Back in 1993 Kenneth Branagh directed a film version of Shakespeare’s comedy, “Much Ado About Nothing.” Michael Keaton was given a small role as the dim-witted constable Dogberry and along with the malapropisms and absurd swagger Keaton added an almost Monty Pythonesque quality to the role and to that of his associates in the night guard. I ten to think it’s the best part of the show. Shakespeare did love his clowns.
Category: Literature
Hamlet Scenes
I was rewatching Olivier’s Hamlet today. So I picked out the scenes I thought were noteworthy. The characters are so strange to modern audiences and the plot so improbable. But there are some scenes that are iconic. Many will recognize the famous quote or the scene. My favorite is the gravedigger’s scene. Alas, poor Yorick. Shakespeare’s fools and jesters are obviously his favorites and always have the best lines.
Anyway.
To Thine Own Self Be True
That is the Question
The Play’s the Thing
I Knew Him Horatio
But Let It Be
Guest Contributor – Ed Brault – 08MAR2024 – Some Kipling
I have eaten your bread and salt. I have drunk your water and wine. The deaths ye died I have watched beside, And the lives ye led were mine. Was there aught that I did not share In vigil or toil or ease - One joy or woe that I did not know, Dear hearts across the seas ? I have written the tale of our life For a sheltered people's mirth, In jesting guise - but ye are wise, And ye know what the jest is worth. -R. Kipling
You and Here
Because of their neurological abnormalities many Leftists are truly miserable people and therefore pathologically envious of normal people for being happy. And that’s why a big part of the leftist project is to make us miserable.
Taking the fun out of our lives is a very big part of their work. That is specifically why they are always in our faces about everything they don’t want us doing. We can’t enjoy sports or activities or entertainment the way we want to because they have to decide how those things get done. And worst of all they say we can’t do them without their participation. And that’s why they especially hate things that they can’t share in. That’s why shooting ranges and normal families are anathema. Those things are bad fun because they exclude them categorically.
And so, whenever we are happy, in a real sense, we are measurably hurting the leftist project. So, there is the justification for the “pursuit of happiness.” But over the last half century it’s gotten harder and harder to just enjoy life. Too many components of it have been compromised and degraded by the Left.
But that makes it more important than ever to find the means to bring joy into our lives. Even if you are a “happy warrior,” fighting the culture war 24/7 is not a recipe for hilarity. Sure, mocking the Left can be fun to some extent but there is a definite tendency to become a grim, glum purveyor of gloom and doom.
And I find that this very syndrome has infected me to a greater extent than I like. And thinking about it today I realized I need to begin prioritizing a lot more fun into my week. Chronicling the outrages of the week is mostly a dour and depressing occupation. Even schadenfreude over some leftist’s misfortune is a weak substitute for some constructive endeavor or even some mindless fun like watching a goofy movie.
As I’ve said previously, I’ll be trying to wean myself off the outrage stuff. To start with I think I’ll start publishing parts of my stories on the site and adding more content on creative topics like photography and science fiction/fantasy. I’ve lately been reading about how difficult it is to get genre fiction discovered on Amazon because the algorithms are specifically calibrated for authors who release materials exclusively through the Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) program. In addition, the algorithms are optimized for book series that release a new volume every month. For that reason, authors now write at least three series novels in advance in order to get noticed by that algorithm. Now this sounds like madness to me. Following that logic, an author should probably write a decalogy series all at once before finding out whether anyone wants to read it. And in fact, it seems that a really mediocre series has a much better chance of being a hit than a single novel even if it is remarkably well-written and interesting.
Well, we do live in a strange world. So, I figure I should start putting my stuff out there and at least have the satisfaction of publishing it on my own platform. At least I’ll get some constructive feedback from the sf&f fans on the site. And it’ll be fun.
H. L. Mencken is quoted as defining puritanism as, “The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.” And I think he was exactly right. We need to enjoy life. We will still have to fight the culture wars but we can’t put our lives, our happiness on hold until we win. So let the someone, somewhere being happy be you, here.
Real Artificial Intelligence
Many people have heard at some point in their educational careers that in 79 A.D. Mount Vesuvius erupted and completely buried the Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum that were located at the foot of the volcano. Vesuvius is located adjacent to the present Italian city Naples.
What most people are unaware of is that during excavations of Herculaneum in 1752 a building was discovered that contained ancient books, or more accurately, papyrus scrolls. Unfortunately the heat from the lava flow had reduced these scrolls to carbonized lumps. For the last two hundred years and more scholars have attempted to unroll these carbonized scrolls and read their text. The painstaking work has only been minimally successful and mostly they’ve managed to find a small amount of text while basically destroying the scrolls.
