how can anyone want to use ai when this part of the process is SO FUN

am working on a new project, and it is just so so fun to shovel sand into the sandbox and play with what might come out of all this

done!!

We are delighted to have been nominated for this prize by one of our community members.

If you want to nominate us too, that would be wonderful.

Imagine what sumptuous and inclusive gatherings we could host with $60k!

Counterpoint: I use em dashes with abandon and will not let "AI" steal them from me. I was overusing them first and will continue to do so long after "AI" is a crater in our financial system, or our merciless overlords, or both

In honor of Lunar New Year, one of my all-time favorite maps:

How dumplings spread around the world

(tl;dr: It was largely, though not exclusively, the Mongol invasions!)

real af bc *real* ones know even showering is a monumental obstacle & everything in the world IS (unfortunately) the exact same way

Smiling faces in the salon

Here we are in our online salon again and our first reader is @dilyswt.bsky.social

My book is about making other people care about my extremely specific interests

“There is a large fireplace across the room from him, but the fire has gone out. He cannot easily roast marshmallows.”

I love love love this account’s alt text game. Also, medieval eel economics are surprisingly interesting.

Refuse to Be Done (2022)

just got my copy in the mail! am excited to read your wordssssss!!

CHICKEN. Alas a dirty word, alas a dirty third alas a dirty third, alas a dirty bird.

Gertrude Stein

a “ceasefire” that lasted 17 hours and killed 254 people in lebanon is not a ceasefire and referring to it as one is inaccurate

Muriel Rukeyser, from “Poem (I lived in the first century of world wars)”, 1968. www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47657/...

haha, hope it helps! finding that song the year you need it is a gift!

feels like time for humanity to take back all those jabs about poets being too obsessed with the moon

Sounds like you need the song "This Year" by the Mountain Goats (it helps!)

kiss me like it's the final step in your rube goldberg machine

NASA just dropped this image of Artemis II astronaut Christina Koch looking back at us. The first woman to ever see our planet in its entirety. I’m not crying you’re crying 🥹🔭🧪 📸: NASA

I Work Very Hard, And I Would Like To Try Cake By A Horse Hello. I am a horse. I work very hard at my job of being a horse. When humans say move the heavy thing, I move the heavy thing. When humans sit on top of me and pull on my head, I carry them where they want to go. The main food the humans give me is hay and oats. But I am thinking it would be nice to have a different food. I am thinking I would like to try cake. Yes, yes. Cake. I know all about it. When humans eat cake, it is in glad times. It is the food for a celebration, such as when a woman becomes 47. I have seen cake on the Fourth of July. When humans have a cake, they stand around it and clap hands and smile and say happy birthday at each other. Sometimes there are beautiful markings on a cake, such as balloons or a pink shape. Sometimes the top of a cake is on fire and a boy must blow on the fire with mouth wind. This is the scariest cake. I do not want this kind. But I will eat any other cake. Any cake that is not the fire cake that tries to kill the boy. Please understand: I do not get money for doing work. I do not get to go inside the house. All I am either doing my horse job or standing in my pen or eating food off the floor. I always do these things. But I have never once gotten cake and I would like it very much. I have noticed that human children get to eat cake. But I am bigger than the children. I am more helpful to the farm. Children do not move the heavy things like me or let anyone ride on them. And yet they get cake. Maybe the humans will realize this. Maybe they will say, "You know who deserves cake? That horse. That horse whose back we are always on." Every day I dream about what it will be like if I get to eat cake. Here is what will happen. First, I will walk to the cake and putt my nose at it like hrrfff to make and stomping my hooves to make sure it is not a snake. Then I will trot in a circle to show that I am a horse and I am large. After that, I will nuzzle the cake to …

The horse op-ed is an instant classic. I can't tell you how much joy this piece gives me.

It should be taught in every introductory writing class in no small part because the horse arguments are so compelling. "I have noticed that human children get to eat cake. But I am bigger than the children."

I think the reason AI propagandists are so flustered by the fact that no real writer wants to use their idiotic tools is that they themselves don't enjoy writing. They see it as a boring arduous chore to be avoided, while real writers actually enjoy writing and actually care about the quality of it.

I don't need a summary of what's available online, in biographies, or even in my own notes. I need to comb through and find the great details, decide what interests ME. No, it's not efficient. It's slow and painstaking. But I don't believe in efficiency as an ultimate good, especially in writing. /

I've seen people trying to defend it today by saying "No, no, I just use it to brainstorm, bounce ideas, I do the actual writing" and with all the kindness in the world I need to tell you: if there is a stage of writing you are not good at, you need to get good, not use the plagiarism machine.

I didn't know about this and I am ENCHANTED

Art comes from the hell of getting from point A to B. You're supposed to trudge through the nightmare that will probably kill you before you ever get anywhere. That's the art of it, simply making it, so just make something

Oh my god, the alt text is a gift. 😹

$200 ARE YOU FOR REAL 😭 be so serious rn you are the change we all want to see in the world 😭😭

👏👏👏👏👏👏👏

I think they will probably take that deal 😂 but also, that is a good wish for all of us 😊