ChatGPT and a forklift

From Ted Chiang’s essay “Why A.I. Isn’t Going to Make Art” (The New Yorker ). If I were teaching, I’d share this passage with my students:

As the linguist Emily M. Bender has noted, teachers don’t ask students to write essays because the world needs more student essays. The point of writing essays is to strengthen students’ critical-thinking skills; in the same way that lifting weights is useful no matter what sport an athlete plays, writing essays develops skills necessary for whatever job a college student will eventually get. Using ChatGPT to complete assignments is like bringing a forklift into the weight room; you will never improve your cognitive fitness that way.

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“Inherently and irredeemably unreliable narrators”

From The Washington Post Tech Brief newsletter:

“All large language models, by the very nature of their architecture, are inherently and irredeemably unreliable narrators,” said Grady Booch, a renowned computer scientist. At a basic level, they’re designed to generate answers that sound coherent — not answers that are true. “As such, they simply cannot be ‘fixed,’” he said, because making things up is “an inescapable property of how they work.”

Grady Booch is in Wikipedia.

Have you had your rock today?

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“Meticulous,” “commendable,” “intricate”

Erik Hoel, neuroscientist and novelist, on the “insidious creep” of artificial intelligence into culture:

Consider science. Right after the blockbuster release of GPT-4, the latest artificial intelligence model from OpenAI and one of the most advanced in existence, the language of scientific research began to mutate. Especially within the field of A.I. itself.

A study published this month examined scientists’ peer reviews — researchers’ official pronouncements on others’ work that form the bedrock of scientific progress — across a number of high-profile and prestigious scientific conferences studying A.I. At one such conference, those peer reviews used the word “meticulous” more than 34 times as often as reviews did the previous year. Use of “commendable” was around 10 times as frequent, and “intricate,” 11 times. Other major conferences showed similar patterns.

Such phrasings are, of course, some of the favorite buzzwords of modern large language models like ChatGPT. In other words, significant numbers of researchers at A.I. conferences were caught handing their peer review of others’ work over to A.I. — or, at minimum, writing them with lots of A.I. assistance. And the closer to the deadline the submitted reviews were received, the more A.I. usage was found in them.

Thanks, Ben.

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Today’s Saturday Stumper

Today’s Newsday  Saturday Stumper is by Matthew Sewell, and it’s a doozy, perhaps the most difficult Stumper I’ve ever done, though there’s nothing outré, nothing strained.

I started with four-letter words, 1-A, “Rock Hall honorees inducted by the Bee Gees”; 1-D, “What Michael Jackson wore in The Wiz ”; and 2-D, letters, “Tik-Tok coiner (for a 1907 kids’ book).” And then I wandered and stumbled. I didn’t think I’d get it all until I filled in my last answer, another four-letter word: 57-A, four letters, “Big 12 invite accepter for 2024.”

Some clue-and-answer pairs of note:

12-D, ten letters, “Spills a lot.” Hah.

15-D, six letters, “Franchise element.” I was thinking of, say, Dairy Queens and owner-operators.

17-A, ten letters, “Grand Canyon run gear.” How's one supposed to run in the Grand Canyon?

23-A, twelve letters, “Mexican wrestling accouterment.” All those hours of UHF television paying off at last.

27-D, ten letters, “Blocked by booming.” Lordy.

28-D, ten letters, “Illuminating accent.” The novelty of this answer made me laugh.

29-A, seven letters, “Tokyo monorail maker (1964).” I had one letter from a cross, figured that there are companies that make everything, and guessed, correctly.

40-A, seven letters, “Comes back.” Tricky.

42-D, six letters, “First noun in Richard III.” Of course.

48-D, four letters, “Shelley’s ‘love disguised.’” I take every Shelley clue in a crossword as something like a hello from my late friend Rob Zseleczky.

52-A, ten letters, “Analphabetic.” I thought it had something to do with being out of alphabetical order.

