News Maggots

The problem with news is there is a lot of it and that it has to be edited. This is understandable of course, we can only absorb so many facts and diverse situations and as there is so much news out there somebody needs to manage it. It's no different from writing history, which is actually the same thing as news. It's also liable to be distorted, exaggerated or hidden. Anyway I'm full up of news now, full to the brim. I have no spare capacity for new news or indeed new history at the moment. I'd therefore be grateful if people would just stop doing possibly newsworthy things for a while and also if media editors could prune any emerging news down into small truthful and relevant chunks that the average person might digest easily. 

In a leap of pure imagination I have coined the term "news maggots". I'm unclear who the news maggots are or who they work for but I think they probably do exist. They also may think that they are doing a decent job; if supporting failing royalist regimes, dangerous business practices and toxic governments is a decent job. In conclusion not everybody in the news or the media is a news maggot, that would be ridiculous but clearly there are some in there. I suppose there are also media maggots, entertainment maggots, war maggots and industry and economic maggots too. It just goes on. Oh, I just remembered that news maggots have little brothers: badly informed opinion maggots.

How artificial intelligence sees the UK media's finest.

Anstruther Daily Photo

 

A sunny morning, the world is stirring but this spot seems far away from the stresses and strains and lies and platitudes circling in other places. They lurk, watching and waiting for more carrion to chew up or spit out.  Here there is empty space. Hold it steady. The tide is moving out at the back-sea-sands in Anstruther Wester. The sand dries itself as no one watches. Seaweed clogs up the beach and strangles the rock. A still but not unpleasant breeze is blowing. Nobody is about, nobody else on the beach. No window faces or chatter. I'm walking in slow circles. Thoughts take flight and settle wherever.

Grave Concerns

 

Artist's  impression only.

Today would have been my mum's 100th birthday had she lived, so I took it on myself to go on a reflective gravestone cleaning mission down in the East Neuk of Fife. There lie most of my forebears, many of the two families being buried not very far apart in the same cemetery. I parked in the nearby car park and shuffled into the cemetery carrying an orange B&Q bucket, some water and cleaning materials. I'm self aware enough to know I must've looked a bit odd, like some professional grave stone cleaner or perhaps a weird ghoul who likes things spik and span. I'm neither, I just have dose of seasonally acquired central Scotland guilt that needs exorcising every now and then. I did my bit and left feeling I'd done a nice thing. I'm not so bad a person perhaps. 

I then pondered using the remaining cleaning materials on grimy and neglected road signs on the way home. I quickly realised that this was a bad idea. I know people do that kind of thing; sign vigilantes. Also people go out and  correct grammatical errors on signs and company hoardings. While I share the urge to do these things from time to time, I've still some self control left. My grave concerns are not quite grave enough and my hi-vis jacket was in the other car.

Simulated Bumble

In surveys (YouGov etc.) some people reportedly have expressed the wish to be reincarnated as a worker bee (though not to me personally) or some other industrious insect. They think the busy and seemingly worthwhile life of a bee might suit them following on from their brief spell in human form leading dull lives in retail and web design. I don't think it's so simple. Bees generally get a raw deal in this world so be careful what you wish for, unless you're a bee bot. In theory a bee bot can live forever so reincarnation isn't relevant. Also don't assume that a cat life might be a good alternative, there's a lot of stress and anxiety in their world and some dirty, unsocial lifestyle activity. Before choosing why not try things out via an expensive and lurid simulation?

Rule of Thumb

 

Ever have the feeling that you're being silently observed? Looking around expecting to catch somebody and stare back at them but there's nothing to see, only you and you feel like you're being seen. These watchers seem to come and go. A strong sense of them and a shudder of panic and then it's over. Some stranger in the distance, walking away from you now , or so you imagine. It can't be police or security either, they haven't the time or the interest. You're not a criminal anyway.  Well maybe in your thoughts and you know your own boundaries there.

