re Frost: he fits our times especially if as you have said (I think?) in an interview that we are seeing signs of a return to sincerity in our culture and appreciation of art. he's digestible, playful, unsettling, rhyming.
re Aphantasia: it is so interesting. To catch yourself in the act is difficult because you've been doing it for so long.
When you 'see' Jane Eyre, do you mean like crystal clear, representational? I'm occasionally visited by this sort of thing but it's almost like my mind prefers abstractions, silhouettes, moods. I can picture Rochester, but he is both next to me and distant at the same time. Like in a universe that barely graces ours but has some sort of meaningful effect on it.
In any case, there must be some good poets that suffer from this. What little I understand of aphantasia makes me want to make a guess: meaning is upstream of visualization. Auden said it best,
The worried efforts of the busy heap,
The dirt, the impression, and the beer
Produce a few smart wisecracks* every year;
Laugh if you can, but you will have to leap.
*those smart wisecracks are those moments (rare for me) of perfect visualization
sometimes representational, sometimes not, I see faces less clearly, some places are more clear, for me it is more like I can see the movie in my mind, as it were, but there are also many passages where I get nothing
haha very nice misreading indeed!
And yes I think you have a point about Frost, I hope he does get new readers
Invention of Love was excellent- also really recommend SRB's new memoir, very enjoyable throughout, particularly if you're an SRB fan.
Potentially one to chime with Second Act too- he came pretty late to acting, and it took time for him to broaden beyond comedic roles to Chekhov, Ariel and more.
I don’t think you are kidding yourself, it’s more that your expertise allows you to see the real difference.
It’s like Donald Knuth looking at ‘vibe code’ - but his shudder would be the same for the vast majority of human written stuff, and failed to prevent the modern software industry.
How many published human writers are worse than OpenAIs metafiction, let alone the average or unpublished one?
Also, that study of human response to AI poetry suggests that most people lack your developed taste. En masse people enjoy entertainment produced by committee, which I think has a similar role to AI - moving quality to an average.
A Matt Yglesias crossover? Worlds are colliding!
re Frost: he fits our times especially if as you have said (I think?) in an interview that we are seeing signs of a return to sincerity in our culture and appreciation of art. he's digestible, playful, unsettling, rhyming.
re Aphantasia: it is so interesting. To catch yourself in the act is difficult because you've been doing it for so long.
When you 'see' Jane Eyre, do you mean like crystal clear, representational? I'm occasionally visited by this sort of thing but it's almost like my mind prefers abstractions, silhouettes, moods. I can picture Rochester, but he is both next to me and distant at the same time. Like in a universe that barely graces ours but has some sort of meaningful effect on it.
In any case, there must be some good poets that suffer from this. What little I understand of aphantasia makes me want to make a guess: meaning is upstream of visualization. Auden said it best,
The worried efforts of the busy heap,
The dirt, the impression, and the beer
Produce a few smart wisecracks* every year;
Laugh if you can, but you will have to leap.
*those smart wisecracks are those moments (rare for me) of perfect visualization
How's that for a weak misreading!!?
sometimes representational, sometimes not, I see faces less clearly, some places are more clear, for me it is more like I can see the movie in my mind, as it were, but there are also many passages where I get nothing
haha very nice misreading indeed!
And yes I think you have a point about Frost, I hope he does get new readers
Invention of Love was excellent- also really recommend SRB's new memoir, very enjoyable throughout, particularly if you're an SRB fan.
Potentially one to chime with Second Act too- he came pretty late to acting, and it took time for him to broaden beyond comedic roles to Chekhov, Ariel and more.
ah thanks will look
I don’t think you are kidding yourself, it’s more that your expertise allows you to see the real difference.
It’s like Donald Knuth looking at ‘vibe code’ - but his shudder would be the same for the vast majority of human written stuff, and failed to prevent the modern software industry.
How many published human writers are worse than OpenAIs metafiction, let alone the average or unpublished one?
Also, that study of human response to AI poetry suggests that most people lack your developed taste. En masse people enjoy entertainment produced by committee, which I think has a similar role to AI - moving quality to an average.
So much human slop...