56-A, ten letters, “Written up earlier.” Whew.

My favorite in this puzzle: 10-D, six letters, “Word from Greek for ‘tattoo.’”

No spoilers; the answers are in the comments.

Hail to thee, blithe Parsnip!

Carrot thou never wert.

I think of the parsnip as the carrot’s quiet cousin. There’s the carrot, in the center of the room, doing a magic trick or telling a colorful (heh) story. And there’s the parsnip, over in a corner, looking at the titles on the bookshelf.

As you may have guessed, I like parsnips. I like carrots too. They both belong in the stew.

[Post title with apologies to Percy Bysshe Shelley and my friend and Shelley devotee Rob Zseleczky. Our household’s parsnips come from Ed Fields & Sons.]

Chomsky et al. on ChatGPT

In The New York Times, Noam Chomsky, Ian Roberts, and Jeffrey Watumull consider (with examples) “the false promise of ChatGPT”:

ChatGPT and its brethren are constitutionally unable to balance creativity with constraint. They either overgenerate (producing both truths and falsehoods, endorsing ethical and unethical decisions alike) or undergenerate (exhibiting noncommitment to any decisions and indifference to consequences). Given the amorality, faux science and linguistic incompetence of these systems, we can only laugh or cry at their popularity.

All OCA ChatGPT posts
A 100-word blog post generated by ChatGPT : I’m sorry too, ChatGPT : Spot the bot : Teachers and chatbots : Imaginary lines from real poems : ChatGPT writes about Lillian Mountweazel : Rob Zseleczky on computer-generated poetry : ChatGPT’s twenty-line poems : ChatGPT on Edwin Mullhouse : A reporter’s “conversation” with ChatGPT

A “conversation” with a chatbot

“I like movies that are realistic. I like movies that are romantic. I like movies that are about us”: from The New York Times, the transcript of a reporter’s two-hour “conversation” with Microsoft Bing’s A.I. chatbot. That's the bot talking about movies. It’s more than slightly unnerving.

As I said to my son this morning, I’ve had it with thinking about chatbots as part of the world I want to live in. A line from Ted Berrigan’s poem “Mi Casa, Su Casa” sums it up: “‘I want human to begin with.’” And thereafter.

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[In the poem, the line is in quotation marks: quoted speech?]

Edwin who?

One more try, and I’m done. What can ChatGPT tell us about Edwin Mullhouse, of Steven Millhauser’s novel Edwin Mullhouse: The Life and Death of an American Writer 1943–1954, by Jeffrey Cartwright ? Presented without comment:

Edwin Mullhouse is the main character in the novel “The Breakthrough” by American author Jonathan Safran Foer. Edwin is an 11-year-old boy who dies suddenly and is remembered by his best friend, Jeffrey Eugenides, who recounts Edwin’s life in a fictional memoir. The novel explores themes of memory, childhood, and loss, as Jeffrey tries to piece together Edwin’s life and personality. “The Breakthrough” is a coming-of-age story that blends elements of fiction and non-fiction, and is widely regarded as one of Foer’s most notable works.

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ChatGPT’s twenty-line poems

I asked ChatGPT to produce twenty-line poems in the styles of major American poets. A number of tentative conclusions: ChatGPT has difficulty distinguishing “in the style of” from a hazy idea of subject matter. And ChatGPT assumes that almost all poets write in quatrains of iambic tetrameter, with clumsy rhymes and inspirational messages. At times I was reminded of the calypso section of John Ashbery’s “Variations, Calypso and Fugue on a Theme of Ella Wheeler Wilcox”:

Gazing at the Alps was quite a sight
I felt the tears flow forth with all their might

A climb to the Acropolis meant a lot to me
I had read the Greek philosophers you see

Here are the exhibits. Chat GPT didn’t provide titles for its poems. You may provide a laugh track.

With Emily Dickinson, Chat GPT appeared unable to distinguish “in the style of” from “about”:

A life of simplicity,
With words that cut like knife,
Her thoughts, so deep and true,
Still echo through the time.