 

You're guilty of nothing. Nothing apart from a sense of a ripple in your Karma that's unpleasant. Perhaps you're not as real as you thought, more a mixture of wraith or fleshy spirit. What are you anyway? It could be you morph, sometimes slowly, sometimes quickly as you live your life. In and out of phase you go, along with reality. Who is at the controls anyway?

Queens lie dead in cathedrals. Meanwhile a courtier places a peculiar hat and garland on an ugly beast who's behaviour may be unpredictable. One of the courtier's hands has already been bitten off. Crowds gather to stare but they don't know what they are looking at and they'll remember little of it tomorrow. There will be a new pauper's banquet laid out for them, more visual than physical however so the good people remain hungry but satisfied that for a brief moment they were given some attention. Banner headlines shout in telling whispers as they search for themselves in banks of images, it's the rule of thumb.

Toadstool Town

 

Almost overnight Toadstool Town appeared in the garden. A new development. I should also say with any consultation or planning permission. We love our rules and red tape here so swift action was required. I noted that the builders or occupants appeared to have fled and, like any good, greedy landowner had the site quickly cleared. I know this action is of course futile, they'll be back soon enough, but for a fleeting moment I felt like some parasite king wielding newly given powers though unable to understand the consequences of his actions. All completely normal in the world we live in.

Pimp My Alloys

 Any time you like, hopefully for a reasonable price.

Pittenweem Daily Photo

 

At large in Pittenweem in order to avoid the crowds and to fill the vacuum left by the ridiculous stopping of football fixtures and so on. We're not all sombre and incapacitated with grief and self delusion as it turns out. Here we have a fish and chips lunch served on a fish shaped plate. A nice touch. One of the highlights of a sunny day wandering around by the waterfront in an empty headed fashion.

And along comes the sea, unruly and disrespectful as ever towards the land and the curious people huddled together on it.

A Plague of Media Sycophants

In the pub last as we started on our first round and raised our glasses I jokingly said, "God save the King". I accidentally sounded like some serf from the middle ages holding up a flagon of dirty ale and downing it in one. On days like these it seems like we've hardly moved on, we know our place. Ridiculous royal families, archbishops submitting pointless prayers, fussy courtiers, stuffed up royal protocol and the swarm of odious media sycophants. It'll be a long, dreary September.

Every family has it's grief and tragedy and it's right to celebrate the long life of a loved one but ... I'm already tired of it. Also, nobody is going to find it easy to sing "God save the King" ever, it just sounds even more wrong than it ever sounded. It's a shit tune and a shit set of words. It never did sound right to me in any shape or form, now it's just some crazy thing we can't escape.

Too Tired

 

Some things are broken up. 

Some things are broken down.

 Some things are broken in the middle.

Everything is fragile it seems.

Otto Dix Said

I bet the artist Otto Dix once said, "War is a natural event." I'd also add: like rain or a sandstorm, extinction, a meteor strike, drought or migration. War will always be happening somewhere in some measure. Also not helped when people are forever disagreeable and just can't leave things be.

Screenshot 2022

Screenshot 20220831 along with approximate location.

This isn't art.

Sylvanian Family Car Crash

 

Like most days it started out well enough for the family. Not too much juice or cereal spilled at breakfast time. All teeth cleaned without any drama or overworked performance. Clothes on in some sort of organised fashion along with the correct shoes for today's outdoor activities. All youngsters accounted for on the back seat. Then calamity struck early on in the journey. A serious collision with a badly parked couch and an abandoned coffee mug left the Sylvania's red SUV somewhat wrecked but the occupants relatively unharmed. Being made of tough plastic is a great advantage in an RTA, unless the vehicle is on fire of course.

In other news: I always accept all of the cookies. I'm hard wired to do so. It's a Fife thing I guess. Home baked Sylvanian Family cookies are particularly welcome.

