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Kitchen Table Kibitzing 8/30/2022: Last Call for White Shoes [1]

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Date: 2022-08-30  

This week’s diary, like last week’s, is a random collection of videos, but somewhat more based on current events than last week’s.

❧ For example, after I learned, from Besame on Saturday, about the Lauren Boebert “Lesbian Dance Theory” thing (and also, not to make this a Top Comments diary, after I read this thoughtful comment by Nonlinear), I was prompted by someone I can’t locate now to dig out this live performance on Late Night with Conan O’Brien by Jonathan Richman, of his entertaining song I Was Dancing in the Lesbian Bar. [ 7:39, but only the first 3:20-ish is that song.]

❧ On Sunday in a KTK thread, Thinking Fella posted a video of an excellent rant, which I later found on YouTube. It turns out to be a year or so old (but sadly not outdated). It was ranted by writer and filmmaker Matthew Cooke, who has a whole YouTube channel of this sort of stuff. [9:22]

Here’s a short segment from a MeidasTouch interview with him, speaking about why he made the video. [2:10]

❧ For my friend nomandates, here’s a Beto ad I liked. [1:02]

❧ Professor Mike Merrifield of the University of Nottingham discusses a recent paper based on data from the JWST, which led to some breathless reporting that we’ve had the history of the universe all wrong, or such like. As it turns out, this reporting was triggered because the paper’s title starts with a little joke, a play on the name of the band “Panic! at the Disco”, and no actual call for panic was intended. Do better, science journalism! [7:55]

❧ I don’t know if you all have seen some of the AI art programs now available on the internet — the one I’ve messed with is called Craiyon (get it? ai?), but there are others. They allow you to write a description, as elaborate, weird, or obscure as you like, of what picture you want the AI to make, and it will think for a while and then offer you some images it made up. Sometimes the results are almost normal-looking, and sometimes they’re very strange. For instance, to grab a sample, I just now typed in “The owl and the pussycat went to sea in a beautiful pea-green boat”, and this is the first and imho best of the pictures it drew:

Janelle Shane’s site AI Weirdness has a lot of much better samples — like this hilarious series of apparently alien breakfast cereals it made up.

ANYWAY, in his most recent show, John Oliver was interested in whether people were requesting AI images of him, and he took that information and ran with it, as he does so well. [10:40]

❧ So now, all we need for Labor Day weekend is some food and music! Since it is plum tomato season in my hometown, and probably in a lot of yours too, here is a very tasty-looking savory roasted-tomato tart with a super-easy crust of store-bought puff pastry. [10:12]

❧ And finally, here’s Billy Strings and friends, at Beach Road Musicfest in Martha’s Vineyard this past Saturday, honoring the outgoing season with Gershwin’s Summertime. (It’s followed by another song.) [8:12]

So, got any plans for the holiday weekend? Staying home, traveling, barbecuing, canvassing? We need to know!

And in case you’re curious, here are all the owl-and-pussycat images the AI drew:

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