Mundane Happenstances of a Small Existence

[mallorys_camera]

The Wall Street Journal has an absolutely fantastic article on AI movie-making this morning (which I think I am offering to you unlocked!)

Apparently, on VEO & Runway, you can get AI to model video characters after real-life people if you subscribe at the very highest tier ($200 a month.) As someone whose disposable income is prone to disappearing acts, I have been experimenting with the lower subscription tiers that don't offer all the features, so I always assumed there was a blanket prohibition against using real-life people. As a safeguard against Deep Fakes & revenge porn!

I am very tempted to splurge for a single month, though, to see what I might be able to create!

Maybe I should have a long talk with the cats: Do you really need to eat? And what's up with all those catnip toys? They always end up under the sofa!

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Meanwhile, the sky is rapidly darkening even as I type, and a quick look at the weather forecast affirms we are in for five fuckin' days of rain! So! Do I kill myself now, or do I subject all 4.3 of my faithful readers to five days of angsty rants before I step in front of that speeding bus?

Also, the New Paltz Community Garden finally offered me a space! After I'd already started gardening again at the Hyde Park Community Garden.

I drove to New Paltz to check the garden out. It is really spectacular: five acres, 150 plots, right along the Wallkill River, which floods the garden regularly, providing the garden with that ultra-rich river silt. The whole garden is surrounded by an electric deer fence & an obliging hawk keeps the vole population in check:



There are something like 200 gardeners, a real community. So, I thought, Okay! If you really want to connect with other humans in the real-life here & now, this is your chance! New Paltz reminds me so much of Berkeley circa the 1980s, I figure it's gotta be teeming with sympatico souls.

The extremely nice Plot Coordinator showed me around. The full plots are huge, 20' x 10', and the three he showed me were completely overgrown with (ugh!) deep-rooted nettles that would take me a solid week of hard labor to clear out. So, I settled for a half-plot:



This one, I estimate, will take me three days to clear out. That's doable.

Because of the driving distance involved, I'd already set up the Hyde Park garden to be as labor-free as possible. Planted tomatoes & chili peppers inside a marigold border. Piled on lawn-mowings over the plot to reign in moisture & keep down weed growth. Self-sustaining was my goal!

This garden I'll use for veggies that require a bit more nurturing. Basil! (Gotta guard against premature bolting & aphid infestations!) Cucumbers! (There's a weird kind of fungus that always seems to attack mine.) Flowers! (I ❤️LUV❤️ bouquets in the Patrizia-torium, so consider flowers an essential crop.)

It'll be a summer of hard physical work.

Assuming it ever stops raining.

Apart from all these mundane happenstances of a small existence, I have this sense that things are changing very fast. Planetary collapse? Nuclear annihilation? Dunno. But something.

I can't do anything about what might be going to happen.

So, the feeling is unsettling.

Comments

[puddleshark]

Congratulations on getting the plot in the community garden! There are usually waiting lists for allotments here. Not that I'm tempted to apply for one, not being a big fan of hard physical work and summer and the ever-present local deer population eating my peas.

You can send us your five days of rain, if you like. The sun just keeps shining here, and it is so boring. I miss our usual miserable weather - heavy rain is like a licence to be gloomy, and that always cheers me up.

[mallorys_camera]

There was a waiting list here, too. I was actually rather shocked when they invited me to join.

[lookfar2]

I'm excited for you! New garden community!

[mallorys_camera]

Thanks, my friend! 😀

[bleodswean]

I do hope you find NEW community in the garden! I think you will!

[mallorys_camera]

Hope so! 😀

[smokingboot]

The New Paltz gardening community sounds fun!

[smokingboot]

Forgot to say Thanks for the article, it is fantastic! I love the idea of being able to create films, but in fairness this looks as much like hard work as the old way :-D Still, if it is a thing that one person could do by themselves with almost no money, I admit it tempts me!

[mallorys_camera]

It's work, true, but what fascinates me is that it's non-collaborative work: In other words, it turns making a movie into something akin to writing a novel, something an author does alone, collaborating only with her own imagination. It's an entirely new model for producing that kind of visual art, in other words. That's groundbreaking.

The little clip in that article cost $1,000 to produce, but if it had been done in the traditional way, it would have cost $30,000 at least.

[lethe1]

Congrats on the new plot!

[mallorys_camera]

Thank you! 😀