Today's conversation is a classic from the archives, with SFF legend and short storyteller extraordinaire, Ted Chiang
Audio 🔉: milkweed.org/between-the-...
Posts by Laurabandypants
So much policy is aimed at "addressing AI fears" rather than mitigating its harms
because painting the aversion to those harms as irrational is far cheaper that doing anything
This is so vital. AI — like the internet — benefits when we refuse to consider its materiality.
“Tehran is burning. And smoke has filled the streets. It’s impossible to drive out of the city right now and even with the windows closed, heavy smoke is making its way inside."
Read every word.
The Gen X urge to try to cram her back in my mouth, yeah
Photo of a smiling Black woman in PhD regalia smiling outside a university building. Professor Linda Davis, killed by ICE when they struck her car and left her to die without offering aid.
Listening to Eric Carman's "Hungry Eyes" early in the AM really sets a tone for the day.
Today I shamed a fraternal twin for not being an identical, like me. Hierarchies everywhere.
I watched 9 to 5 at multiple slumber parties growing up and I think that was important. What's the new 9 to 5? And do the youths still do slumber parties?
Let me tell you: some of our countries aren’t where we left them.
Jane Zwart, from her luminous collection ODDEST & OLDEST & SADDEST & BEST
#smallpoemsunday
Let’s hold hands and take cyanide pills on this hill.
I did the same (somewhere in the 400 books range) -- thank you for your thoughtful writing & for making me feel so seen ❤️ I now refer to myself as a scholar of Romance.
text from the app linked, including “stop ice’s aggressive attacks on immigrants & citizens”
text from the app linked
five calls makes it easy to call your reps, it takes mere minutes & they provide a script. you can call about ice’s murder of renee nicole good, a fellow writer & poet. you can call about venezuela
apps.apple.com/us/app/5-cal...
Full poem text: TAO QIAN, translated Arthur Sze, from SILK DRAGON II collection Drinking Wine (I) A green pine is in the east garden, but the many grasses obscure it. A frost wipes out all the other species, and then I see its magnificent tall branches. In a forest, men do not notice it, but standing alone, it is a miracle. I hang a jug of wine on a cold branch; then stand back, and look again and again. My life spins with dreams and illusions. Why then be fastened to the world?
Why then be fastened to the world?
Tao Qian, trans. Arthur Sze
"This promise of an AI future, is really just a collective anxiety that wealthy people have about how well they're gonna be able to control us in the future."
- @tressiemcphd.bsky.social with an absolute mic drop moment about AI bullshit.
Incredible words.
Listen to all of it!
a highlight of the year was meeting these superior architects
dream of honey
Ross Gay, “Ode to the Beekeeper”
#smallpoemsunday
This is good.
Thank you, dear. ♥️
Forgot my coffee in the car before teaching morning class. Began lecture, then bleated “Where’s my coffee?” followed quickly by “NOBODY PANIC!” as a sea of sleepy faces stared back at me blankly.
The semester can’t end soon enough.
Tinker Swift, Taylor Swift, Soldier Swift, Spy Swift
One of the many reasons AI can't produce good writing is it can't hate its own writing. It can't think to itself "Maybe I'm illiterate" during the writing process. And that's essential
One day late, but always worth sharing.
From Louise Glück's Collected Poems: bookshop.org/a/862/9780374534097
#poem #books #writing
Oh oh, so fun! I’m delighted! A wee bit of poetry magic 🪄
Love this one from an old BEST AMERICAN POETRY: exceptindreams.livejournal.com/247821.html? “Litany”
so be it