Portrait by Remo Frangiosa |
Philly-Bob’s Free-for-All 2023One man's visual art, largely consisting of digital manipulations of images, taken from (1) my own photographs/videos, (2) downloaded from the Public Domain, (3) utilized under the Fair Use provision of copyright law or (4) uncopyrightable images produced by A.I. image generation. This page is designed old-style, for display on full-size computer, not on phones or tablets.Click on a pic to enlarge. May take several clicks to get full-size. |
In Reddit's "Plumbing Group", user 'part machine 623' uploaded a set of pictures with this explanation (Left, Link1): "My father passed away years ago and the business closed years before that. We’ve been able to sell some tools and machines, a few parts and fittings here and there, and scrapped a good bit. Is there a buyer left for these things? It’s time for the family to clear out and move on..." Kinda sad.
The prompt to the text-to-image A.I. machine was "Assorted plumbing supplies stacked on shelves in a shed" (Right)
Text, composition, framing, surface texture, coloring, and winged-trilobite logo by Bob Moore.
Link1: https://www.reddit.com/r/Plumbing/comments/13zi1gg/older_plumbing_partsmaterials_still_used/
June 4-5, 2023
A collage of two images, one (below, left) an A.I.-Generated work from 4-Chan's "/b" random image board by a skilled A.I.-Generator that goes by the name of "Koff."
The second image, below right, is my own A.I.-Generated work, created in Adobe's Firefly Text-to-Image engine given the prompt (based on my view of Koff's work) of "little girl in short skirt and purple blouse standing alone off-center in a sunny room" with switches Graphic, Cubism, Geometric, Layered Paper, Psychedelic, Muted Color.
Text, composition, framing, surface texture, coloring, and winged-trilobite logo by Bob Moore.
June 3-4, 2023
Text, composition, framing, surface texture, coloring, and winged-trilobite logo by Bob Moore.
June 1, 2023
Text, composition, framing, surface texture, coloring, and winged-trilobite logo by Bob Moore.
May 31, 2023
Text, composition, framing, surface texture, coloring, and winged-trilobite logo by Bob Moore.
May 27, 2023
On the Reddit Trucking board, user 'Ifuckinghatethesunn' uploaded this photo (Link1)with the caption "I know a lot of you don't go completely under the trailer for a pretrip. I couldn't see this until I was completely under it and on my back, looking up."
"Pretrip" means a trucker's inspection of truck and gear before setting off on a trip. Or as another user explained, "Thats when you clock in so you can get dressed, make the bed, make a coffee, have a smoke, and maybe look at your route and potential stops for breaks."
But when user "Ifuckinghatethesunn" did a more complete pretrip inspection, he found this: part of the air brake assembly was cracked (black area in center) with matching zig zag edges.
I used a text-to-image A.I. generator to create a similar scene. (Link2)
Text, composition, framing, surface texture, coloring, and winged-trilobite logo by Bob Moore.
Link1: https://www.reddit.com/r/Truckers/comments/13p5lff/i_know_a_lot_of_you_dont_go_completely_under_the/ Link2: Adobe Firefly text-to-image program given prompt "close-up of braclet for truck air brakes"
May 25, 2023
The 2021 Schlegel-Tieck prize for translation from German into English went to Durs Grunbein's "Porcelain: Poem on the Downfall of My City" translated in 2020 by Karen Leeder.
Grunbein (b. 1962) is a German poet who wrote this book in pained memory of the 1945 destruction of his hometown Dresden. That bombing killed some 25,000 people and destroyed the city's center, known as "the Jewel Box" for its baroque and rococo buildings. American author Kurt Vonnegut was a Prisoner of War in Dresden at the time of the bombing and wrote "Slaughterhouse-Five or The Children's Crusade" about the event.
Grunbein uses an unusual form: 49 short but dense poems recounting different aspects of that city's history. Only 91 pages, it can be read in one day.
He tells how an imprisoned 17th century con man and alchemist developed the formula for the white clay used to make porcelain, previously known only in China.
"...They said this man, this master of fragilita, 'shat ducats', poor sod. But more fool him, imprisoned by the King: that's what you get, claiming to conjure gold from dirt. What he found instead was a second crepe de Chine, proffered by the earth. Nonetheless, cold comfort..."
Grunbein tells of intrigues in the Saxon royal house. He tells how modern right-wing and left-wing Germans hold different commemorations of the event. He makes fun of his own role in writing about the 1945 bombing -- as a "Johnny Come Lately," born 17 years after the bombing:
"Hold on, who's that speaking? Is that crook even Saxon? Chomping through our yesteryear, the pedant-clown, cracking jokes, shard-collector, part-time Christian. What is fate for us, our disgrace -- our shame -- is Hecuba* for him, Nazi squirt, priggish pioneer, Never heard the sirens' howl, but cries his tears all right, not the faintest notion what they are: incendiaries. The only war they know is on the silver screen, these brats, Scoffing popcorn in the dark, feet on seats, leant right back, shadows regurgitating schoolbooks, postwar zombies."
Grunbein also looks at the geopolitics of the bombing of Dresden.
"Not long after Yalta was the moment that it fell. The old world split in two for the coming fifty years. Is there such a thing as a wound that cannot heal? Melancholia...Firestorm..And the blasted Lares* dancing daily in stilletos on the ever-sorest spot..."
Grunbein's work is an inspiring example of how a traditional literary style (literate and allusive poetry) can be used to shed light on modern life. And how, slowly, Europe seems to be healing from the horrors of World War Two -- even as it inspires new horrors in Ukraine.
* Notes:
Hecuba is the tragic Queen of Troy.
Lares were Roman cherub-like household gods.
May 22, 2023
SOURCES (Below):
A photograph labeled "Real Paralejurus? Devonian Trilobite, Kem Kem Morocco" uploaded to Reddit's "r/Trilobites" board by unknown user (Link1). Photo and uploader's name has since been deleted.
An A.I.-G image created by Adobe's Firefly text-to-image program given the prompt "Devonian Trilobite Fossil" (Link2)
An A.I.-G image created by Adobe's Firefly text-to-image program given the prompt "black and sand geometric pattern around large oval" (Link3)
Text, composition, framing, surface texture, coloring, and winged-trilobite logo by Bob Moore.
Link1: https://www.reddit.com/r/trilobites/comments/13fhgw7/real_paralejurus_devonian_trilobite_kem_kem/ Link2: Adobe Firefly text-to-image program given prompt "Devonian Trilobite Fossil" Link3: Adobe Firefly text-to-image program given prompt "black and sand geometric pattern around large oval"
May 21, 2023
SOURCES (Below):
A photograph labeled "Picking deadly Oleander flowers with my kids..." uploaded to Reddit's "r/OoopsThat'sDeadly" board by user ChiIIOut (Link1)
An A.I.-G image created by Adobe's Firefly text-to-image program given the prompt "Geometric Pattern in Pink and Green" (Link2)
An A.I.-G image created by Adobe's Firefly text-to-image program given the prompt "Pink Oleander Flowers" (Link3)
Font is "SuperComic" by fsuarez913 (Link4)
Text, composition, framing, surface texture, coloring, and winged-trilobite logo by Bob Moore.
