028: A Body Without Organs
AN EMAIL IN SEVERAL PARTS WHICH MAKE UP THE DISJOINTED WHOLE
First, THA NEWS.
Thanks to everyone who filled out the Subscriber Survey. All three of you. This is genuine thanks; I indeed learned a lot.
The main reason for doing so was (a bit of inside baseball here) I noticed a massive dropoff on opens and clicks from 2022's last newsletter to 2023's first, and and it's consistently been that way, and I'm honestly not sure why. Content-wise, not a whole lot has changed, so my only assumptions are 1) I've finally hit on the most boring formula ever, or 2) I've been redirected to non-Inbox folders. In any case, I've taken some of the response commentary and will do my best to incorporate it--starting with removing the COMPILATION section.
In the past, that section was a simple copy-paste of all my text-based social feeds, but now that all I have is Facebook, that seems much less necessary or interesting, since most of the people who follow the newsletter also follow me on Facebook. Without much editing, the section just drags. This doesn't mean I'll completely stop any overlap, but I'll likely include more contextual and explanatory content on the things that do make the leap.
I'm also making a couple small changes to hopefully avoid getting algorithmically shafted in inboxes. We'll see if anything changes there. You'll probably notice a lot fewer links, at least for a couple weeks, even in the explicitly link-heavy sections.
Personally, things are in a time of flux. I'm making plans for travels. We've had a couple car-related projects: the heater blower motor went out in Subaru, so that's getting changed over; I got the brakes "done" on the Fiero and the old gas tank out to get to replacing it; the spouse's motorcycle is in need of some ignition system work, but this was a known quantity from a while back.
I've reached out to my therapist to restart that process, and where to go on the long process of ADHD (non-)diagnosis. That will likely be a thing all its own.
Writing-wise, I've been adding bits slowly and surely to THE FAILURE EXPERIMENT. In an attempt to try to get out of my head on that project, I've started compiling my older and undergrad work into a book that I'm planning on releasing through Amazon in both a print version and an ebook version. It will be titled CONFESSIONS FROM A DRAINAGE DITCH, and you'll all be the first to know when it's available. I even had to pull out a copy of my first credited journal to find some formatting info I had lost somewhere along the way.
Second, INTERLUDE.
First, THA NEWS.
Thanks to everyone who filled out the Subscriber Survey. All three of you. This is genuine thanks; I indeed learned a lot.
The main reason for doing so was (a bit of inside baseball here) I noticed a massive dropoff on opens and clicks from 2022's last newsletter to 2023's first, and and it's consistently been that way, and I'm honestly not sure why. Content-wise, not a whole lot has changed, so my only assumptions are 1) I've finally hit on the most boring formula ever, or 2) I've been redirected to non-Inbox folders. In any case, I've taken some of the response commentary and will do my best to incorporate it--starting with removing the COMPILATION section.
In the past, that section was a simple copy-paste of all my text-based social feeds, but now that all I have is Facebook, that seems much less necessary or interesting, since most of the people who follow the newsletter also follow me on Facebook. Without much editing, the section just drags. This doesn't mean I'll completely stop any overlap, but I'll likely include more contextual and explanatory content on the things that do make the leap.
I'm also making a couple small changes to hopefully avoid getting algorithmically shafted in inboxes. We'll see if anything changes there. You'll probably notice a lot fewer links, at least for a couple weeks, even in the explicitly link-heavy sections.
Personally, things are in a time of flux. I'm making plans for travels. We've had a couple car-related projects: the heater blower motor went out in Subaru, so that's getting changed over; I got the brakes "done" on the Fiero and the old gas tank out to get to replacing it; the spouse's motorcycle is in need of some ignition system work, but this was a known quantity from a while back.
I've reached out to my therapist to restart that process, and where to go on the long process of ADHD (non-)diagnosis. That will likely be a thing all its own.
Writing-wise, I've been adding bits slowly and surely to THE FAILURE EXPERIMENT. In an attempt to try to get out of my head on that project, I've started compiling my older and undergrad work into a book that I'm planning on releasing through Amazon in both a print version and an ebook version. It will be titled CONFESSIONS FROM A DRAINAGE DITCH, and you'll all be the first to know when it's available. I even had to pull out a copy of my first credited journal to find some formatting info I had lost somewhere along the way.
Second, INTERLUDE.
Since each of us was several, there was already quite a crowd. ~ Deleuze and Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus
Third, CONSUMPTION.
- Reading How Small the Sky Really Dreams by friend of the program Mary Ann Cain. It is, to my knowledge, her first full book of poetry, and it's very much a book that is unsurprisingly good. I'm a little more than halfway through it and the biggest thing preventing me from finishing is my own lack of focus.
- Finished reading Tony Trigilio's Proof Something Happened, which explores the alien abduction case of Betty and Barney Hill in New England in the 1960s. While I love this basic conceit, what really made me enjoy the book is what Tony once explained as "the implication of the self" in a piece of historical/documentary poetry. It's the part of the work where the author actually brings the authorial character into the proceedings and interacts with the content of the documents being referenced. Considering Tony is, in my opinion, one of the best to ever do it, it was a hell of a reading experience.
