It’s a dismal genre, but I have finally received the Worst Campaign Text Of All Time. “AI developer running for Congress” 😵‍💫 “check out our virtual yard signs”🫨 “Tag me if you share :)”😵

Concept: a blog where I post a poem I like (someone else’s) every day.

The big unexpected discovery of my late twenties was the work of fat activists. How deeply diet culture had f-ed me up! Now in my thirties I’m still unraveling the sweater. Is achievement culture another self-abnegating carousel of misery? The letting go continues.

Walking back from the playground this morning we crossed a patch of sidewalk littered with tangerines. I looked up: hundreds of orange globes in a tree. A few in reach; me on tippy toes. The baby and I ate the sections, spitting seeds in the gutter, delightedly devouring this sour-sweet miracle.

Whatever happened to automatons? I want not at all the robo-cop-dog nor an “AI” customer service agent. I don’t even want a “smart speaker.” I just want a creepy bronze cellist staring at me in the empty hall.

(Syberia, we miss you!)

Update on the sourdough starter: a week after switching to 1:10:10 feeding regime, I mixed up some pizza dough last night and baked the pies off tonight. Soooooo good—and so improved from previous attempts. Shattery, chewy, with a wide open crumb. Could not be more pleased.

I love it when a big gang of crows flies by, banking in the wind, flapping haphazardly, full of play and rowdiness and conversational caws. I love watching their silhouettes pass before the banked white clouds, and I love the ennobled silence after they pass.

Los Angeles, February 2024.

As a writer, editor, and teacher, the best thing this “AI” craze has given me is a good shorthand for describing prose that is grammatical and on-topic but somehow devoid of content and style. Before, I might say, This section is a little lifeless. Now I say, This sounds like ChatGPT wrote it.

“Just remember, this is the worst that this technology is going to be from here on out.” – Marques Brownlee on AI-generated video.

This must be true, but not inasmuch as it implies ongoing linear improvement. More likely is a sigmoid curve—and we don’t know where on the curve we are.

Call me a hater, but this book from Offal (“helmed by a CEO operating under the pseudonym Jeremy Portal”; other product is “a radio show…or is it a podcast?…that was produced entirely by AI”) isn’t a zine. Offset printing and perfect binding are dispositive with zinemaking. (Via Storythings)

Have to say, it’s disappointing when your NBA podcast abruptly pivots to an interview with the host of an affiliated politics podcast, and she evinces no interest in the use of power but focuses entirely on the tussle. Who’s up, who’s down. I loathe the savvy style in political reporting.

Los Angeles, February 2024

Ha! I have been keeping a sourdough starter going since October, but it hasn’t been lifting my bread the way I want. So I’ve mostly been making waffles with it. (Very good!) I just had the insight: are my ratios off? I’ve been feeding 1:1:1. Checked cookbook and, yes, the standard is 1:10:10. 🤦🏼

Finally some answers in the quest to understand the NYT’s Harvard obsession:

One popular hypothesis: The reporters flock to Harvard to work through their personal struggles with generational overachievement. There’s no “crisis in higher education”; there’s just a crisis of New York Times writers with daddy issues and anxiety over what the end of legacy admissions could mean for their children’s college prospects.

West Hollywood, February 2024

West Hollywood, February 2024

Saturday morning, coffee and pancakes with the baby, window open, a chill breeze, Kind of Blue on the stereo—and an abrupt, vivid memory:

First months of pandemic, horribly lonely for the company of strangers, every Saturday I made cappuccinos, put on jazz, and played… ambient coffee shop recordings

First cake of 2024, an old favorite called Ruins of a Russian Count’s Castle or торт графские развалины. From Caroline Eden’s wonderful Samarkand. Dense, delicious prune-nut cake, iced with whipped sour cream, topped with meringues and drizzled chocolate.

To the ruin of the House of Putin!

So much of my education as a writer of narrative has consisted of asking

How do I get from here to there? (Spatially, emotionally, plot-wise, etc.)

And so often after many hours or days or years I’ve realized

I must skip the transition, jump straight there, and assume the reader will follow.

At my 33 1/3 birthday party (an excuse to buy a record player) we got back into the face-changing apps. Back in 2020, the age-yourself button had fascinated me. This time, though, I found an app with a button that makes you into a baby. No deep thoughts, but we laughed so hard our faces hurt.

Still life as a millennial creator who is feeling uninspired to add to the blog, the newsletter, the other newsletter, the personal website, or even his own diary.

Saving it all for the book project.

Los Angeles, January 2024

West Hollywood, January 2024

Listening to Waxahatchee’s new single, her casual, understated harmonies with MJ Lenderman, I fill with wonder at voice, so unlike any other instruments. Is there any distance between willing a sound and producing it? No. The mind-body jacks its vocal cords straight into the airwaves—and sings.