Link1: https://www.reddit.com/r/OopsThatsDeadly/comments/13lp7qb/picking_deadly_oleander_flowers_with_my_kids/ Link2: Adobe Firefly text-to-image program given prompt "Geometric Pattern in Pink and Green" Link3: Adobe Firefly text-to-image program given prompt "Pink Oleander Flowers" Link4: https://www.dafont.com/super-comic-3.font
May 20, 2023
In comments, uploader learned there is a different between corrosion in pipes and mineral deposits in pipes. This example is mineral (calcium/potassium) deposits. Although a later commenter noted "Kinda both? This looks like tuberculation, which is microbe induced corrosion[. I]ron oxidizing and sulfur reducing bacteria are the main culprits. They're feeding off of the pipe's iron and passive minerals and nutrients in the water to create their own little ecosystem."
Also a debate over whether it's cast iron or carbon steel.
One commenter: "A good PSA to go and be active and eat healthy so that you don’t clog up your heart pipes."
SOURCES (Below):
A photograph labeled "Corroded Cast Iron Water Main" uploaded to Reddit's "Civil Engineering" board by user Lilrman1 (Link1)
An A.I.-G image created by Adobe's Firefly text-to-image program given the prompt "Corroded Cast Iron Water Main" (Link2)
An A.I.-G image created by Adobe's Firefly text-to-image program given the prompt "geometric pattern around one circle filling half of the square" (Link3)
Text, composition, framing, surface texture, coloring, and winged-trilobite logo by Bob Moore.
Link1: https://www.reddit.com/r/civilengineering/comments/13kyg6j/corroded_cast_iron_water_main/ Link2: Adobe Firefly text-to-image program given prompt "Firefly corroded cast iron water main 44739" Link3: Adobe Firefly text-to-image program given prompt "geometric pattern around one circle filling half of the square"
May 19, 2023
Three Canadair CL-415 planes dropping water on a forest fire in France. Uploader's comment: "Water bombing is the last profession where you actually get to be a man and fly the plane. not just operate it."
SOURCES (Below):
Photograph of three Canadair CL-415> planes dropping water on a forest fire in France. (Link1)
An A.I.-G image created by Adobe's Firefly text-to-image program given the prompt "Three planes pouring water on forest fire" (Link2))
Text, composition, framing, surface texture, coloring, and winged-trilobite logo by Bob Moore.
Link1: https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/4y9tvf/3_canadair_cl415_ Link2: Adobe Firefly text-to-image program given prompt "three airplanes pouring water on forest fire"
Photo of airplane: 
May 13, 2023
Some differences here. Narrower frame, replacement of half-tone textures with Gimp Contours Image-Offset.
SOURCES (Below):
A photograph of a flowering dogwood tree uploaded to Reddit's "Nature Is Beautiful" board by user VirtualInsanity008 (Link1)
An A.I.-G image created by Adobe's Firefly text-to-image program given the prompt "Flowering Dogwood Tree" (Link2)
Text, composition, framing, surface texture, coloring, and winged-trilobite logo by Bob Moore.
Link1: https://www.reddit.com/r/natureisbeautiful/comments/13esyup/flowering_dogwood_tree/ Link2: Adobe Firefly text-to-image program given prompt "flowering dogwood tree" 54936
May 12-13, 2023
SOURCES (Below):
Left: A photo of a Soviet Sukhoi SU-30 jet fighter climbing, uploaded in May 2023 to Reddit's /r thread as "Aircraft Porn" (Link1)
Right: A.I.-G image generated by Bob Moore with Beta version of Adobe Firefly with prompt "su-30 jet fighter climbing" (Link2)
Text, composition, framing, surface texture, coloring, and winged-trilobite logo by Bob Moore.
Link1: https://www.reddit.com/r/worldpolitics/comments/13b7jo1/daily_military_post_30_russian_sukhoi_su30sm/ Link2: https://firefly.adobe.com/generate/images?prompt=su-30+jet+fighter+climbing&style=psychedelic&style=cubism&style=product_photo&style=geometric&style=neon
May 11, 2023
SOURCES (Below):
Left: A photo of a circuit box uploaded in May 2023 to Reddit's "Ask an Electrician" board by Harlequin137, with the question: "Neutral and Ground on Common Bus Bar?" (Link1)
Right: A.I.-G image generated by Bob Moore with Beta version of Adobe Firefly with prompt "House Circuit Box with Breakers" (Link2)
Text, composition, framing, surface texture, coloring, and winged-trilobite logo by Bob Moore.
Link1: https://www.reddit.com/r/askanelectrician/comments/13ct3qo/neutral_and_ground_on_common_bus_bar/ Link2: Firefly_HOUSE+CIRCUIT BOX WITH BREAKERS_graphic,cubism,pop_art,geometric,linocut,bioluminescent_44609.jpg
May 10-11, 2023
SOURCES:
Text, composition, framing, surface texture, coloring, and winged-trilobite logo by Bob Moore.
Left: A.I.-G image generated by "Anonymous" on 4-Chan '\b' page in May, 2023
Right: A.I.-G image generated by Bob Moore with Beta version of Adobe Firefly
Link1: https://boards.4chan.org/b/ (image has since been deleted). Link2: Ausing the prompt "Magical World Inside a TV Set" with options Cubism, Steampunk, Cyberpunk, Fantasy, Science Fiction
May 10, 2023
SOURCES:
Text, composition, framing, surface texture, coloring, and winged-trilobite logo by Bob Moore.
Link1: https://boards.4chan.org/b/ (image has since been deleted).
May 8, 2023
SOURCES:
Text, composition, framing, surface texture, coloring, and winged-trilobite logo by Bob Moore.
Link1: https://boards.4chan.org/b/ (image has since been deleted).
May 8, 2023
A.I.-generated work has its own standard of suitability. Because it is tech-intensive, it tends to attract technically skilled young people aged 15-30, mainly but not exclusively male. They have the usual interests of young men, mainly sex. Because of the audience for my web page and my zoom Artists' group have a standard for decency that is somewhat "stricter" than I find in A.I.-Generated ("AI-G") work , I have a difficult job of selection. I currently have only one way to access the active world of AI-G, through a darker corner of the web, 4-Chan, which is mainly uncensored and anonymous. So I have to pick. Some AI-G work involves under-age children (even toddlers) and depictions of sexual kinks.
Today's image, for instance, involves partial nudity of a preteen girl and a subtext of female suffering (the figure is malnourished and crying). We know nothing of "Anonymous," who wrote the prompt behind the image, but he/she writes comments that are revealing. In one comment, he/she complains about "body image" and says "My dedication to this art -- I consider it art -- has ruined my life."