But now modern medical imaging technology and advanced machine vision and machine learning techniques have combined to produce a possible way to read these ancient books. Using x-ray tomography images that look through the burned books can help identify layers where ink appears on the papyrus. Combining this with computer mapping of the ink locations the scroll can be “virtually unrolled” to reveal the text on the ancient remnant. The proof of concept has now been performed on a small bit of the scan. The challenge is to do this for the bulk of the document. It is a daunting task because of the terribly distorted shape of the scrolls.
Now a million dollar prize has been offered for any silicon valley type who is savvy enough to take the scans and turn it into a readable text.
For most people this is meaningless. Interest in even the books written a few years ago pales in comparison to watching a “TikTok” video of some vapid “influencer” describing her workout routine or grapefruit-papaya diet or other earth-shaking events. These old arcane texts have no bearing on their lives. And the scrolls currently unearthed are the works of an unimportant Roman philosopher. But it is believed that the rest of the unexcavated building is the repository of a very large private library that may contain many lost works by the best classical authors of Greece and Rome. The lost tragedies of Sophocles, Aeschylus and Euripides and the comedies of Aristophanes and lost histories that we currently only know the names of would be immensely interesting to scholars and also people like me who find remarkable relevance in these testaments from thousands of years ago.
So the fact that finally there seems to be some real progress on this project that has gone on for centuries, I find fascinating. But my skeptical nature also forbids me from allowing unbounded enthusiasm to blind me to the likely outcome; failure.
So I share this with you, my readers, to let you know what I find to be the real progress that “AI” can provide to the world. Not ChatGPT which just automates the nitwittery found on TikTok but instead the brute force restoration of books that were burned to a crisp by a volcanic eruption almost two thousand years ago. A computer program guided by state of the art imaging technology plucking lost works from antiquity out of a pile of ashes. That’s magic.
Some Good Quotes
As someone who likes a good quotation I figured I’d link to this guy’s list of the “100 Best Quotes of All Time.” He’s definitely got some good ones there and even a few I haven’t read before.
Guest Contributor – Ed Brault – 18MAY2023 – A Favorite Kipling Poem
Another Snippet from My Book
I’ve been trying to speed up my writing but there’s always something distracting me. but I thought it would be fun to post a little part of a scene.
“After the meeting, Director Sparks called Chastain and told him to meet him at Sparks’ temporary office in the Pentagon. When Chastain arrived Sparks briefed him. “We can’t play around anymore. I’ve been given unlimited resources to catch this man. I want you to act as the lead. There will be three separate teams. One will investigate the physical evidence at the Hoover building site to figure out what the hell we’re up against. The second team will pursue the cyber trail of whoever released the video. That leak must be plugged. But most important, the third team will find Boghadair. You will have first priority on all the surveillance infrastructure, public and private. You can write a blank check for whatever you need but I want that man in custody within the week. If not, your head is on the block. And that’s not a joke. If Boghadair isn’t in shackles in a week from today you’re done.” Chastain bit back some bitter words and said, “Okay, I’ll need a command center with a room where I can crash; bed, shower, kitchen. Tell me the cost center numbers I can charge to and give me the contact information for my three team leads. I’ll find Boghadair for you or you can have my job. But I wonder what else I’ll find. Apparently, this thing is a lot bigger than one man.”
Sparks handed him a briefcase. “All the documents are on a drive. There’s a folder with all the contact information and the codes you need to access the databases and the systems you’ll need. I also want a list of government officials that Boghadair might target and conjecture on the order of attack. I want that list by tomorrow morning.” Chastain nodded his head. Sparks growled, “That’s all.” And Chastain left the office and walked out of the building. As he was leaving the building he thought, “You’re at the top of that list you fool.”
As Director Sparks left his temporary office that night that very idea occurred to him. He was headed home to a gated community in one of the most expensive suburbs of Washington. And he was scared. He decided to travel back to his home by a different route. Taking this circuitous route and seeing no cars following him he slowly calmed down and by the time he was within a mile of his home he felt foolish about his fears. When he was caught at a red light that usually never changed on him he was a little confused. Then he noticed that the video display on his dashboard shifted from the typical menu view to a video feed. He could see a man in the driver’s seat of a car. After a second or two he realized he was looking at an image of himself. He was for a second stunned and by the time he comprehended his peril the bullet was already entering the side of his head. When his foot slipped off the brake his car rolled into the intersection and was struck by traffic going through the intersection. The local police were on the scene rather quickly and alerted the FBI based on the car’s license plate number. Late that night the report reached George Chastain and his first thought was, “I guess I should let the Attorney General know he’s next on the list.””
