Exciting weather drama on Thursday. As usual, it came to nothing. It never comes to anything until it does, and your favorite tree is down, or the twister hits your house and you swirl off to Oz, noting with confusion two men in a rowboat. Even as a kid I found that strange. They seemed happy enough. You’d think they would be gripped by unyielding terror. Perhaps that was our first clue that this was a dream? I’m sure there are 14,296 articles on the internet that say exactly that.
AI response #1 on Google:
In The Wizard of Oz, the rowboat of men is a visual trick used by the wizard to make the audience believe Dorothy is in a dream. When Dorothy and her friends reach the Emerald City, the wizard claims to be an omnipotent being who can grant their wishes. However, the wizard is revealed to be a fraud, a man in a rowboat disguised as a wizard. This revelation is used to imply that everything Dorothy experienced in Oz was just a dream
<Irritated_Samuel_Johnson.jpg> What the hell did I just read? What junk is this? It links to a piece that says nothing of the sort. Also to a Medium piece I can’t access because I’m not going to sign up. Seems like AI gibberish related with the usual confidence. I mean: “the wizard is revealed to be a fraud, a man in a rowboat disguised as a wizard.”
Criminey. Anyway. Walking back from the gym, and the sirens wailed. It had been raining that afternoon, and they’d predicted some atmospheric perturbations, but sirens? Something heading downtown? Upstairs everyone was milling around, wondering if they should evacuate. I went to the window:
No rotation, no green clouds, fast-moving front. Everyone headed for the elevator or the stairs. The automated system came on and told us to “evacuate the perimeter of the building,” which sounded as if exciting things were about to happen. This was to avoid being cut to chunks by flying glass. I fielded calls from home about whether I was safe - she’d just heard the alarms, and had headed to the basement. As it turned out, the system had already passed and was raging its way north. Within a few minutes I watched the sky turn to blue, and you’d never have known anything could’ve possibly happened.
Lots of sticks and branches on the home lawn, of course, since the trees are always keen to drop the deadwood. But some fresh healthy limbs had been torn by the wind as well, and I guess this is nature’s way of paring out the weak. There was more actual drama between 6:13 and 6:20, when I was trying to get dinner out of the oven (a lovely sea bass) because I had as 90-minute podcast at 6:30, AND constrain the dog who wanted to leap through the fence slats and eat the monster who was talking to my wife - a door-to-door pest control salesman who wanted to sell a four-part one year package. Offer only good today! I could’ve dispatched him with crisp but genial regrets; sorry, not going to commit to a subscription service for ants from a door-to-door guy who says the price won’t be good after oh, 7:12 PM.
Let me sum up the day thus: I had six voids to fill.
The podcast: no idea. Filled it, though.
Story conference where I had to have three ideas: came up with them between car and office.
Podcast #2: just riffing, but still a void to fill
Podcast #3: same, but an hour
This Bleat, which I am filling now
The Substack, which I will fill after 11 PM.
It was a day that required a lot of conjuring, but I am not a wizard. Just a man in a rowboat.
Sometimes you see something you didn't know you knew.
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I was set to give an address on some issue of the day, and it was all set up quite nicely. Big stage, nice lighting, an important setting for someone important saying important things. When I was outside taking in the fresh air before I went to speak, an enormous tree fell and crashed through the window of the facility. I went on with the speech, and said, with sonorous tones, “This feels like an interregnum.” Then I stopped, conscious that my speech no longer applied, and I thought "technically that applies to a period between kings" and asked to start over. The person sitting next to me said “when you make a boo-boo, just keep going, and I was annoyed, because I had not technically made a boo-boo.
Prompt: tree falling through window of a convention center. AI added some extra malevolence.
Why, I think this one's new. I mean, very old, but I don't think we've done this one. I've been going back to the source for new material.
From the start you know you're hearing that Philly sound, disco era, maaaybe pretty rote?
"They were the first group in pop history that released a 12" single ("I Just Can't Make It", on Columbia, in October 1975)." Not a lot of history of the internet.
You know, I think next year's collection of Low Charting songs of 1986 is going to be much more interesting. But that could just be a matter of taste.
That'll do: Lucre awaits, as we explore the money of Chili. Have a grand weekend!