Her spirit, wild and free,
Her verse, a mystery,
A world of insight and power,
A soul that feels no cower.

A heart that knew true pain,
A mind that sought refuge in verse,
A voice that spoke of love, loss,
And truths that we still traverse.

Her quill, a tool of grace,
Her words, a healing place,
For those who seek a meaning,
Her legacy, still gleaming.

So let us raise a glass,
To Emily, our guiding star,
Whose words still touch our hearts,
And will forever be a part.

ChatGPT has a little information about Gertrude Stein:

Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose,
A simple statement that everyone knows,
It’s a symbol of beauty and grace,
A color that brings a smile to our face.

But words and their meanings are complex,
And the truth of what we say is often vexed,
So we repeat and repeat with care,
To make sure the meaning is always there.

And Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose,
A reminder of all that nature bestows,
A symbol of life, and its constant flow,
Of growth and renewal, in rain or in snow.

So we hold tight to the words we say,
And the truth that they hold, every day,
For Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose,
And its meaning will never, ever, go.

Wallace Stevens GPT exhorts us to cherish and bask in beauty:

The world is a dream, a mirage of hue,
A dance of shadows, a play of light and dew.
Its beauty lies in the eye of the beholder,
A kaleidoscope of colors, forever bolder.

The sky is a canvas, a masterpiece of blue,
The clouds, a symphony, a chorus of hues.
The trees sway in the breeze, like an endless show,
A gentle rhythm, a song of life that flows.

The stars shine like diamonds, in the endless night,
A constellation of wonders, so distant, so bright.
The moon is a mystery, a story untold,
A whisper of secrets, that forever unfold.

So let us embrace this world with open hearts,
With grace and wonder, with joy and art.
Let us cherish its beauty, its mystery and might,
And bask in its splendor, till the end of light.

ChatGPT has enough information about William Carlos Williams to produce a poem about a red wheelbarrow while avoiding meter and rhyme. But that’s about all it has:

The red wheelbarrow
Glazed with rainwater
beside the white chickens.
A simple thing,
yet so much depends
on its functional grace.
The tool of the farmer,
carrying weight with ease,
rolling through fields of green.
A symbol of hard work,
of the toil and sweat
that brings sustenance to life.
Without the wheelbarrow,
the farm would grind to a halt,
leaving only emptiness.
But with it, the earth yields
a bounty to be shared,
nourishing body and soul.
So let us give thanks
for the red wheelbarrow,
a humble hero of the land.

Langston Hughes GPT has “heard the blues.” He too wants us to appreciate beauty. Because poets love beauty:

Verse 1:
I’ve seen the sunset, orange and gold
Over fields of cotton, the story untold
Of those who worked the land, in scorching sun
    and rain
With calloused hands, they toiled, they sought to
    sustain

Chorus:
For I am a child of the earth, so rich and so bold
With a spirit unbroken, a soul that won’t fold
I sing for the weary, the tired, the worn
For the ones who’ve been burdened, it’s a brand
    new morn

Verse 2: I’ve heard the blues, the lament of the night
With a voice that’s so sorrowful, but filled with
    delight
For it tells of the struggles, the pain, the strife
Of a people seeking justice, a better life

Chorus:
For I am, &c.

Verse 3:
I’ve walked the streets, of cities so bright
With neon lights, and the sounds of the night
For the Harlem Renaissance, it was a time of pride
With artists and writers, who sought to defy the tide

Chorus:
For I am, &c.

Outro:
So let my voice echo, through the streets and the
    skies
For all to hear, for all to realize
The beauty in life, the beauty in rhyme
For a brighter tomorrow, for a future that’s truly
    mine.

John Ashbery GPT also encourages us to appreciate beauty. And look — he’s plagiarizing Wallace Stevens GPT:

The world is a strange and shifting place,
A maze of colors, sounds, and shapes.
Its mysteries are infinite, untold,
A labyrinth of secrets waiting to unfold.

