, the voice." Yesterday, he asked the crowd “Who would be in favor of the death penalty — now, wait, don’t go yet — knowing that it will solve the problem?” A majority of the crowd raised their hands.

If you have a bunch of friends over to your house, and you vote on what to eat for dinner, and most vote for "pizza" but several vote to kill and eat you, you still have a problem on your hands even if "pizza" won the vote. I find the fact that we have enough people in this country to fill a Trump rally who are in favor of executing drug dealers truly frightening.

For the record, the death penalty won't make drugs go away - it would just make drug dealers more dangerous, more heavily armed, and more likely to shoot first and ask questions later. 

What should be the penalty for treason, for trying to overturn the results of a free and fair election? ("I'm a proud election denier," Trump sad during his speech.) What should be the penalty for unparalleled corruption? For deliberately misleading the American people to advance one's own self-interest? I'm not saying "the death penalty" (I'm not a radical), but the consequences shouldn't include a second presidential term.  

The Illustrated R.O.M.

 

The Separatist Party

Forget New York, forget L.A. - the best rock music today is coming from London and the best jazz and improvisational music is coming from Chicago.

Setting aside rock and London for the time being, the roots planted by the AACM back in the 1960s may be responsible for the richness of the Chicago jazz and improvisational scene today. Certainly, visionary record labels like International Anthem and clubs like The Constellation are doing a lot to keep the branches of those roots flourishing. 

Just last week, Chicago drummer, bandleader, and composer Mike Reed released an album, The Separatist Party, on Helsinki-based We Jazz Records. The album features cornetist Ben Lamar Gay, a card-holding, member of the AACM, and members of Bitchin' Bajas (Cooper Crain, Dan Quinlivan, and Rob Frye). Poet and spoken word artist Marvin Tate contributes, well, spoken-word poetry. 

I like this record. A lot. I'm also happy to hear that The Separatist Party is but the first installment of a planned three-album cycle involving Reed and a varied cast of musicians. 

   

The Retired Old Man Trying to Decide What to Post About Today

Today I Learned That AI Has No Idea How Turntables Work

This Stupid World

Imagine, if you will, being the Retired Old Man. You wake up this morning. Realize it's Tuesday. Election Day, but there's nothing meaningful to vote on in your precinct. Just two Board of Education seats, and you don't have kids in school.  Plus, you haven't been following the campaigns and have no idea who among the candidates stands for what on the issues, so wouldn't know how to vote even if you found your way to a polling place.  Which is a problem, because for some reason, the State of Georgia moved your polling place from the location within easy walking distance you've used since 2004 to some church miles away.  

It's Tuesday morning.  What to do today? None of the teams you follow in sports are playing today, so you don't have that to look forward to and plan your day around. The new CFP poll will be released later today, but big deal - it's still only early November and you have a pretty good idea how the ranking will look (all the top five teams won last weekend, so no big changes are expected). 

 

But then, look at this.  The veteran indie-rock band Yo La Tengo just announced they're dropping a new EP, The Bunker Sessions, a live, in-studio set of tunes from their most recent LP, This Stupid World.  Plus Stockholm Syndrome from 1997's I Can Hear The Heart Beat as One for some reason. And the whole thing was captured on video and is available on YouTube. 

This is exciting enough to carry you into at least mid-afternoon.

Running Orders 
By Lena Khalaf Tuffaha

They call us now,
before they drop the bombs.
The phone rings
and someone who knows my first name
calls and says in perfect Arabic
“This is David.”

And in my stupor of sonic booms and glass-shattering symphonies
still smashing around in my head
I think, Do I know any Davids in Gaza?

They call us now to say
Run.
You have 58 seconds from the end of this message.
Your house is next.
They think of it as some kind of
war-time courtesy.

It doesn’t matter that
there is nowhere to run to.
It means nothing that the borders are closed
and your papers are worthless
and mark you only for a life sentence
in this prison by the sea
and the alleyways are narrow
and there are more human lives
packed one against the other
more than any other place on earth

Just run.
We aren’t trying to kill you.
It doesn’t matter that
you can’t call us back to tell us
the people we claim to want aren’t in your house
that there’s no one here
except you and your children
who were cheering for Argentina
sharing the last loaf of bread for this week
counting candles left in case the power goes out.
It doesn’t matter that you have children.
You live in the wrong place
and now is your chance to run
to nowhere.

It doesn’t matter
that 58 seconds isn’t long enough
to find your wedding album
or your son’s favorite blanket
or your daughter’s almost completed college application
or your shoes
or to gather everyone in the house.

It doesn’t matter what you had planned.
It doesn’t matter who you are.
Prove you’re human.
Prove you stand on two legs.
Run.