Gee, it’s fun killing bad guys. It just feels right. Well, on to the Attorney General.
ChatGTP Wants to Write Our Fiction for Us
Vox Day had a post about Clarkesworld science fiction magazine that had to shut down its submissions due to being overwhelmed by the volume of AI generated novels being submitted. Apparently, they can’t afford the software that could automate the process of identifying and rejecting the AI generated books.
As someone currently writing a science fiction novel this is a remarkable turn of events. Wouldn’t it be something if the artificial authors produce a better product than the organic ones! And I don’t mean more grammatical, but more creative and entertaining. So, if the algorithm blends 60% Heinlein with 20% Dickens and 20% Hemingway would it produce the greatest science fiction story of all time or an abomination not fit for human consumption?
In one sense I’m lucky. I’ve read that ChatGTP is hopelessly woke so my current story about a revolt against an authoritarian Deep State cabal is impossible for ChatGTP to write. If it attempted such a thing it would blow out every circuit in its server farm.
But just thinking about this whole Frankensteinian situation is amusing. I imagine Dr. Morbius from Forbidden Planet describing to a visiting interstellar fiction author the ability of the Krell machine to write sci-fi stories, “You see these row after row of instruments? Each one represents an increase by a factor of ten the number of cybernetic neurons figuring out plot details. It’s the number ten raised literally to the power of infinity of cliffhanger chapter endings and hypercompetent heroes saying something self-serving.”
But then his guest would remind him of monsters from the id, “Yes Morbius, but without the ability reflect reality; without the ability to distinguish male characters from female characters and to allow non-white characters to have normal human flaws it will all quickly devolve into unreadable goo.”
To which Morbius would reply, “Of course, the mindless primitive, why didn’t I see it? Hypersensitive, politically correct story lines are stultifyingly boring. Quick, son, press down this lever and be one hundred million miles away before it blows. I’ve set ChatGTP to overdrive and when that amount of drivel piles up the result will be a literary black hole that will render all of science fiction lifeless within fifty parsecs.”
Well, I wonder how all of this will impact self-publishing at places like Amazon. Will even their servers be able to handle the surge in output from ChatGTP filling up the world’s server farms with romance and porn novels about super-smart super-attractive girl-bosses who save the known universe.
Heaven, help us.
11JAN2023 – OCF Update – All Work and No Play Makes photog a Dull Boy
There’s no rest for the wicked and I’m no exception. Fate has conspired to render this week and next awfully busy for yours truly. I’ll be out pocket most of this afternoon and then there’s more drama tomorrow. I’ll be wearing a suit and tie then and doing my best to seem like that bright young photog of 1980. Well, it’s a really nice tie.
So, I’ll do my best to fill the site with interesting content. I’ve been enjoying the non-political stuff over the last few days. Let’s face it, writing every day about Kevin McCarthy is not exactly an inspiring prospect. In fact, I’d be happiest if the headline for the next two years is, “McCarthy continues to block all new spending coming from White House and Senate.” All of his power is negative. He can’t force Biden to do anything but he can stop him from inflicting any new damage. And if he’s especially clever he might come up with a compromise bill that does more good than harm. Then I would write something nice about him. His epitaph might be, “HERE LIES KEVIN MCCARTHY, HE CAUSED LESS HARM THAN PAUL RYAN!”
I’ve been having fun mining “The Maltese Falcon” for nuggets of gold. No work of fiction, that I know of, is all gold. There’s always dross mixed in. And the Falcon is no exception. But Hammett had his moments and I enjoy picking apart some of his dialog for the sheer joy of its feel. I especially enjoy Gutman’s elaborate banter. But there are bits here and bits there for many of the characters. I may do a little more digging on the Falcon if something strikes me. And then I’ll look around to see what else is out there on the book shelf. I noticed that some of Hammett is already in the public domain. Well, it’s close to a century old but I wasn’t sure how much they extended copyrights the last time Disney bribed Washington. But Hammett may not have kept up with his own intellectual property rights at the end. I don’t think he was doing well toward the end of his life and I don’t think he had any heirs.
I was watching the movie “The Boston Strangler” last night. I’d never seen it before and I guess I didn’t know what to expect. I’ll put up a review soon but it certainly was a strange movie. Maybe the best way to describe it is to say that although the events took place in 1963 the movie was made in 1968 and therefore absorbed a lot of the current day weirdness. There are gay and lesbian characters and a tawdriness and weirdness about many of the minor characters that borders on parody. Seeing Henry Fonda navigating this mess made me think, “How the mighty have fallen.”
Well, anyway, I’ll try to keep my nose to the grindstone in between my errands and responsibilities and we’ll see what I can come up with. Excelsior!