The trees sway in the wind, the rivers flow,
The sky is vast, and the clouds aglow.
The world is a never-ending surprise,
A constant change, a flicker in the eyes.

But even in this chaos, there is peace,
A stillness that whispers, a gentle release.
The world is a tapestry, woven with care,
A masterpiece of life, beyond compare.

So let us embrace this world with open arms,
With wonder and grace, with joy and charm.
Let us cherish its beauty, its secrets untold,
And bask in its radiance, till we grow old.

Frank O’Hara GPT wants to stay in the city:

I am walking down the street,
The city’s lights shining bright,
I hear the sounds of cars and feet,
As people hurry through the night.

I feel the wind blow through my hair,
And see the stars up in the sky,
It's moments like this I can’t compare,
This feeling makes me want to fly.

I think of all the friends I’ve made,
The memories that will last a lifetime,
And I’m so grateful that I’ve stayed,
In this place that’s always been so kind.

I see the city’s endless rows,
Of buildings tall and grand,
And I know that everyone knows,
This is where they want to stand.

So I’ll keep walking down the street,
With a smile upon my face,
And I’ll remember this moment sweet,
This time and this place.

And then I wondered: what if I tried an unmajor poet? Here’s Amanda Gorman GPT:

Verse 1:
Amidst the night, I stand so tall
With words that carry weight, words that will
    enthrall
My voice a beacon, a lighthouse in the sea
Of doubts and fears, it’s a symbol of freedom,
    you’ll see

Chorus:
For I am a child of the earth and its fire
With a spirit unbreakable, a soul that won’t tire
I speak for the silenced, the broken, the torn
For the ones who’ve been crushed, it’s a brand new
    dawn

Verse 2:
My pen is mightier than the sword they say
With each word I write, I pave a brighter way
For those who’ve been oppressed, I am their voice
With my words I heal, with my words I rejoice

Chorus:
For I am a child of the earth, &c.

Verse 3:
The world is listening, and I won’t be still
With every rhyme, every line, I will uplift and heal
For I know what it’s like to live in pain
But now I rise, now I soar, and I won’t refrain

Chorus:
For I am a child of the earth, &c.

Outro:
So let my voice echo far and wide
For all to hear, for all to take pride
In the power of words, the power of rhyme
For a brighter tomorrow, for a future that’s truly
    mine.

With that chorus, Amanda Gorman GPT is ripping off Langston Hughes GPT. And Gorman GPT repeats the same curious verse-chorus-outro structure. But that structure isn’t reserved for Black poets. T.S. Eliot GPT uses it too:

In the still of the night, I hear the city moan
With the sounds of the traffic, a symphony alone
For the city is alive, with a life of its own
And the shadows they dance, to a rhythm unknown

Chorus:
For I am a part of the world, a part of the scene
With a mind that’s so restless, a soul that’s so lean
I wander the streets, in a daze and a trance
In search of the truth, in search of a chance

Verse 2:
In the heart of the city, I see the people move
With a pace that’s so frantic, they’ve got nothing to
    prove
For the city is a maze, with a life that’s so cruel
And the ones who get lost, they’re just another fool

Chorus:
For I am a part of the world, &c.

Verse 3:
In the mind of the city, I feel the emptiness grow
With the weight of the world, it’s a burden I know
For the city is a world, with a life that’s so low
And the ones who find peace, they’re just letting
    it go

Chorus:
For I am a part of the world, &c.

Outro:
So let my words flow, with a rhythm so pure
For all to hear, for all to endure
For a world that’s so bleak, for a world that’s so true
For a future that’s bright, for a future that’s brand
    new.

I was hoping for “A future that’s bright, for me and for you.” I guess I’ll have to write my own poem.

*

When I showed Elaine these bot efforts, she suggested trying Charles Bukowski. Why hadn’t I thought of him? Perhaps because I sold my Bukowski books some years ago.