- Been watching a lot of Misha Chardouin on Youtube. Misha runs a race taxi service on the Nurburgring, which is one of the most famous racetracks in the world. One of the things he does is run other people's cars on the track, and between the track, the cars, the owners, and Misha's own commentary, its a lot of fun for a car geek.
Fourth, HUSTLE.
Normally, I'd be trying to tell you to get my book here, but I have some plans happening there, too, and can't in good conscience suggest that.
If you're liking this whole project and want to support directly, here is my Patreon. There are lots of little benefits you can get there, from more content and access to a subscriber-only Discord, to poems written to your specifications, to subscriber-only limited-edition chapbooks.
Finally, THE OUTRO.
Have you been noticing a change in YouTube ads? Not just 1980s-level television marketing for Medicare middlemen, but specifically a whole lot of video ads, even from big-name brands, where the voice-over audio is almost certainly autogenerated. There's some stuff you can notice in particular.
First, the rhythm of the speech is very even. It's more sophisticated than Siri/Alexa, but you can tell that the speech is not being produced by a human speaking human words into a microphone.
The other big clue, and the one that tips me off the most often, is timbre and pronunciation. You'll notice it most often on questions, because the upward pitch shifting at the end of a sentence will almost only ever apply to the last word of the sentence. This process, when humans ask questions, will often start at a random syllable in the question, where there questioning intent really starts. Think about where you start asking a question and where your voice changes in the senetence.. Is it closer to beginning, or is literally at the end? AI always applies it to the last word or two, tops, if at all. The one I'm thinking of in particular is, I think, a whisky ad. It asks the question "How do you like it?"** except delivers it perfectly flat. How Do You Like It.
(Not exactly related, but it's remarkable how many ads aimed at kids have voiceovers that sound suspiciously like Billy West, but are clearly not Billy West.)
This is all a roundabout way to say that when you're pretending to be something, make sure you know how that thing actually works.
There is a difference between equal and equivalent.
*Everyone who responded asked for weekly emails, and I'm not sure I can keep up with that. We'll see how my therapy work goes.
**As in, "How do you take your drink?" not "How you you like it when I do this back to you?"
- Reading How Small the Sky Really Dreams by friend of the program Mary Ann Cain. It is, to my knowledge, her first full book of poetry, and it's very much a book that is unsurprisingly good. I'm a little more than halfway through it and the biggest thing preventing me from finishing is my own lack of focus.
- Finished reading Tony Trigilio's Proof Something Happened, which explores the alien abduction case of Betty and Barney Hill in New England in the 1960s. While I love this basic conceit, what really made me enjoy the book is what Tony once explained as "the implication of the self" in a piece of historical/documentary poetry. It's the part of the work where the author actually brings the authorial character into the proceedings and interacts with the content of the documents being referenced. Considering Tony is, in my opinion, one of the best to ever do it, it was a hell of a reading experience.
- Been watching a lot of Misha Chardouin on Youtube. Misha runs a race taxi service on the Nurburgring, which is one of the most famous racetracks in the world. One of the things he does is run other people's cars on the track, and between the track, the cars, the owners, and Misha's own commentary, its a lot of fun for a car geek.
Fourth, HUSTLE.
Normally, I'd be trying to tell you to get my book here, but I have some plans happening there, too, and can't in good conscience suggest that.
If you're liking this whole project and want to support directly, here is my Patreon. There are lots of little benefits you can get there, from more content and access to a subscriber-only Discord, to poems written to your specifications, to subscriber-only limited-edition chapbooks.
Finally, THE OUTRO.
Have you been noticing a change in YouTube ads? Not just 1980s-level television marketing for Medicare middlemen, but specifically a whole lot of video ads, even from big-name brands, where the voice-over audio is almost certainly autogenerated. There's some stuff you can notice in particular.
First, the rhythm of the speech is very even. It's more sophisticated than Siri/Alexa, but you can tell that the speech is not being produced by a human speaking human words into a microphone.
The other big clue, and the one that tips me off the most often, is timbre and pronunciation. You'll notice it most often on questions, because the upward pitch shifting at the end of a sentence will almost only ever apply to the last word of the sentence. This process, when humans ask questions, will often start at a random syllable in the question, where there questioning intent really starts. Think about where you start asking a question and where your voice changes in the senetence.. Is it closer to beginning, or is literally at the end? AI always applies it to the last word or two, tops, if at all. The one I'm thinking of in particular is, I think, a whisky ad. It asks the question "How do you like it?"** except delivers it perfectly flat. How Do You Like It.
(Not exactly related, but it's remarkable how many ads aimed at kids have voiceovers that sound suspiciously like Billy West, but are clearly not Billy West.)
This is all a roundabout way to say that when you're pretending to be something, make sure you know how that thing actually works.
There is a difference between equal and equivalent.
*Everyone who responded asked for weekly emails, and I'm not sure I can keep up with that. We'll see how my therapy work goes.
**As in, "How do you take your drink?" not "How you you like it when I do this back to you?"
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