SOURCES:
Left, foreground collage of A.I.-generated images of four young girls, crying, uploaded by "Anonymous" 5/5/2023 to 4-Chan "\b" thread 'AI DEGENerated Art and Porn'. (Link1)
Right, background A.I.-generated image produced by Bob Moore 5/6/2023 with Adobe FireFly text-to-image (TXT2IMG) generator using a prompt "urban rubble and ruins" and options Art, Steampunk, Cubism, Graffiti, Pastel Colors (Link2)
Text, composition, framing, surface texture, coloring, and winged-trilobite logo by Bob Moore.
Link1: https://boards.4chan.org/b/ (image has since been deleted). Link2: Firefly_urban+rubble and ruins_art,steampunk,cubism,graffiti,pastel_colors_27233.jpg
May 6, 2023
Taking a departure from the public-domain exploration and concentrating instead on my exploration of the hot field of A.I.-Generated images.
Have been aware of the scary aspects of AI for a long time. Know about artists' complaints about stealing work. But it is a field of controversy and excitement, and I don't think it can be ignored. I think I'm okay in legal terms, given that A.I. work is not copyrightable. Not sure how long I'll continue in this new direction, but in some ways, I think my whole life has been leading up to this material -- especially my early published work (1992) about "Artificial Life", an A.I. technique.
SOURCES:
Left, foreground A.I.-generated image of schoolgirl in brown suit and white blouse uploaded by "Anonymous" 5/4/2023 to 4-Chan "\b" thread 'AI DEGENerated Art and Porn'. (Link1)
Right, background A.I.-generated image produced by Bob Moore 5/5/2023 with Adobe FireFly text-to-image (TXT2IMG) generator using a prompt "abstraction in leather and cardboard" and options Graphic, Synthwave, Cubism, Psychedelic, and Chaotic, (Link2)
Text, framing, surface texture, coloring, and winged-trilobite logo by Bob Moore.
Link1: https://boards.4chan.org/b/ (image has since been deleted). Link2: https://firefly.adobe.com/generate/images?prompt=_abstract+in leather and cardboard_graphic,synthwave,cubism,psychedelic,chaotic_37097
May 5, 2023
Top, a photograph of a Westinghouse power plant compressor, from a 1927 issue of "Power Engineering" (Link1).
Dimly visible in the middle, four snaps of Isadora Duncan's modern dance, from a popular history "Our times. The United States 1900-1925" (Link2).
The devilish figure at bottom gesturing to all the masks is from an insurance company ad pointing out that Syphilis appears in many forms, from an early "Life" magazine (Link3).
Music is "Where Oh Where Has My Little Dog Gone" (Link4) from the 1971 compilation 'The Swing Era: The Music Of 1942-1944'
SOURCES: LINKS:
Link1: https://archive.org/details/sim_power-engineering_1927-12-15_31_24 Link2: https://archive.org/details/ourtimesunitedst0000unse Link3: https://archive.org/details/sim_life_1927-12-15_90_2354 Link4: https://archive.org/details/lp_the-swing-era-the-music-of-1942-1944-wh_various/disc2/04.05.+Where+Oh+Where+Has+My+Little+Dog+Gone%3F+(Claude+Thornhill+Version).mp3
May 1, 2023
Photos from a publicity spread of movie actress Clara Bow, from a 1927 "Midweek Pictorial" (Link1). Early in her career, she was nicknamed 'Baby Vamp.'
Superimposed on a picture of a ruined abbey from the 1927 "The ruined abbeys of Great Britain" (Link2).
Combined and collaged with an AI image created by Adobe's "FireFly" beta, given a prompt like "1920 actress clara bow and ruined english abbey."
SOURCES:
Link1: https://www.reddit.com/r/worldpolitics/comments/1300ka2/hvac_graveyard/ Link2: https://archive.org/details/ruinedabbeysofgr0000cram
April 28, 2023
From a random photo of rusting, disordered HVAC (Heating, Ventilation, Air Conditioning) equipment posted on 4-Chan's "\b" imageboard, with the heading "HVAC Graveyard." It was uploaded by a user named 'SurpriseLobotomy' (Link1) with the comment "Not for the feint of heart." A comment from one poster (Gezn2inexile) said "I got 115$ a ton for a bunch of that tinny crap last fall, if you've got a trailer and time on your hands..." and another poster (Incompent Wizard) said "Crackheads wet dream."
Combined and collaged with an AI image created by Adobe's "FireFly" beta, given a prompt like "Field with broken furnaces and air conditioners."
Experimenting with text as part of the image, because it de-emphasizes my 'trilobite with wings' logo and I have the advantage of English being close to a world language.
SOURCES: Link1: https://www.reddit.com/r/worldpolitics/comments/1300ka2/hvac_graveyard/
April 27, 2023
From an ad in the 1927 magazine "Saturday Night" for Irish linens (Link1), a drawing of a hotel or house maid changing a bed. The ad is captioned "No Linen So Good."
Background is two AI-generated images: top, a pic created with Adobe's "FireFly" beta in response to prompt "Maid Changing Bed Sheet"); bottom, a collage of AI-generated orgy images showing anatomical impossibilities.
SOURCES:
Link1: https://archive.org/details/sim_saturday-night_1927-12-10_43_4
April 26, 2023
The 2022 prize for translation from Arabic into English went to Hamdi Abu Golayyel's "The Men Who Swallowed the Sun" translated by Humphrey Davies.
Golayyel (pictured above, b. 1976) is an Egyptian writer who describes the rootless men who scramble to make a living in a dangerous new world where national borders mean little.
Egypt, Golayyel explains, has "experienced virtually every occupation known to man -- Roman, Greek, Byzantine, Arab, Turkish, Persian, Mongolian, and finally Western European" and now "terrorist Islamic groups have infiltrated into Sinai ... [and) are waging a ruinous war against the Egyptian army, with the Bedouin of Sinai caught between the two."
This book describes the adventure of two Bedouin men: one decides to stay behind in his home village and the other opts to sneak into Europe aboard a wooden boat.
The one who stays behind is stymied by family history, the one who leaves (fancifully titling himself 'The Phantom Raider') thrives briefly in Italy as a gang member, but finally flees back to his hometown under police pressure.
Golayyel does not sugarcoat the morality of the Phantom Raider. He rapes ("Once I raped a woman in my [hometown]. It wasn't real rape, don't get me wrong. She was from our hamlet and had married someone in another hamlet and I'd never looked at her and she wasn't pretty at all, very skinny, just skin and bones, and I lay in wait for her in the fields..."; note that kinship, not consent, determines whether it was rape) and he steals (in Italy, he throws a family of four refugees out of a desirable abandoned house by a show of force and moves his gang into the house; thieves stealing from thieves.)
