Sloth, Maybe?

It all began with a post-it. Yeah, I'm particularly fond of this doodle.  I consider it my last attempt at creating true art.  If you see the date, I sketched it out on April 1, 2004.  The date means nothing.  I was nobody's fool, unless I was fooling myself into thinking I could make fine art. Usually, a preliminary sketch such as the one above is used for a final composition - be it water color, tempera, or oil paint. But twenty years later, something entered my life that I did not anticipate. A company called OpenAI created an online program called Chat GPT.  With this, you could ask for food recipes, fun facts about the Roman Empire, or some random character like the superhero Sharky, the toothbrush using Shark that encourages kids to brush their teeth.  Something like that. It can also be used to write outlines to screenplays, among other features. I'm an amateur screenwriter.  I pride myself on banging out a scene in the space of five minutes, al...

  February 10th, 2024 has arrived, and with it I have officially completed IRVING!  Yes, Irving the Auspicious New Year Dragon.  In truth, I had finished him several days before, but as a symbolic personal gesture, I did not affix the plaque (seen in lower third of photo) until today. I named the dragon Irving (Full name Irving Long), when a joke made by comedian Jon Stewart crossed my thoughts unbidden.  Jon was making up the name of a law firm with two WASPy names and one stereotypically “Jewish” name.  “Williams, Flagstone… and OOIIIIVIIINNNGG!” said Mr. Stewart. Irving, thought I.  Yes, Irving.  It’s a nice sanguine salt-of-the-earth name.  Not a mighty name normally associated with a dragon, but I liked the juxtaposition.  As mentioned above, his full name is Irving Long.  The word “long” is Mandarin for the giant, divine serpent erroneously referred to by we Western folk as a “dragon,” since we had no other cultural analogue. In fa...

  A pal of mine, let's call him Ollie T, knows of my fascination with Sumerian mythology and my previous employment with a renowned law enforcement department.  On a whim, he made the following inquiry with Chat GPT: OLLIE T. My query to ChatGPT: How is working for the NYPD similar to being a writer of ancient Sumerian mythology? CHAT GPT   Working for the NYPD and being a writer of ancient Sumerian mythology are very different activities, and it may be challenging to find many similarities between the two. However, here are a few possible comparisons: Both involve storytelling: Working for the NYPD often involves communicating important information through written reports and other forms of documentation, while writing ancient Sumerian mythology involves creating stories that were passed down through oral tradition. Both activities involve the use of language and storytelling to convey meaning and information. Both involve conveying a sense of order: Working for the NYPD...

It is odd that, after years of training as an artist and a painter, I find more satifaction out of creating art by feeding some keywords into an AI art program called MidJourney.  I was rewarded with fantastic images like the one you see above. Sometimes I feel like a cheat and a fraud.  Other times, I feel nothing but love for the compostition I created with nothing more than "punch card" information. Do I think AI will surpass the artists who draw on millennia of history and years of experience?  No, I do not.  Will art such as the one I "composed" above appear in a gallery or a museum?  The scales tip towards "doubtful." I love this work just the same. - JJB  

All I did was enter the title above into the MidJourney site and this was the end result. What I actually wrote was "Inanna Arrives at the Emerald City."  I wanted to combine the Sumerian goddess' adventure with Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz. What I got was an image of Inanna's silhouette from behind.  She pauses on a half overgrown strip of two lane blacktop.  Her objective is in the distance. Why does she want to go to the Amethyst City?  Is it her ultimate goal?  Does she wish to make a new home at this oasis in the wasteland of an abandoned interstate civilization?  Is it just a way station on an ongoing or even infinite quest?  Is she pausing to admire the city from a distance?  Is she simply walking past it?  What if the Amethyst City is just a ruin among many artifacts of the old world?  Perhaps in contrast it is a thriving metropolis? The technique of MidJourney wavers between the fantasy artist Roger Dean and the much deplored i...