South Queensferry Daily Photo

 

Nearby to SQ we have the Dundas Estate, where sky, land and water meet. This also happens in other places from time to time, you may also have noticed it. Anyway it made for a very pleasant walk as the swans hissed peacefully into our ears and the ducklings scattered across the surface of the water. It never rains when you're strolling beneath the greenest  and widest of trees. It doesn't even pour. It just hangs in some kind of inexplicable suspension of vapour, space and time. Science doesn't know everything and it hasn't explored all of the possibilities either. I'll leave it there.

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Art v Intelligence

I like playing around with the various free bits of low level AI art creation that are available for home use. You can modify your own images or start from scratch using words, descriptions, prompts etc. to inspire the cogs and wheels somewhere out there in cyber-space. The results are of course variable, often surprising and insightful, sometimes just weird and wide of whatever the mark might have been. It's a free tool but a bit of a blunt instrument in most ways. Real artists must hate these programs I guess but for me it's like noodling with bits of Lego. Anyway I decided to use as prompts the names of some artists, just to see how AI might recognize or render them and of course for fun, here's the results.

This is what you get using the name of the 50s/60s artist Cy Twombly. I was expecting some crazy scribbles and fierce brush strokes, not what looks like cotton plants in a dark room. I'm not familiar with all that is in his back catalogue so it may be on point.

This is Norman Rockwell, pretty obviously despite the sinister undertones. A little distorted and freaky but still true to twentieth century Americana and strangely quaint (almost). Just try not to focus on the fingers.

So this is using Roy Lichtenstein as a prompt, all style but no actual content. Maybe this AI isn't so dumb. Is there a critical and observed piece of machine code in there that likes to comment in it's own wry and subtle way? Pop art but not as we know it. 

Next there's Leonardo da Vinci morphing into a facial mash up that strangely has no background. I expected more, at the very least some sketch work, scrawled writings or a few purple hills in the distance. The hair and the beard are a bit much. Leonardo also has a fierce bum chin.

I thought I'd end on a kind of high by trying Caravaggio, a name that should challenge the sparks and pixels. I got this familiar looking, peculiar but dramatic piece. I doubt that it would ever fool anybody. It does contain a cutting implement of some sort so the normal brooding and violent content is suggested or is it just a medieval cocktail mixer he's holding? The composition isn't bad but the overall execution is as clunky as you'd expect.

Virginia Plain Creeper

 

We don't watch much cooncil TV, we're very selective in our brainwashing options and generally have better things to do (though we don't often do them). The out of control Virginia Creeper seems to have cottoned on to all that and is in the process of carrying out what is known in the electrical trade as the "supportive slow strangulation manoeuvre" of the fine old, rusty but trusty satellite dish. There may be trouble ahead but then there will also be the winter weather pruning event.

Lyrical Thoughts

"The slow exodus by distorted pony from Tumbledown Mountain."

I often think I have a lot of interesting and lyrical thoughts there in the superstructure of my head that I need to share. Then when I reach the point of saying them out loud I realise that they are not quiet what I thought they might be so I just stop myself. Eventually those thoughts just float away, it's a pleasant enough experience. Awareness of self is a useful  property but it can also restrict your range of self expression if you let it. That's not a bad thing.

Move to Bin

More cheap art for the masses, or those who could actually care less: A rabbit that might be a dog sporting a rainbow hair style and extra legs. A cat that never existed but remains smoking hot despite a clear lack of paws. The High Priestess from the Carnival of Idiots Adventure Weekend before and after some kind of substance experimentation. Oh and if you're still curious about the infamous "single whistle" there's an example of a single whistle, below.

Humble Plum Pie

A good photograph of Peter Frampton and Steve Marriott of Humble Pie, not pictured Greg Ridley and Jerry Shirley. They were a messy, noisy, self indulgent, loud rock band. I recall nearly wearing out my vinyl copy of the double album, "Performance: Rockin' the Filmore. That was then of course, not heard it in a long time. I always liked Steve's Epiphone Coronet. He hardly ever played it though, it just dangled around his neck but then Frampton was always around to make sure things kept going.

Meanwhile ... a reflection on the fragile life of the common plum. This is half of our 2022 crop.