The stay-at-home brother settles in a place called Sabha, a melting pot: "When I arrived there, Sabha was in turmoil, on edge, pullulating with people -- its original inhabitants, Tuareg and Africans from the northern and southern Sahara, as well as Africans from the rest of the continent. But control was in the hands of the Arabs. Not any Arabs, just the Leader's [Muammar al-Qaddafi's] tribe...Sabha is the first stop on the route taken by many Africans fleeing toward the European dream. They arrive on foot from the deserts of Niger and the forests of Ghana, always an easy, though sometimes fierce and murderous prey to Sabha's bullies, its nothing-to-lose youth, and the relatives of the Leader, or the ones who'd made it, most of whom in Sabha were police or army officers. Many of its young people were criminals, or if not exactly criminals, thugs, or if not thugs, neighborhood bullies."
"Sad to say, Egyptians were the ones who most often got mugged in Sabha, more so even than Africans. The mugger, or thug, in Sabha and throughout Libya, is very wary when it comes to Sudanese and Tunisians and is terrified of Algerians...."
Like Richard Wright's "Native Son," this book is an unsparing look at an underclass.
SOURCES:
April 23-27, 2023
SOURCES:
Link1: https://archive.org/details/sim_music-magazine-and-musical-courier_1927-12-15_95_24
April 20, 2023
4 Chan Glossary:
ANON= Nickname for Anonymous posters.
IDK= I don't know.
SOURCES:
Image and quote appeared together in a thread of AI-generated images on 4-Chan's "b" (random) bulletin board on April 13, 2023. The uploader was "Anonymous;" nothing is known of the uploader, neither name nor age nor gender. (Link1)
Music is a piano improvisation from the 1956 version of the "Russian And Gypsy Songs Album No. 2 by Sandra Karina (Link2) LINKS:
Link1: https://boards.4chan.org/b/ (image has since been deleted). Link2: https://archive.org/details/lp_russian-and-gypsy-songs-album-no-2_sandra-karina
April 19, 2023
Picture is from a thread on 4-Chan in which artists using AI-Generation programs show off their work. It is not copyrightable, and it is mostly published under the name "Anonymous."
SOURCES:
April 18, 2023
A puzzling sentiment expressed by an anonymous poster on an AI-generated Art thread on 4-Chan. I chose it because it posits a world without males and a world without aging (i.e, everybody is cute.) WTF?
SOURCES:
Image and quote appeared in a thread of AI-generated images on 4-Chan's "b" (random) bulletin board on April 13, 2023. The uploader was "Anonymous;" nothing is known of the uploader, neither name nor age nor gender. (Link1)
At about the 0:06 mark, that image was overlaid with an image from a beta version of Adobe's Text-to-Image generator FireFly, with the prompt "Two Girls Hugging." (Link2)
Music is a version of the 1923 popular song "Yes We Have No Bananas/Si! Se Acabaron los Platanos" done as a Fox Trot by The Great White Way orchestra (Link3) LINKS:
Link1: https://boards.4chan.org/b/ (image has since been deleted). Link2: https://firefly.adobe.com/ Link3: https://archive.org/details/78_yes-we-have-no-bananas-si-se-acabaron-los-platanos_the-great-white-way-orchestr_gbia0027570a
April 15, 2023
April 18, 2023
Also in the background is a AI-generated image from Adobe Firefly, given the prompt "Massive Stone Chimera."
Deeper in the background is a carved wall from an Egyptian necropolis (from the same "Museum Guide"). The caption reads: "Ra-Ka-Pow inspects the offerings brought from his estate to his tomb."
Continuing to experiment with text in an image, combined with my white border and my trilobite logo.
SOURCES:
Link1: https://archive.org/details/dli.ministry.17521
April 12, 2023
SOURCES:
April 10, 2023
SOURCES:
April 9, 2023
SOURCES:
Photo by Bob Moore
April 6, 2023
"You Wonder Why You Cannot Sleep"IF you could only sleep at night there would be some chance of getting back the nervous energy which is expended during the day.
"But you cannot sleep. In the morning you arise feeling tired and played out. By evening you are all in. Your nervous system is entirely exhausted.
"'Is there no way to get out of this condition?' you ask There is. By using Dr. Chase’s Nerve Food regularly you can feed the nerves back to health and vigor.
"You may be unduly sensitive to light and sound. You may be irritable and inclined to worry when there is no real cause. But inability to rest and sleep is one of the surest signs that you are in need of just such help as Dr. Chase’s Nerve Food best can give you."
Unfortunately, Alex Boese, curator of the San Diego website "Museum of Hoaxes" has found (Link2) that Dr. Chase's Nerve Food "contained arsenic and strychnine" -- even advertised it on the packaging.
Background colors produced by overlaying two colorful AI-generated images.
SOURCES:
Link1: https://archive.org/details/drchasesnewrecei0000chas Link2: https://www.weirduniverse.net/blog/comments/dr._chases_nerve_food/
April 3, 2023
SOURCES:
Link1: https://archive.org/details/sim_american-legion_1927-12_3_6
March 30, 2023
SOURCES:
March 28, 2023
The font is "Neo-Euskal-Herria" by Spanish artist Woodcutter (Link1). Euskal-Herria is a historic name for the Basque region of Spain.
The image behind is a black-and-white photo of grapes from a 1927 catalog for Fancher Creek Nurseries of Fresno (CA) (Link2).
SOURCES:
Link1: https://www.dafont.com/neo-euskal-herria.font Link2: https://archive.org/details/fruittreepriceca1927fanc/
March 27, 2023
Background/frame is other images of metal gunsmithing. I like the look of machined metal.
The dingbat font is Amphibia Runes by sulkyeyra (Link2).
SOURCES:
Link1: https://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2017/01/04/polymer-ar-lower-exploded/ Link2: https://www.dafont.com/amphibia-runes.font?sort=date
March 26, 2023
SOURCES:
March 18, 2023
Here, a collage of black-and-white illustrations from ads and editorial material in a 1927 issue of "Radio" magazine (Link1), a hobbyist magazine.
In the center is an ink-drawing of curious boy (watched intently by his dog) climbing on a chair to play with the controls of a dresser-sized radio, an Equaphase receiver made by Charles Freshman Co, only $185, "plug in your light socket and listen."
The background is composed of two elements: (1) a crude radio receiver kit of the time by Karas Inc. It's to the left and right side of the curious boy, showing transformers and inductance coils that look like tuna-fish cans.
(2) in the center, behind the big cabinet radio, is the magazine's cover image, an elaborate fantasy scene with trumpet-playing angels galloping through space on horses.
The second image is the same as the first without the cute illustration. Part of an experiment to determine whether the original abstract pattern is better without the heart-warming human element.
SOURCES:
Link1: https://archive.org/details/sim_audio_1927-12_9_12
March 17, 2023
NOTE: Bob Moore reviews books written in foreign languages whose translations into English have won prizes.
