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.