phone notes and beyond
little thoughts
last week i dreamed i had a general meeting about adapting the book and the development executive asked if i believed in god. (this is not a normal question for a general meeting.)
and i said, “you know when you’re hiking and you see a bison in the clearing—and it’s so real, it’s not only real but it’s natural, it’s part of the world. you are in the world together—but you can’t touch it. you’re not it’s favorite, you’re not the one who will tame it. that’s god.”
regarding writing, or the function of morality in writing, i’ve been thinking recently that even if you don’t know the shape of your god you still have to follow it into the woods. this feels important in the same way.
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the hallmark of AI in visual art is imperfection—weird fingers, phantom limbs, patterns that come undone—but the hallmark of AI in writing is perfection. there are distinct phrases and patterns, for sure, but one major tell is that AI writing follows all the rules; no human writes with 100% correct grammar. i just love that, because no matter how representational AI gets, it’ll never have style. that’s what style is—how you break the rules.
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i love valentine’s day. it’s quaint that we ever accused it of being a corporate holiday. what isn’t corporate? at least it’s a holiday. i can’t wait to have a kid so we can make doily hearts together. (picturing this in my mind, i can smell the purple glue stick.)
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walking the dog today, i saw what looked from across the street like a child-sized wind chime. not for children, but the size of a child. it was suspended from a cedar tree in front of a neighbor’s house. i couldn’t get a better look because there was a dog in the yard barking at my dog—two frothing dogs on either side of a fence, that’s us on either side of this screen—but i swear the chimes were 4 feet long. how do you even get that into a tree? and what kind of sound does it make? you could stand under it on a windy day and have a personal sound bath, i bet your whole body vibrates. how exciting, in a world of haunting ambiguity, to experience a contained mystery.
🥹 beautiful. feeling lucky you share your mind with us 💕💕