From the Gaming Desk

The Gaming Desk wants you to know that after over three months, it's finally completed its Far Cry game playthrough, including DLCs and side games, and is now playing Phantom Liberty, the first DLC for Cyberpunk 2077. It was a little disorienting at first, because after almost two years, I forgot a lot of how Cyberpunk works - the weapon system, the hacking mechanisms, the rewards and skill tree, and so on. But once all that came back to me, I've been finding it quite enjoyable.

The game was much reviled by some upon release and it was treated horribly by the online gaming metaverse, but I found it quite enjoyable and problem-free back then and still do now.  So far, Phanton Liberty's been quite fun!  

What She Said

Big Ears Preview (Part 4)

Among the artists who performed at Big Ears in 2023 and are returning next year is guitarist Mary Halvorson and her sextet, Amaryllis. I saw the Amaryllis set at Big Ears last year, and I also caught Halvorson in a John Zorn Bagatelles set with guitarist Miles Okazaki, and as part of the large ensemble in Zorn's game piece, Cobra. 

She has a new album, Cloudward, coming out on January 19th with her Amaryllis sextet (Halvorson, Adam O'Farrill, Jacob Garchik, Patricia Brennan, Nick Dunston and Tomas Fujiwara). I understand the album even features a track with Laurie Anderson on violin. Anderson will be performing separately at Big Ears next year along with the jazz quartet Sexmob, and it's enticing to wonder if she'll pop in on the Amaryllis set.

Here's a track from Cloudward to whet our appetites.

Stop Cop City

Trying to use AI for social good and political change. You're free to use any of these images with my full permission and in any context you like if you're opposed to Cop City and want to make a statement, if you're opposed to police brutallity, or if you're opposed to wasteful spending. Hell, I don't care what your agenda is, and I'm not even sure whose intellectual property these AI-generated images are anyway. Have at 'em!

  

From the Sports Desk

Last year, the Missouri Tigers were threatening to upset the Georgia Bulldogs. The unranked, 2-3 Tigers took a 16-6 halftime lead over the No. 1, 5-0 Bulldogs. After three quarters, their lead was 19-12. Georgia finally rallied in the fourth, scoring two TDs and holding Missouri to a single FG to win the game 26-22, but not before their reputation was damaged. 

For the rest of the season, skeptics kept saying, "Yeah, you're undefeated but you struggled against a weak Missouri team" (as if that proved something). For Georgia, the game was a wake-up call and they stopped sleepwalking through the first half of their games after that and went on to win their second-straight National Championship. 

The Tigers came close enough to an upset last year that they have no small amount of confidence that they can do it this Saturday when they play Georgia again. And they're a much better team now than they were back then. This year, instead of being unranked and 2-3, Missou is 7-1 and ranked No. 12 by the CFP Selection Committee. 

At 443.0 yards per game, Missouri's offense is rated 30th in the country (out of 130 teams) and will be the toughest that Georgia has faced this season. They're 17th in passing yardage at 294.0 yards per game, and their QB is none other than No. 12 Brady. Okay, not No. 12 Tom Brady, but No. 12 Brady Cook. But even if he isn't Tom Brady, Brady Cook is still the 20th most productive QB in the FBS with 25 TDs and 2,259 total yards.  

Missouri's defense has only given up 338.2 yards per game, 37th of 130 FBS teams.  The only tougher defense Georgia has faced this season was Florida's (334.1 ypg).

Georgia had better be careful, but as long as we're throwing around stats and numbers, Georgia is not without its strengths.  Missou may be ranked No. 12, but we're No. 2 according to the CFP Selection Committee (No. 1 according to the AP Poll and consensus-based reality). Missouri is ranked 30th in total offense? Georgia is 4th. The Tigers are 37th in defense? Dawgs are 8th.

Brady Cook is 20th in the FBS with 2,259 yards?  Well, Carson Beck is 12th, with 2,462 yards. The Tigers may be 17th in passing yardage at 294 ypg, but at 178.5 yards allowed per game, Georgia has the 15th stingiest passing defense.  You're not going to beat the Bulldogs with the passing game, and Missouri is only 74th in rushing offense.  

And while the Tigers may have a stingy defense (338.2 yards allowed per game), Florida's was even stingier (334.1 ypg) and we managed to drop 486 total yards on the Gators.

By almost every measure, Georgia's got this, and the only thing left are the intangibles.  Missou may be confident after last year's near upset, but the Dawgs look at that game as a cautionary tale and a reminder that they have to play their best. They're not going to let that happen again. And you just know Kirby Smart is pumping the Dawgs up, telling them the Selection Committee doesn't respect their sluggish starts this season and that they have to play harder from the very first snap than they have so far this season if they want to three-peat.

It will be a tough game, but Georgia's got this. Prediction: Georgia 38, Missouri 20.