In the spirit of the diary remix idea, I ran an experiment where I used just the entries from March 4ths, created a lyric, and then created some music for it. I randomly selected words and phrases until I had a verse idea, then formulated a query in ChatGPT to flesh it out--most of which was cliche junk. For associated images I used an AI image generator with various queries drawn from the 3/4 text, e.g. "Anne Frank and Martha Stewart in 2046" and Frank Gehry buildings on Mars" which generated some interesting and funny images, which could be used as an album cover. But for the most part, it felt like a waste of time. Anything that involves sorting through infinite permutations feels inundating. Some of the images are creepy and scary. I'm not looking for creepy and scary. What I'm interested in are things on the periphery of the uncanny valley, where it's slightly skewed in compelling ways. That's difficult to find when you have to weed through hundreds of mostly unusable images. The March 4 diary entries one of which is one of the fictitious characters, Neone from my Reset short story. The red text is the lines from the ChatGPT generation--and became the title. 3/4/1943 (Diary of Anne Frank) "A veritable thunderstorm of words came crashing down on me again this morning. The air flashed with so many coarse expressions that my ears were ringing with "Anne's bad this" and "van Daans" good that." Fire and brimstone!" 3/4/2004 Martha Stewart convicted. She could do up to 20 years in prison. 3/4/2046 (Neone's Diary) Lunch with Ramona at Fahrenheit Cafe, but Ramona's on a fast for the Mars mission. She talks about it constantly, as well as trying to assuage my doubt about the immortality treatments. A thunderstorm of words Crashing down on me Lunch with Ramona at the Fahrenheit Cafe She's fasting for Mars and immortality Symphonic music in a spectacle space Designed by a starchitect Crafting futures with design Echoes of a diary's pages The artistry of home and creation Ripples through the ages AI-Generated Images
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3/2/2002, Saturday
Film: Lost Highway. I love Lynch films. In my opinion, he was the most successful in approximating (simulating) the dream state... 3/2/2013, Saturday Dream: I was in a library. The reading area was crowded and there was someone with loud headphones, so I left and browsed the stacks. I picked up a book with a warm leatherette cover with the title "Woodcraft" authored by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. I mused, "Follow your passion...I mused that I loved Chicago. Photos taken on a 26th
*** What become evident in the arc of history since the beginning of the internet is the desire for celebrity (re: the "Artstar" show) and immortality and "tripping" on nostalgia. YouTube in particular has allowed a binge-watching of it, but also allows us to remix it, which is what I alluded to in 1999, a time when we were all looking over the edge of a century. 2/26/1999 This is the age of recycling ideas rather than inventing them. The invention is the way in which ideas are recycled and what their effect is. But I'm sort of suspect of how merely creating collages of things can ultimately be that interesting. A friend showed me the mp3.com site. I'm skeptical because I think the sheer amount of things to listen to will trivialize music. We're overstuffed on music just like we're overstuffed on movies, food, and gadgets. But on the other hand, I think the website is exciting from a global perspective. This way we can hear new music coming from all points of the globe. 2/26/2004 Browsed through the Tower Records store on Wabash. They moved all the rock and pop upstairs and put classical and jazz on the third floor. Thought perhaps I'd buy the new Bowie CD, Reality $18.99!!! This is why Napster emerged; buying records became extortive. 2/26/2005 They've got this new reality TV show called "Artstar". It's where people engage in an almost Warholian stunt where they try to get on the show, be harshly critiqued, and then get a show at a SoHo Gallery. This seems like something Warhol would have eventually come up with. (This has a very "4th Dimension" quality to it because once the gallery installs it, it will be relegated to plain Pop Art or "Meta-Art", because the "outside" qualities will provide the experience, even if they're merely representational paintings or even landscapes. I stopped making art in 2019 as the result of "medium nostalgias". I missed the rigor of composing. 2/26/2022 I have a terrible issue with "medium nostalgias". It's been a few years since I've made any art because I had a nostalgia for doing music. Now it's the other way around. I think the idea that disciplines inform one another can only be marginally true. When I'm busy playing music and my time and/or pitch sucks, I'm not thinking about seeing how making art will make that better. Maybe it will... *** What I've been doing with my Riffs channel is to quickly record my thoughts, yet is somewhat different than an audio diary. Somehow recording a video helps me think more fluidly. On nostalgias... I was thinking back to the late 1980s and early 1990s when I was a young musician studying jazz under Bill Russo, then started writing lyrics and songs as a result of the fall of the wall and the world generally convulsing. I was cynical about it all, and was too good to be true. In your 30s you start having your own opinions about things, especially history and philosophy. You develop a gravitas about the world. Lyrics are a way to voice opinions, whereas jazz has no vehicle for it really. I particularly liked what Sting was doing post-Police, interestingly in jazz context. For artists, this bleeds into the work. Generally speaking, artists tend to go through those kinds of periods, which became off-and-on, but never faded completely. 2/23/1944
Diary of Anne Frank: The best remedy for those who are frightened, lonely or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere they can be alone, alone with the sky, nature and God. For then and only then can you feel that everything is as it should be and that God wants people to be happy amid nature's beauty and simplicity. As long as this exists, and that should be forever, I know that there will be solace for every sorrow, whatever the circumstances. I firmly believe that nature can bring comfort to all who suffer. Oh, who knows, perhaps it won't be long before I can share this overwhelming feeling of happiness with someone who feels the same as I do. 20 years later a phenomenon of pop culture arose from the ashes of World War II. 2/23/1965 Beatles in Studio Two (control room only): 10.00am-1.00pm. Stereo mixing: 'Yes It Is' (from take 14); 'You've Got To Hide Your Love Away. 33 years later I'm in the studio: 2/23/1998 Another warm day, 50 degrees. Finished Ice Moons. 2/23/2001 Longing for a warm day. This winter has been brutally cold. Changing weather patterns are now becoming evident. The Post 9-11 world: 2/23/2006 Sunnis bomb Shiite mosque. Many are saying Iraq is tumbling inexorably toward civil war. (It really takes a dictator to keep the tribes in check). On-Point 2/23/2021 Read an article by one of the soldiers who was in the Iraq war and he was referencing a book and a speech by English philosopher John Gray, "Black Mass: Apocalyptic Religion and the Death of Utopia", written in 2007, specifically the bit about when the soldier was fighting there, there was the underlying (sunk) belief that he was there to promote liberal democracy. Without sunk beliefs (or costs) there would be no motivation. It's really a form of cultism not unlike what's happening in the US currently. 11/7/1914, Saturday
Wittgenstein longs for the company of a decent person because here I am surrounded by indecency. 11/7/1998, Saturday Film: Velvet Goldmine. A film about glam. This would have been more interesting if it was done quasi-documentary-style: the fiction elements overshadowed the factual basis of the film. It’s as though they set out to document the Glam period but ended up with a Ken Russell-ish gay burlesque film. |
AuthorLee Barry, Musician/Content Producer Archives
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