I dreamt that I was at a mid-sized theater in early August at an amusement park named Rye Playland.   The theater seats were soon filled with a sizable crowd.   Some of the audience members were shaking my hand and patting me on the back.   Then it occurred to me the production was a musical I wrote:   The Courtship of Inanna and Dumuzi. The curtain draws back.  It reveals King Dumuzi of the kingdom of Uruk seated at a canted desk with a wet clay tablet.   Queen Inanna stands next to him and teases him.   Dumuzi notices his clay tablet is drying.   Inanna and Dumuzi fuss with the tablet to keep it wet.   The pour water on the clay and their regal attire gets soaked.   Soon they begin to flirt in increasingly graphic ways.   I shrank in my seat, hoping that my mother is not present. Finally, Inanna and Dumuzi confess their love for one another.   Dumuzi follows the trope of picking up the very tall Inanna and carrying off to a f...

Steampunk Freddy Krueger 01 Steampunk Freddy Krueger 02 Steampunk Freddy Krueger 03 Steampunk Inanna Rides a Zeppelin 01 Steampunk Inanna Rides a Zeppelin 02 Steampunk Inanna Rides a Zeppelin 03  

Yeah, well... - JJB UP NEXT - Change of topic:  More good news about my Mom.  

  I have a peculiar history with this Aztec deity. By Unknown author - Own work using: John Pohl's MESOAMERICA ANCIENT BOOKS: Borgia Group Codices CODEX LAUD, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=103011319 In grade school, my pop was helping me with research for a school report about “The Conqistadors.”   You know, those guys who stopped imperialism and human sacrifice among the Aztecs by presenting their own brand of imperialism and human sacrifice rituals?   Ah, but that was called “conversion by the sword.”   I digress. The history book tailored for grade schoolers about Hernán Cortez said that he was mistaken for a god by the Aztecs.   The details are a little hazy, but it had something to do with their ships, their armor, their boom-sticks, smallpox… okay, I’m going off track again.   My point is, my pop and I started investigating the names of gods that the Aztecs actually worshipped.   The most prominent name w...

While running through Fate / Grand Order Absolute Demonic Front Babylonia a second time, I kicked back to contemplate the best fight I've ever seen in anime ever.  I'd argue it even put the battle between Tetsuo and Kaneda in Akira to shame. Titled "Ushiwakamaru vs. Tiamat," it was nominated for Best Fight Scene in the 2020 Crunchyroll Anime Awards. To give the uninitiated some background, King Gilgamesh of Uruk summoned servants from various times and places to fight at his side against the Three Goddess Alliance.  Among them are King Leonidas of Sparta, the gender-swapped samurai general Ushiwakamaru and the disgraced ronin Benkei. When Tiamat, the most powerful of the Three Goddess Alliance makes her advance on the fortress city of Uruk, Ushiwakamaru leads the offensive against the serpentine deity.  She deftly hacks off the heads of one giant serpent after the other and confuses her enemy further by multiplying herself into seven "clones" that ride the ...

On my last entry for Fate / Grand Order , I said I was 75% of the way through.   Having completed the series, I must say it is a bizarre fusion of Avengers Infinity War , Avengers Endgame , The Return of the King , and any pie throwing fight you’ve seen in a Three Stooges short. To start off, Ritsuka Fujimaru and Mash Kyrielight are led by Ishtar in a journey to the Underworld.   Their twofold mission is to liberate the fallen Gilgamesh from the bonds of death and to recruit Ishtar’s estranged sister, Ereshkigal, in their battle against the primordial goddess Tiamat. Meanwhile, Tiamat and her son Kingu unleash a horde of fearsome creatures with talons for legs and grotesque grins where a head should be.   They are meant to be the successors of the human race and they literally tear through cities and their inhabitants on the way to the great city stronghold of Uruk.   There, Gilgamesh, Fujimaru, Mash, Ishtar and a host of champions will make their final stand before...