In the fields, the bodies burning

As the war machine keeps turning.

五月雨

"May rain falls
as if falling into
a sleep" Shiki Masaoka

(images: Hasui Kawase / Hisako Kajiwara) pic.twitter.com/LvCQqi69ZJ

— Kazuko M. (@EstherHawdon) May 13, 2026

End of passion play, crumbling away

You know I will almost always follow a Tull track with Metallica (or vice versa).

Where’s the Dreams That I’ve Been After?

This World is not Conclusion:

This World is not Conclusion.

A Species stands beyond - 

Invisible, as Music -

But positive, as Sound -

It beckons, and it baffles - 

Philosophy, dont know - 

And through a Riddle, at the last - 

Sagacity, must go -

To guess it, puzzles scholars -

To gain it, Men have borne

Contempt of Generations

And Crucifixion, shown -

Faith slips - and laughs, and rallies - 

Blushes, if any see - 

Plucks at a twig of Evidence - 

And asks a Vane, the way - 

Much Gesture, from the Pulpit -

Strong Hallelujahs roll - 

Narcotics cannot still the Tooth

That nibbles at the soul -

Emily Dickinson.

I Feel Bad For Us

https://t.co/5lUrlkywSC pic.twitter.com/sRn4x8DEgb

— NTodd - Antifa IT Support 🇺🇦🐸 (@ntoddpax) May 12, 2026

The great thing about his increasing disinhibition as he stumbles further down Dementia Lane is that he just says the quiet part out loud all the time now.  Won't change the completely lost cultists' minds, but maybe it'll help to peel away enough of the voters who brought us this nightmare so we can overcome racist gerrymandering and all the other structural constraints we're up against.

Then maybe someday we won't have to think about this fascist rapist criminal asshole any more...

Old Charlie stole the handle

And the train it won't stop going, no way to slow down. (spirited upbeat music continues)

erwachen allein mit dem Wind

Strangers:

Our ship

without flag

belongs to no country

never arrives

water citizens

we travel 

day and night

spy land

on the horizon

waveland

our mirage

Sometimes

we dream

a ship sails

in the opposite

direction

awakening

alone

with the

wind

Rose Ausländer.

G-d Is in the Rain

Remember when everyone was saying AI would replace/displace script writers and prose authors, and it was all over the news...then suddenly nobody was talking about it and it never happened? Here's part one of why...and why that was deliberate. https://t.co/gYsqcS8oBo pic.twitter.com/jP5LXnqIrm

— J. Michael Straczynski (@straczynski) May 11, 2026

The nub:

Everything created by AI is inherently objective and exterior. Upload a photo, ask for variations, and the process begins: exchange red hair for blonde, check; put the hands here instead of there, check; swap one visual background for another, check; integrate elements from an assortment of visual styles that can be, and very often have already been, explained, quantified and thus easily replicated, check-check-check...

Every aspect of that creation is culled from already existing, external sources, viewed in an objective fashion, providing examples of precedent, style, and visual presentation. The process is inherently exterior.

Writing, on the other hand, is inherently interior, and ridiculously subjective. Director Mike Nichols once said that every scene in a story is either a negotiation, a seduction or a fight. I’m not sure that’s entirely true in all cases at all times, but the core of it is right... 

AI characters populate the scene with words announcing what they want, without asides or genuine conversational give and take. Writers write for the subtext, the character insights, the profound or revealing silences.

Along those lines:

This reader comment on a NY Times column where Ross Douthat ponders that maybe God is speaking to us through A.I. is an absolute fastball on the corner with movement, and deserves a column. "Lightening was once mysterious too; mystery did not make Zeus correct" is perfect. pic.twitter.com/TseQe8Rnbi

— Kevin Van Valkenburg (@KVanValkenburg) May 11, 2026

The Douthat piece might or might not have been mischaracterized, which determination I leave as an exercise for the reader's Inner Light.  Regardless, I need to ponder a bit more about whether G-d is in the gaps, in the AI, or in the rain.

Selah.

Fighting and free, got your world in my hand

I'm here for your love and I'll make my stand.

Just Carry On, Don’t Mourn

When I Am Gone:

When I am gone what will you do?

Who will write and draw for you?

Someone smarter—someone new?

Someone better—maybe YOU!

Shel Silverstein.

You Mothers

My mommy (with Euell Gibbons, circa 1968?).

The kids with theirs (2015).

I hope all you mothers out there have a nice day with loved ones.  It's a pretty quiet one here, for obvious reasons...

What to him from England?

Scorn and defiance, slight regard, contempt, and anything that may not misbecome the mighty sender, doth he prize you at.

どろ に しだるる

aoyagi no:

the green willow
drooping down into the mud
at the ebb tide 

Bashō. 

You’ve Gotta Be Cruel to Be Kind in the Right Measure

A Hungarian psychologist raised three daughters to prove that any child could become a chess grandmaster through early specialization. He succeeded. Two of them became grandmasters. One became the greatest female chess player who ever lived.

Then a sports scientist looked at the… pic.twitter.com/5fzvRHMnSC

— Ihtesham Ali (@ihtesham2005) May 9, 2026

The meat:

There are two kinds of environments in which humans develop expertise. Psychologists call them kind and wicked. A kind environment has clear rules, immediate feedback, and patterns that repeat reliably. Chess is the cleanest example. Every game ends with a winner and a loser. Every move is recorded. The board never changes shape. The pieces never invent new ways to move. A child who plays ten thousand games will see most of the patterns that exist in the game, and pattern recognition is exactly what chess mastery is built on.

A wicked environment is the opposite. Feedback is delayed or misleading. Rules shift. The patterns that worked yesterday may be exactly the wrong patterns to apply tomorrow. Most of the real world looks like this. Medicine is wicked. Investing is wicked. Building a company is wicked. Scientific research is wicked. Almost every job that involves a complex changing system with humans in it is wicked... 

The athletes who reached the very top of their sports were overwhelmingly people who had played multiple sports as children, specialized late, and often switched disciplines well into their teens. Roger Federer played squash, badminton, basketball, handball, tennis, table tennis, and soccer before tennis became his focus. The kids who specialized in tennis at age six and trained year-round for a decade mostly burned out, got injured, or topped out at lower levels of the sport.

The same pattern showed up everywhere he looked outside of kind environments. Inventors with the most patents had worked in multiple unrelated fields before their breakthrough work. Comic book creators with the longest careers had drawn for the most different genres before settling. Scientists who won Nobel Prizes were dramatically more likely than their peers to be serious amateur musicians, painters, sculptors, or writers.

The skill that mattered in wicked environments was not depth in one pattern. It was the ability to recognize when a pattern from one domain applied unexpectedly in another. That kind of thinking cannot be built by drilling a single subject. It can only be built by accumulating mental models from many subjects and learning to move between them. 

Is this a universal absolute?  Maybe not, but does seem to be a pattern.  Even when you look at a GOAT like Simone Biles, who has essentially done gymnastics since she was 6, she isn't just the best at the balance beam or another particular skill, but has learned general physical and mental control to do pretty much any damned thing she wants.

Einstein rode a bike and played violin.  Life is a rich pageant.

Selah.