Beneath the streetlights, I stand and ponder,
Of all the drinks I’ve had, the nights I’ve squandered.
With worn out shoes, and a broken soul,
I roam the streets, seeking a new goal.

The city is alive, with neon lights,
And laughter ringing in the endless nights.
I walk the alleys, with a bottle in hand,
Looking for solace, in this lonely land.

The raindrops fall, like tears from above,
As I remember the women I’ve loved.
With lipstick stains, on cigarette butts,
I find comfort, in my drunken ruts.

I write my thoughts, in a crumpled notebook,
Of life on the edge, and the streets I took.
With every word, I pour out my heart,
And hope to capture, what tears me apart.

So I’ll keep drinking, and I’ll keep writing,
Until I find meaning, in this endless fighting.
For in the words, and in the whiskey’s flow,
I’ll find redemption, and a way to grow.

Even Bukowski ends with a message of hope. On his gravestone though: “DON’T TRY.”

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A 100-word blog post generated by ChatGPT : I’m sorry too, ChatGPT : Spot the bot : Teachers and chatbots : Imaginary lines from real poems : ChatGPT writes about Lillian Mountweazel : Rob Zseleczky on computer-generated poetry

Rob Zseleczky on computer-generated poetry

I often go searching for the past online. And thus I found (via Google Books) a letter about the possibilities of computer-generated poetry by my friend Rob Zseleczky, published in the February 1983 issue of the computer magazine Byte. Strange: a few days ago I took screenshots of the pages with the letter and did some cutting and pasting to make a column of text. And now this issue of Byte is available only in Snippet view.

[Rob Zseleczky, “Computer Poetry: Art or Craft?” Byte, February 1983.]

The key passage, to my mind:

An artist may draw upon any or all of his life’s history in order to pass judgment on a single word. His intellect, his moral integrity, his honesty, his passion, his love, his hope, his hate, his fear, his skepticism, his faith — in short, the sum of the poet’s whole existence gives him the ability to make artistic judgments. And a sense of tradition supports the artist’s individuality, which includes his powers of artistic discernment. Thus, in our ever-changing, prone-to-forgetfulness world, the popularity of computers is assured, but computers still lack what Keats called “the knowledge of contrast, feeling for light and shade, all that information (primitive sense) necessary for a poem.”

If you could accurately enter your whole life into a computer without leaving the minutest fact out, then the computer could possess a chance of becoming artistic. But even then the computer would have to be considered the protégé of its programmer. For now, computers may be profitably used as electronic thesauri, as servants to the new craft of electronic poetry-writing. As far as the art of poetry is concerned, computers will have to wait.

Right on, Rob. Judging by the poems I ordered up from ChatGPT this past weekend, computers are still waiting.

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Dream chords

I was showing my friend Rob Zseleczky a beautiful set of chord changes: the chorus of “California Girls.” It’s a simple pattern up and down the neck of the guitar. I like the first chord for each vocal line as a major seventh. It’s not that way in the original. I don’t care.

  Bmaj7               C#m7
I wish they all could be California

  Amaj7               Bm7
I wish they all could be California

  Gmaj7               Am7           B
I wish they all could be California girls

And speaking of “California Girls,” here’s what might be the most surprising take on the song you’ll ever hear, with Mike Love, Mahavishnu John McLaughlin, and Charles Lloyd. Not from a dream.

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[More about the Beach Boys–Lloyd connection here.]

Giggles and glances

Marcel is enduring the actress Rachel’s dreadful recitation:

Marcel Proust, Finding Time Again, trans. Ian Patterson (London: Penguin, 2003).

Oh those young people. I recall from grad school days a poetry reading with an ultra-distinguished poet who begged off reading his work after repeated starts and stops. He had a cold. He announced that he would comment on his poems, which would be read by the fellow who introduced him, a Jesuit priest who had not been prepared for this eventuality. (Who would be?) I think it was a line about thighs &c. that set us off — just the incongruity of it all.