The 2021 prize for translation from Swedish into English went to Tove Jansson's "Letters from Tove" translated by Sarah Death.
Jansson (1914-2001; self portrait above, age 28; next to it, self-portrait age 61) was a Finnish painter and writer who developed a cartoon family of hippo-like animals, the Moomins, which were as popular in her culture as Al Capp and Garry Trudeau were in ours.
All her life, Jansson poured her soul out in long letters to a variety of friends and lovers, translated in this 500-page book.
She describes her student days in Paris: "Let me tell you -- Paris is definitely the right place to deal a blow to the final vestiges of one's inferiority complex! One simply has to get over it to survive. If you are the least bit shy, compliant, apologetic or anxious, you end up feeling like a doormat before the day is over. All the concierges, constant little faux pas in matters of etiquette and French custom, the women with their devastating self-confidence, beauty and refinement of dress, haughty garcons, cheeky gamines, sales assistant who try to cheat you as much as possible and almost despise if you don't haggle, a blase restaurant clientele always eager to find fault, etc."
She returns to her family in Finland in time for the "Winter War" (1939-49) when Russia invaded tiny Finland. "Then the news came on the radio... Papa just came in and said 'Well that's it then.' Nothing more was said, we just each of us went and got on with packing..."
She describes the awkwardness of relationships with soldiers on leave: "He was here incognito, came straight to the studio with flowers, an icon, ... war souvenirs. He was so tired, and lay down for a sleep while I mended his clothes and boiled macaroni for breakfast... We had a celebration dinner with wine and a [cooked bird]... It seemed such a solemn occasion that we hardly said a word as we sat there chewing on our bones. Just to think that he's one of only 10 left out of the 200 who left." (In the short war, Finland suffered 25,000 casualties.)
As Tove grows, she finds she is attracted to women, but since same-sex relations are illegal in Finland (and will remain so until 1971), she is reticent and speaks in code -- of "ghosts." Much of her correspondence is with an absent "ghost" lover in America. But Tove also proposes (by letter) marriage to a man, a political leader and he accepts, replying: "Tove, is it true we aren't married yet? I thought we were, we must have neglected to do it somehow. It's just a formality of course."
Much of the book centers on her career and lively social life. A good BBC documentary on her life is at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAsGD9YLT50. A movie based on Tove's book "A Summer House" is in production starring Glenn Close.
SOURCES:
March 15, 2023
Inside, a photo of a female Ukrainian soldier (with long braids) from the 47th Mech Brigade, resting with her rifle before a church (Link2).
Behind that, a photo of a Ukrainian soldier raising the country's flag over a reconquered village near Kherson last September. (Link3)
The small circular figure at the bottom is the illustration that was originally inside the larger circle filled with Link2 and Link3 images, an American housewife making a bed, colors inverted.
SOURCES:
Link1: https://archive.org/details/newoutlooksforev00scra_0/page/n21/mode/1up Link2: https://medium.com/@Stefan.Korshak/march-8-day-378-womens-day-big-cheese-that-really-matters-counting-the-stuff-3d17554f034d Link3: https://novynarnia.com/2022/09/04/na-hersonshhyni-zsu-vstanovyly-prapor-ukrayiny-nad-zvilnenym-vysokopillyam-foto/
March 15, 2023
SOURCES:
March 10, 2023
SOURCES:
Link1: https://archive.org/details/sim_vmsd-experience-retail-now_1927-12_11_6
March 9, 2023
SOURCES:
Link1: https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2023/03/07/a-little-known-blaue-reiter-artist-is-brought-to-life Link2: https://archive.org/details/dli.ernet.229139 Link3: https://www.engineeringchoice.com/types-of-nuts-and-bolts/
March 8, 2023
SOURCES:
March 7, 2023
SOURCES:
Link1: https://archive.org/details/sim_life_1927-12-22_90_2355
March 6 2023
The text is from a Dingbat font, "Lightnitria" (Link2) by Tephy_Chan.
SOURCES:
Link1: https://archive.org/details/pocahontasorindi0000paul/ (the digital file is miscatalogued as the 1873 "Pocahontas: or, The Indian maiden" Link2: https://www.dafont.com/lightnitria.d10574?sort=date
March 2, 2023
SOURCES:
Link1: https://archive.org/details/sim_oil-gas-journal_1927-12-29_26
March 2, 2023
My sister lives in suburban Richmond, Virginia, near her grandkids. It is the first time I've been more than a mile from my Philadelphia apartment in 13 months, since I had medical problems. I took the train for the five-hour. 200-mile trip -- no complaints.
SOURCES:
February 25, 2023
SOURCES:
Link1: https://archive.org/details/sim_paper-trade-journal_1927-12-29_85_26 Link2: http://www.happyponyland.net/camogen.php
February 19, 2023
Two sources for today's image come the periodical link, a "Saturday Evening Post" 1927 edition (Link2):
A bare-chested builder examines a blueprint in an ad for "Certain-teed" building products, as he towers over three metropolitan areas, at bottom (from left): industrial, downtown, and residential; and
Over his shoulder, an exterior view of the newly built Stevens Hotel in Chicago (now the Chicago Hilton).
I am thinking of entering this in the Plastic Club's "Bright Lights/Big City" exhibition. It seems an icon of what was once a Male Supremacy dominant in this country, now in decline.
In second version, goofed around with addition of cartoonish X-ray eyes, to dilute the beefcake of the original image. But that's not the one I entered into the exhibition.
SOURCES:
Link1: https://blog.archive.org/2023/01/01/welcoming-1927-to-the-public-domain/ Link2: https://archive.org/details/sim_saturday-evening-post_1927-12-31_200_27.
February 16-18, 2023
It also includes a copy of an A.I.-generated image from 4-Chan's "b" group, showing a young woman in a lavishly decorated bra, with the skin whited out.
SOURCES:
February 16, 2023
SOURCES:
February 14, 2023
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One of the oddities in A.I.-generated soft-core porn, besides its difficulties with feet, fingers, and genitalia (see Feb. 8 entry) is the magnificence of its treatment of frills. The lace on an A.I.-generated bra or panties is far more detailed than real-life garments, produced under the economic constraints of mass marketing. The background image here is a collage of some of these over-the-top decorated dainties.
The heart is a Photoshop Shape and the font is Walerina Monogram (Link1) by Abo Daniel Studio (Link2).
SOURCES:
Link1: https://www.dafont.com/walerina-monogram.font Link2: https://www.creativefabrica.com/designer/abodaniel/ref/236322
February 13, 2023
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SOURCES:
February 12, 2023
NOTE: Bob Moore (#1216) reviews books written in foreign languages whose translations into English have won prizes.
The 2021 prize for translation from Spanish into English went to Luis Sagasti's "A Musical Offering" translated by Fionn Petsch
Sagasti (born 1963, photo from "La Voz") is an Argentinan teacher and museum curator. The book is not a novel, not a set of essays, but a series of thematically related anecdotes from musical and art history. Someone who has studied the letters and biographies of history's great musicians shares details of the artists' lives and circumstances in an exhilarating tour of human creativity.
