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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Other
- Hits: 1469
"This artwork represents what it would be like for an AI to watch Bob Ross on LSD (once someone invents digital drugs). It shows some of the unreasonable effectiveness and strange inner workings of deep learning systems. The unique characteristics of the human voice is learned and generated as well as hallucinations of a system trying to find images which are not there."
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Other
- Hits: 1716
I'm in desperate need of some entertainment, head into town to take in the "Open Mike", a tribute to Leonard Cohen. It could be good, there must be an abundance of unsung talent here...
Saturday night, $5.00 "suggested" cover, only coffee to drink, the "theatre", think small room, halfway-well decorated, with a stage, piano, and filled with chairs, standing room only, a pretty supportive turnout, all things considered, easily close to 70 people, this town, it supports it's own, in Calgary an Open Mike only would draw in about 20 people who didn't know better...
They go around with a list, register the performers, and begin...
The first, bad, he looks like he should be better, butchers his three songs, forgets a couple of poems and is done.
The next, young Bob-Dylan looking twenty year old with beat up guitar, he confesses he wasn't aware Leonard Cohen had died...It doesn't matter, he's going to try anyways, but a verse into "Bird on the Wire" breaks off to play us his own compositions, one on his guitar, another on the piano, good, but irrelevant.
More poems, singers, a brother and sister sing a duet that's uncomfortably cozy, with all sorts of innuendo and eye contact, I'm hoping they're not really brother and sister...
Another out-of-towner, an expensive electric guitar, maybe 60-something or so, headband, he starts by addressing the people in the back who are whispering to themselves ..."Are You Ready NELSON?", and when they shut up he begins, a bit of a primadonna, he can't play the guitar, can't sing, like so many here he's seriously overestimated his talent, only he doesn't use humility, doesn't understand how far he is from even remedial competence...
Next act there's a girl, she's glommed onto a guitarist, she's decided to accompany him, only she doesn't really know Leonard Cohen but has liner notes from a CD for a prompt, he sings quietly, she, not knowing the lyrics or the melodies, harmonizes, singing a couple of bars after him "bird...", then hums a bit, then "Suzanne", hums a bit more, breaks off, tries humming again, it's a train wreck, there's no looking away, watch in fascinated horror...
...after the second song he apologizes, doesn't want to hog the stage, if the audience wants them to leave...I want them to leave, bloody hell, but it would be rude of me to say, and so they do one more number, urged on by polite applause, him playing on the guitar, quietly singing, her intermittent humming to accompany him whenever she feels she's got the tune...
It's wrapping up, there's a competent singer and pianist, his voice, not in Cohen's deep register, but he can carry a tune, and he plays the piano with that one-two vaudevillian sort of rhythm, the best so far...
...and then the French- Canadians gather on stage, 2 families with their children, reminding you for all the world of Dr. Fünke's 100% Natural Good-Time Family-Band Solution, only bigger, and they all play and sing along to unrecognizable Cohen tunes...
The nights over, all in all, a half dozen poems, 3 versions of "Bird on a Wire", 4 of "Suzanne", 2 of "So Long Marianne", the one competent pianist, he begins again on the piano, now free to sing whatever he wants, starts with "I'm a creep, I'm a loser...." by Radiohead,...
I've a new favorite hangout...could it get any better than this?
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Other
- Hits: 2057
AKA Don Kenn. Found him while searching for Edward Gorey, I like his style, needed some inspiration for some illustrations of my own. He's amazing. Find a few of his illustrations below (drawn upon post-it notes), with links to more at the end...
Unfortunately, this is the kind of inspiration a first year art student gets by visiting the Louvre or National Gallery and laying down his/her brushes forever. This is impossible to compete with. And, is it just me, or do a few of his illustrations look positively Japanese?
If you like his work, (and he's very, very good), follow the links below:
The yellowish background, btw, is because he draws these on post-it notes. Yep.
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Other
- Hits: 1952
Do these people not know what they're getting themselves into? Actually, clearly a lot of them don't, and therein lies the joy and spontaneity...
That said, there's a peculiar stoner-brilliance to his schtick...
Link: Eric Andre Interviewing
- Jillian Michaels - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTGpBdVtf4s
- Jack Black - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yAiyDrgcRKo
- Jack MacBrayer - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqFg0autvM8
Read the wiki on him - apparently he credits his success to Transcendental Meditation. Who would have guessed?
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Other
- Hits: 1568
Finished season 1, took forever, only 3 episodes, but uncomfortable, edgy, good - excellent even, the future just left of the present.
Season 2, beginning, episode 1, about a woman who's husband/lover passes away, then discovers she's pregnant, and discovers a beta program that uses the sum of his online presence - videos, etc - to recreate a bot in his image...
I've thought of this ... a lot, a sort of digital afterworld, online Valhalla, Brooker has clearly thought it through...riveted...will his conclusions equal my own?
Back to the show...
***
In the end, not what I had imagined, but no worse, possibly better...