On a more reserved note, I recall sitting at a dinner table with my friend Rob Zseleczky, both of us waiting to see how one was supposed to eat an artichoke. Innocents abroad, or at least in someone else’s house. I bet Rob would remember it too. Our host was gracious.

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Today’s Saturday Stumper

Today’s Newsday Saturday Stumper, by Matthew Sewell, is a tough puzzle that took me forty-one minutes to solve. (Your minutes may vary.) I started briskly with 1-A, three letters, “Color close to silver”; 1-D, four letters, “Tender feeling”; 9-A, four letters, “Latter-day cheaters”; and 12-D, four letters, “Marvel debut of ’63.” And then my pace slowed considerably.

Matthew Sewell knows how to put the um in Stumper. 28-D, five letters, “Fortes”? 32-A, three letters, “Bar display”? Um . . . no idea. At least not right away.

Some clue-and-answer pairs I especially liked:

3-D, seven letters, “Thrown-together attention-getter.” I just discovered that the answer is in Merriam-Webster.

14-D, eleven letters, “They take the edge off.” I was thinking of files and sandpaper.

25-D, ten letters, “Medieval military governments.” Just a surprising word to see.

35-D, eight letters, “Two shovels for ‘work available,’ for example.” I should have known this one immediately.

43-A, five letters, “Rome’s ___-Shelley Memorial House.” Every crossword reference to ___ or Shelley reminds me of my friend Rob Zseleczky.

43-D, six letters, “Submits for approval, perhaps.” Clever.

57-A, four letters, “Snow the heat, maybe.” Also clever.

61-A, three letters, “Common rack range.” The clue redeems the answer.

My favorite from this puzzle; 8-D, eight letters, “Kingston trios, often.” I wrote in an answer, no crosses, no nothing. It had to be, thought I. And it was. Is the answer plausible, really? Trios? I’m not sure. But for a moment I felt that Matthew Sewell and I were having a mind meld.

No spoilers: the answers are in the comments.

Today’s Saturday Stumper

Today’s Newsday Saturday Stumper, by Greg Johnson, made for a challenging half hour of solving. The puzzle looks daunting, with eleven-, thirteen-, and fifteen-letter answers across the top and bottom. I started with 16-A, four letters, “They’re easy to take,” and my incorrect answer was still good enough to get me started. When I put in my final answer, for 21-D, four letters, “Guy from Charlottesville,” I had no idea why the answer made sense and thought it couldn’t be right. Maybe it didn’t make sense. But it was correct. Done and baffled, that was me.

Oh, wait — I typed those sentences, and now the answer makes sense. My love/hate relationship with that kind of clue continues. These fingers, dear hearts, is always a-warrin’ and a-tuggin’, one agin t’other.

Some clue-and-answer pairs I especially liked:

7-D, four letters, “ER’s critical supply.” Clever, especially as the answer could be clued in a more straightforward way.

9-D, seven letters, “Window box favorite.” I don’t know why I was confident about the answer, but I was. Dowdy intuition, maybe.

12-A, thirteen letters, “Qualifier for a silly statement.” Fresh, lively, and surprisingly easy to see with a couple of crosses.

20-A, three letters, “Qtr.’s baker's dozen.” A good way to make a mundane answer Stumpery.

28-A, six letters, “Cultural center?” Well done.

30-A, four letters, “Fictional Autobiography subject (1847).” Yes, 1847!

32-A, four letters, “To-go pieces.” As above: a good way to, &c.

33-D, eight letters, “Important decade in analysis.” I don’t know whether to admire or lament the effort probably required to make this clue tricky.

41-D, six letters, “‘The ___ of the moth for the star’: Shelley.” Seeing Shelley in a puzzle always makes me think of my friend Rob Zseleczky, the consummate Shelley reader.