The ostensible subject is Lullabies. It begins with an amusing account of Bach's pieces designed to put an insomniac nobleman to sleep. Then a torrent of stories, all over time and place, from Australian aboriginal music to modern lullabies by the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, and finally circling back to Bach and a puzzling, friendly farewell, -- wishing his readers good night (in Russian).
Are the stories all true? Did someone in 1902 write a "Symphonic Poem for 100 Metronomes"? Is there a Swiss village that built a pipe organ so large that it buried itself in an avalanche? I don't know. I don't care. There is an element to Sagasti's writing that is science fiction and fable.
There are many references to Scherezade, the new wife and storyteller from the Middle Eastern collection of stories "One Thousand and One Nights," forced to spin a tale so entertaining that her murderous royal husband wants to hear it continued for one more night.
There is Olivier Messian's account of a concentration camp orchestra he organized: "The four musicians played on broken instruments ... the keys on my upright piano remained lowered when I pressed...[the musicians were dressed] in the oddest way, in completely tattered clothes and wooden clogs large enough for the blood to circulate despite the snow underfoot."
There is Native American sandpainting. in which "the Navajos traced patterns with a startling purity, but always left a small area blank; this meant the drawing was incomplete. A double lock on the gates to the soul; a way to prevent the paintings from commencing their tasks."
The translator explained the book's intended effect: "Gradually, a pattern emerges from this mosaic that attests, among other things, to the importance of music and art to our moments of crisis and extreme emotion, elation and abjection alike."
There is much talk by Sagasti about how silence plays a crucial part in music, but, being musically unsophisticated, I didn't quite get it, Whether or not I understood Sagasti's thesis, however, the stories, one after another, stream-of-consciousness style, are instructive and entertaining, a happy 100-page read, especially compared to last month's 400-page grim tale of a World War I prisoner of war.
SOURCES:
The translator interviews the author at https://southwestreview.com/the-music-of-silence-an-interview-with-luis-sagasti/.
February 11, 2023
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SOURCES:
February 11, 2023
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SOURCES:
February 9, 2023
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I watch the flood of works being created these days using AI-generation text-to-image technology. Many of them show young girls of perfect (if cold and expressionless) beauty. But some practitioners figure on making money in the porn industry with hard-core explicit images. The problem is that AI-generation technology is terrible on certain anatomical details: fingers, toes, and genitalia. The failures of would-be hard-core porn makers are hilarious in a disturbing way. In the background is a collage of these failed porn images, mercifully obscured for the sake of the viewer, but one image is clearly in the foreground: a glamorous, Farrah Fawcett beauty squatting to display a nonsensical set of genitalia, one long penis dangling down, a shorter penis pointing up, and a vagina next to the short penis.
SOURCES:
Images from 4-chan \b board
February 8, 2023
The left image is an interference pattern, created by superimposing a collage of two advertisements for appliances and a set of punched sieves from the 1927 edition of "American Artisan and Hardware Record" (Link1), a trade magazine for the heating industry.
Another layer is a display of coins from the reign of Varahran in Iran around 300 A.D. from "The numismatic chronicle and Journal of the Royal Numismatic Society" (Link2)
The right image is the same interference pattern, dimmed, with text using Iconian Fonts/Dan Zadorozny's "Fly Eagles Fly" dingbat font (Link3). Zadorozny is a Philadelphia native who says he "bleeds green and silver."
SOURCES:
Link1: https://archive.org/details/sim_american-artisan-the-warm-heating-and-sheet-metal_1927-12-31_94_27 Link2: https://archive.org/details/dli.ministry.18042 Link3: https://www.dafont.com/fly-eagles-fly.font
February 5, 2023
The cartoon of the eager football player comes from a 1927 issue of the popular humor magazine Judge (Link1), published 1881-1947. I do not know the name of the cartoonist, although I have seen the style before. If you can identify the cartoonist, let me know.
The cartoon is mounted inside a drawing of a machine advertised in a 1927 edition of the trade journal "Engineering and Mining Journal" (Link2).
SOURCES:
Link1: https://archive.org/details/sim_judge_1927-12-31_93 Link2: https://archive.org/details/sim_engineering-and-mining-journal_1927-12-31_124_27/
February 3, 2023
SOURCES:
Link1: https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.215895
February 1, 2023
A composition made up of four elements:
In the background, an artist's conception (Link1) of a downtown transportation center serving airplanes, trains, and buses, from the 1927 "American Lumberman" trade journal. The caption reads: "Call a taxi, drive to the station, be whisked by an express elevator to the roof, board a cabin de luxe airplane, and in a few hours arrive at your remote destination."
Overlaid on that drawing, is a quilt pattern called 'The Airship', from a 1927 issue of "The Progressive Farmer" (Link2).
The object in the center is composed of a flush valve from a 1927 issue of "Domestic Engineering" (Link3) combined with a folding ceiling ladder from the "American Lumberman" referenced above.
SOURCES:
Link1: https://archive.org/details/sim_home-improvement-center_1927-12-31_2746 Link2: https://archive.org/details/sim_progressive-farmer_1927-12-31_42_53 Link3: https://archive.org/details/sim_plumbing-heating-piping_1927-12-31_121_14
January 31, 2023
SOURCES:
HEADGEAR images AI-generated by Anonymous and uploaded to 4-Chan /b "AI DEGENerated Art" thread on 1/26/2023
MOTHGIRL images AI-generated by Dantion and uploaded to 4-Chan /b "AI DEGENerated Art" thread on 1/30/2023 (Link1). See also Mothgirl images on my web page on 1/9/2023.
MUSIC: Song "Cold Black Oil" on album INTRO by Mr. and Mrs. Smith (musician Hollis Smith) (Link2).
Link1: https://boards.4chan.org/b/thread/893548991 Link2: https://archive.org/details/BSINT0002
January 30, 2023
After a long absence, I returned to the Plastic Club's Thursday morning Open Workshop, moderated by neighbor Ted Gutswa.
Did one quick image (left), using Sharpie-type pens and Crayola crayons, trying to visualize how the brain connects random sensory inputs (blue & yellow explosions) into a stream of consciousness semi-narrative (green glob). In a rush, left interim title "Title" in the red and orange bricks at top.
Unexpected treat because visitor George Herquet not only played violin, but also did a portrait of me (right).
January 27, 2023
There is a brutal war going on in Europe, as Ukraine resists a Russian invasion. To me, it is clear that Ukraine has the moral high ground. A system of governance where one country can invade their neighbor at will is unstable.
I follow the war closely. There is a kind of sentimental religious style in the art, as in this image, a posed photograph, from 4-Chan's "K" (Weapons) board (Link1), which shows two camouflage-clad soldiers (perhaps a father and son) huddled under the wings of a Ukrainian holy mother figure.
