1. I've never read Song of Ice and Fire or seen Game of Thrones, but I have to pay congratulations to George R.R. Martin: Well done, sir; you have become the new Duke Nukem: Forever. 2. Do people actually take what AI bots say seriously? I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, but still; you do … Continue reading Friday Flotsam: AI and Sentience, Goldfish, and More
Art
Good Friday
No flotsam today.
Happy Easter
The Lord is Risen Indeed Piero della Francesca
Some Bouguereau Art
One of my Christmas gifts this year was a book of Monsieur William A. Bouguereau's paintings: William Bouguereau: The Essential Works (note: this is an affiliate link to Bookshops.org, supporting local bookshops). It's especially interesting since it also contains a brief biography and some background information on the various categories of paintings that M. Bouguereau … Continue reading Some Bouguereau Art
An Architectural Fisk
Dipping a little into politics with this one. Kind of. I recently learned that President Trump has drafted an executive order entitled Making Federal Buildings Beautiful Again. Basically, it orders that “classical and traditional architectural styles” should be the default for constructing new Federal Buildings in the future, specifically saying that styles like ‘brutalism’ and … Continue reading An Architectural Fisk
Musical Interlude
I'm not musician, but I firmly believe that future generations will consider music composed for film and video games as among our century's chief contributions to the art. Below are a few examples of why: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wkg8C4sWfp0&t=67s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RC9SNyRpbso https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20gRi6xgEQo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qyz1irTV_nc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GiiUOcfv58M
Thought of the Day
Once you get beyond the veneer of complexity and broken conventions, you generally find in modernism only an inferior and more limited attempt at something earlier artists were already doing.
Second Meditation: On Beauty
Note: This is just a series of loose thoughts written out more or less as they come, presented in the hopes that someone will find something worthwhile within them. Our society despises beauty. This may sound surprising, given how much we hear about overvaluing of physical appearance, impossible beauty standards in media, and the rest … Continue reading Second Meditation: On Beauty
An Appeal
Hello everyone. For the first time I'm making an open appeal to readers for help. I have a book in the works, which is approaching the end of its editing process. I'm hoping to publish it soon, but there's only one problem: I don't have a cover. You can't sell a book without a cover; … Continue reading An Appeal
A Quick Word on the Beauty of ‘Phineas and Ferb’
I’m rewatching Phineas and Ferb again at the moment and just finished the episode Magic Carpet Ride. During the song sequence, it suddenly occurred to me that this really is a microcosm of just what makes this show so special. It’s that it manages to be both absurdist and sincere at the same time. It … Continue reading A Quick Word on the Beauty of ‘Phineas and Ferb’
Serpent's Den 