One quarrel: 5-D, five letters, “Numbers on angels.” This clue feels awfully forced in the interest of Stumping. On? No, about.

No spoilers: the answers are in the comments.

RZ, i.m.

I miss my friend Rob Zseleczky. We will toast to his memory tonight.

Today’s Saturday Stumper

Today’s Newsday Saturday Stumper, by Brad Wilber, was surprisingly easy, aside from the southeast corner. But man oh man that southeast corner. It had arcana: 60-D, three letters, “Onetime North Island herbivore.” It had a tricky spelling: 48-D, six letters, “Trifling.” It had general weirdness: 59-A, eight letters, “Verdict of disapproval”; 64-A, six letters, “Creatively turbulent.” And it had a clue that reminded me of what must be my considerable distance from current trends in entertaining (62-A, eight letters, “Cutlery carrier”). I’m glad that those clues were not the whole puzzle.

Some clue-and-answer pairs I especially liked:

11-D, seven letters, “Boston Public Library muralist.” Because Boston.

16-A, eight letters, “Fashion effect aka ‘manscara.’” Not that I use the stuff.

25-D, seven letters, “108 Odyssey fellows.” I always like seeing Homer in a crossword. The 108 is an extra treat. And that is the number, which a reader can work out by adding numbers as Telemachus gives them in book 16.

36-A, four letters, “‘A nightingale who sits in darkness,’ per Shelley.” I like to think that my late friend Rob Zseleczky is pleased whenever Shelley turns up in a crossword.

46-A, five letters, “Many a paperweight.” Mine are rocks and tile trim.

And another one of the clue-and-answer pairs that baffle me until I begin typing them out: 58-D, three letters, “Fellow from Wheeling.”

No spoilers: the answers are in the comments.

Imaginary Derby

I watched the Kentucky Derby and began to think about assembling a field of twenty horses. Those horses are now approaching the starting gate:

Reflux : Hashtag : Ampersand : Metatarsal : Cohen’s Choice : Dear Landlord : Uncle Petrie : Occam’s Razor : Mister Rogers : Memphis Minnie : Strawberry Fields : Comey’s Dilemma : Waterloo Sunset : Sunset Boulevard : Gluten Intolerant : Montezuma’s Revenge : Mothership Connection : Ineluctable Modality : Kranmar’s Mystery Appetizer : All You Can Drink

This field is in memory of my friend Rob Zseleczky, who always exhorted his friends to watch the Kentucky Derby. I finally have. Rob would have appreciated the silliness of this list.

[Elaine’s horses: Hashtag, Cohen’s Choice, Mister Rogers, Strawberry Fields.]

WWRZS

Last night I tried to imagine what my friend Rob Zseleczky might have said about about the traces of CliffsNotes and SparkNotes in Bob Dylan’s Nobel Prize lecture. “He’s an outlaw, Michael,” I imagined Rob saying. “He doesn’t care what you think of him.” And then I imagined Rob laughing helplessly: “CliffsNotes!”

Shelley’s Jerry’s

A local pizza parlor was torn down, and all that remains on its large lot is a sign. I thought of lines from Shelley in which a traveler recounts what he read on the pedestal of a broken statue in the desert:

“‘My name is Jerry’s Pizza, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!’
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

My friend Rob Zseleczky would have gotten a kick out of this post.

[I follow many modern printings of “Ozymandias” by adding quotation marks around lines 10–11 for clarity.]

RZ, i.m.

My friend Rob Zseleczky died at this time three years ago. He was a poet and musician. These lines are from the poem “To —” (1821), by his favorite poet, Percy Bysshe Shelley. The period and dash (Shelley’s punctuation, not an editor’s) make me think of a string plucked and still sounding. We will toast to Rob’s memory tonight. Still sounding.

[Text from The Poems of Shelley, Volume Four: 1820–1821 , ed. Michael Rossington, Jack Donovan, and Kelvin Everest (Abingdon: Routledge, 2014).]