There is also another style, which shows young women (usually with a cat) sitting before a window, contentedly sipping a cup of coffee, thankful for the beautiful morning and saying a prayer that the soldiers at the front return safely.
This touches me because it reminds me of the World War II situation I (born 1944) was too young to remember: my mother, sister, and I awaiting our father's return from that other European war.
Link1: https://boards.4channel.org/k/thread/56709245 (since removed)
January 26, 2023
Busy getting ready for Janice's show, which opened Friday 1/20 -- and exhausted after, so late and sparse on the bibliographic notes for these two.
First image is from a 1927 edition of "American Artisan and Hardware Record" (Link1), a trade magazine for the heating industry. It shows the cold and warm air pipes in a furnace installation in Fort Wayne, Indiana. The furnace face happened to be the exact same dimensions as a famous photo of a tail gunner in a WWII British bomber installed in a British museum (Link2).
On the quotation, Safa is a UN Human Rights activist (Link3), originally from Lebanon. The quote is sometimes (falsely) attributed to Nelson Mandela. Safa's Twitter handle is @mhdksafa (Link4). The font is Gentium Book Basic (Link5).
A confused draft of a Valentine day card, using Photoshop's standard heart shape and images from the 1927 product catalog, called "Distinctive lighting fixtures" (Link6) by Beardslee Chandelier Mfg. Co. of Chicago.
Link1: https://archive.org/details/sim_american-artisan-the-warm-heating-and-sheet-metal_1927-12-31_94_27 Link2: www.flickr.com/photos/mrelliott Link3: https://en.everybodywiki.com/Mohamad_safa Link4: https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-factcheck-quote-divided-world-nelson-idUSKBN26X1Y3 Link5: https://en.maisfontes.com/gentium-book-basic.font Link6: https://archive.org/details/distinctivelight00bear
January 21-25, 2023
NOTE: Bob Moore (#1216) reviews books written in foreign languages whose translations into English have won prizes.
The 2020 prize for translation from Hebrew into English went to Avigdor Hameiri's "Hell on Earth" translated by Peter C. Appelbaum.
It is the second volume of Hameiri's memoirs of World War One. The first volume, "The Great Madness," covered Hameiri's experience as an officer in the Austrian army. His unit was captured by Russians in 1916.
"Hell on Earth" continues Hameiri's story, as he moves from railcars to camps to fugitive status, all the way to Siberia and back. Along the way, he hears about the Russian Revolution, the changing fortunes of war, and the Balfour Declaration (which called for a national home for the Jewish people).
Although Hameiri, a recognized poet in Budapest, started the war as a patriotic Hungarian with literacy in Hebrew, over the course of his travels, as he met Jewish families, he became a Zionist. The conclusion of "Hell on Earth" shows him preparing to depart for Israel, where he will fight in the 1948 War for Independence.
This simple account of Hameiri's life does not communicate the strength of his writing. He describes scenes of grim horror -- ever-present vermin, medical experimentation on prisoners, ghastly food, the brutality of guards -- and he describes sacrifice, friendship and camaraderie, all in the same spare, deadpan, but allusive prose. The prisoners discuss religious questions, ethnic division, and philosophy with bluntness and honesty. The book reads as a series of anecdotes, which is probably what made it a best-seller in Israel.
For instance, here are Hameiri's thoughts on geopolitics after a rumor spreads through a village that he is a German spy:
"Do I want us to win this war? Should its purpose only be to remove dictatorships?"I search my soul. In the whirlpool of this war, no country properly understands the plight of smaller nations 'attached' to the Austrian and Germany monarchies. Even if the Central Powers are victorious, what do these countries gain? Take Hungary for example. What would we gain? A larger slice of the pie? ... Most importantly, this bloody war revolts me; all wars revolt me. No, I won't deceive myself by saying that I want to trumpet victory into the faces of the wretched, conquered Russian people. We're all companions in the misfortune of this horrible war.
"On the other hand, if our side loses... what will be the fate of poor, wretched Hungary, reluctantly following Germany and Austria, singing its touchingly sad songs of farewell all over the front... Hungary's task is that of a lightheaded gigolo pursuing his mistress, Vienna, the beautiful, protecting her against all danger. In peacetime, he provides her with white bread, wine, beautiful music, and material assistance to support her 'court'... Now, when we're at war, he protects her with his body, and takes up her cause."
The book, tough-going at 458 pages, includes Hameiri's wry cartoon-like pencil drawings.
Photo of Hameiri: https://israeled.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/3-685x1024.jpg
January 19, 2023
Combining three images from a 1927 New Yorker (Link1): two decorative borders for ads and a cartoon of tourists examining a skeleton of a Brontosaurus dinosaur. (Thanks for correct identification of dinosaur, Al.)
Link1: https://archive.org/details/sim_the-new-yorker_1927-12-31_3_46
January 16, 2023
January 16, 2023
A combination of three elements: botanical illustrations from the newly-public- domained 1927 Indian "Records of the Zoological Survey" (Link1), an AI-generated waterfront scene from Reddit user "Wookieenon" from Reddit's "/b" (random) board (Link2), and a dingbat from a Woodcutter font "Pink Panther" (Link3).
Another interference pattern, with elements centered in the rectangle. But two closing twists: (1) uncentering some elements of the composition and (2) showing just a detail of the whole composition.
Link1: https://archive.org/details/dli.zoological.records.029.04 Link2: https://boards.4chan.org/b/ (AI-DeGENERATE thread, since removed) Link3: https://www.dafont.com/the-pink-panther.font
January 12, 2023
When my brain and soul get overheated, I find great relaxation in constructing simple compositions like the one above. I don't have the true artist's mastery of asymmetry and design -- I simply overlap and center several images within a rectangle -- but it feels good, and I view the resulting patterns like emerging miracles.
January 9, 2023
NOTE: Text-to-Image (T2I) is a type of Artificial Intelligence program that takes a formatted piece of text and turns it into a corresponding image.
SOURCES:
IMAGES: In a January 2023 thread on 4-Chan's "\b" (random) image board, user "Dantion" offered a T2I text description called "Mothgirl" along with the corresponding image, of a young Albino girl dressed in fairy clothes, surrounded by moths and butterflies. "I really want to see [M]othgirl in different models," Dantion said. A number of other users responded with their own T2I interpretations of Dantion's Mothgirl text. (The Mothgirl text is shown at the end of this video.) There were 12 contributors to the Mothgirl thread, going under pseudonyms, among them "Anonymous", "Obscure Anon", "Selph Destruct", "Bad Anatomy", and "Moist".
The prompt is difficult to understand, but it does point to two 19th century artists for style transfer: English genre painter Charles Spencelayh (Link2) and German realist painter Adolph Menzel (Link3).
MUSIC: A rather goofy version of the 1927 Tin Pan Alley standard "Ain't She Sweet," from the 1961 album 'The Percussive Twenties' by Eric Rogers and his Orchestra (Link4). which just entered the public domain on January 1.
There are some marvelous covers around. The unfortunately-cancelled dance drama "Bunheads" had instructor Sutton Foster use it to teach students how to audition (Link5).The Beatles played it for years in their Hamburg sojourn and recorded it in 1961 (Link6). In 1933 cartoon pioneer Max Fleischer and Lillian Roth combined live action and cartoons (Link7) .
Link1: https://boards.4chan.org/b/ Link2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Spencelayh Link3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolph_Menzel Link4: https://archive.org/details/lp_the-percussive-twenties_eric-rogers-chorale-and-orchestra-eula-par Link5: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WkgaIeAbA0 Link6: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1FSRMfNtLU Link7: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/1/1e/Ain%27t_She_Sweet_%281933%29.webm/Ain%27t_She_Sweet_%281933%29.webm.360p.webm
January 9, 2023
A 1925 version by Fred Waring's Pennsylvanians is at Link3. An undated but swinging version by Swedish Gunhild Carling is at Link4.
Link1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_Cream_%28I_Scream,_You_Scream,_We_All_Scream_for_Ice_Cream%29 Link2: https://blog.archive.org/2023/01/01/welcoming-1927-to-the-public-domain/ Link3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0pfP_MD6xA Link4: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7I_cFMyeSM
January 7, 2023
AI-generated art right now appears mainly in venues filled with porn, mainly because the AI-generation programs are so complicated that only fifteen-year-olds can run them. And you know what fifteen-year-old boys are thinking about!
The image is mounted in a complicated title-page design from a 1929 issue of the Argentinan "Revista De Arquitectura" (Link2).
Note that a recent legal decision (Link3) held that AI-generated work is not entitled to copyright protection.
Link1: https://boards.4chan.org/b/thread/892041052 (since removed) Link2: https://archive.org/details/revista-de-arquitectura-ano-xv-numero-102.pdf Link3: https://aibusiness.com/ml/ai-generated-comic-book-loses-copyright-protection
January 5, 2023
ARCHIVE: Webpage Proprietor's Portraits II
Next are two other images also used as masthead portraits. Third image is an iPad self-portait in a coffee shop (approx. 2014). It is probably the best representation of my revulsion at the aging process and my sadness at the prospect of diminishing cognitive powers.
Fourth is an attempt to limit portrait to the fewest number of facial features and still be recognizable (approx. 2012). (Sorry: unlike the other images on this page, these masthead pictures don't enlarge when clicked...)
Fifth is a drawing done in our Open Studio workshop by Meri Collier, a Toronto-based artist and member of the Plastic Club.
"Would you like to be more successful at your job? Do you need to find financial backers for your money-making idea? Do you wish your sex life was more exciting? Do you suffer from constant aches and pains? Would you like to turn your worst enemy into your biggest supporter? Do you long for happiness, success, health, wealth, and friendship?"In the background, an AI-generated still life, light filtering through bottles on an alchemist or apothecary table (Link2). Unfortunately the link has gone dead so I can't credit the uploader by name. I like his work.
Note that a recent legal decision (Link3) held that AI-generated work is not entitled to copyright protection.
Link1: https://archive.org/details/frank-rudolph-young-somo-psychic-power Link2: https://boards.4chan.org/b/thread/891195076 Link3: https://aibusiness.com/ml/ai-generated-comic-book-loses-copyright-protection
December 22, 2022
NOTE: Sometimes Bob Moore reviews books written in foreign languages whose translations into English have won prizes.
The 2021 prize for translation from French into English went to Hubert Mingarelli's "The Invisible Land" (Link1) translated by Sam Taylor.
This slim (137-page) novel takes place in a defeated Germany, shortly after the Nazis surrendered. It follows a war photographer, his assignment finished, waiting to go home. Impulsively, he decides to take a short trip to photograph German families in their homes. An occupation officer assigns him the fancy limousine of an executed German officer and assigns a young American, O'Leary, as his driver and body guard.
The novel covers the two weeks the photographer and O'Leary travel around, almost aimlessly.
The time and place provide horrors enough -- including bodies in a concentration camp, corpses floating in rivers, and the grim mistrust and hostility of the defeated Germans. But Mingarelli handles these matters with a light touch.
What gives the novel its haunting tone is the everyday life of the two travelers:
"I fell asleep and dreamed about the tarpaulins that we'd spread over the dead that night, and in my dream they lifted up and we thought it was the wind and even though we hammered stakes into the ground to hold them down they still kept lifting up. We held them down with our hands, using all our strength, but a greater force continued to lift them up and each of us knew deep down that it was the dead, pushing at the tarpaulin with their gray legs."
O'Leary and the photographer share the discomforts of camping out in the car, form no attachments with the German citizens they photograph, and know nothing of the larger world. The book ends as the two are returning to the car after one last photography session, during which a miscommunication led O'Leary to shoot a farmer.
The two trudge back to the car.
"For more than an hour only our footsteps reverberated in the night. O'Leary's kept fading behind and I kept stopping and waiting for him. After a while, as we were walking together, I said: 'The sea isn't far, O'Leary. Check the petrol when we get to the car and if you think we have enough left, we can try to find somewhere near the water where we can sleep. You want to try that?' "A long time after, as we were approaching ... the car, I heard a word muffled by a sigh and I thought he was murmuring an answer to himself, that he'd said yes to a question he had asked inside his head. And just as I remembered the question that I had asked him, he whispered, the words half-broken by a sob: 'Yes, sir, we can try.'"
Is that optimism, or pessimism?
Sadly, Mingarelli (pictured above) died of cancer in Grenoble, France, in January of 2020.
Link1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubert_Mingarelli
December 21, 2022
SOURCES: IMAGES: Eight camouflage patterns discussed in a thread on Reddit's 'K' (Weapons) board (Link1) MUSIC: Excerpt from 1949 suite "The Battle of Stalingrad: Stalingrad in Flames" (Link2) by Soviet and Armenian composer Aram Khatchaturian (Link3) FRAME COLOR: "Coyote Brown" (Link4)
Link1: https://boards.4channel.org/k/thread/56358556 Link2: https://archive.org/details/lp_the-battle-for-stalingrad-the-fall-of_aram-khatchaturian-dmitri-shostakovich/disc1/01.02.+Suite+From+The+Film+%22Battle+For+Stalingrad%22%3A+Stalingrad+In+Flames.mp3 Link3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aram_Khachaturian Link4: https://colorcodes.io/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Coyote-brown-color-swatch.jpg
December 23, 2022
In order to clear time for this task (1. Philly-Bob's Free for All 2023), and for (2.) installing a new computer for Janice, and for (3.) figuring out money and taxes for next year, I'm going to cut back on my work this week.
And this post will be the first post on my page in 2023.
December 10, 2022
