"But as real celebrities and influencers try to be perceived as more 'authentic,' many A.I. influencers like Miquela and Mia Zelu are leaning into their unrealness..."

"... proudly claiming their robot monikers in their bios and having no shame about posting in Hong Kong at 3 p.m. and in New York an hour later. In fact, the teams behind them feel the lack of a corporeal form may be their best selling point. 'From a brand perspective, we are able to create a very dynamic story line,' Ms. Kahn said. 'So Miquela can be, for example, in London one day supporting an art gallery opening, and in L.A. the same day to support a new coffee shop that she really likes, right? I think brands love that she can be anywhere... I think the next generation isn’t really thinking as much about is this person real or not?... It’s more about: 'What does this account stand for?'"

I'm reading "They’re Famous. They’re Everywhere. And They’re Fake. Influencers like Lil’ Miquela and Mia Zelu have millions of followers and generate serious income, despite being created with artificial intelligence" (NYT).

1. Who's "Ms. Kahn"? Who cares?

2. I like how they put "authentic" in quotes.

3. What's the difference between A.I. "influencers" like Miquela and old-time ad mascots like Tony the Tiger and the Trix rabbit?

4. You know who else can be in Hong Kong and then in New York an hour later? Santa Claus. Kids have accepted his dictates as long as I can remember. At least Miquela isn't demanding that we be "good" and threatening us with a list. Or is it only a matter of time?

5. Here is what reality must compete with:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Miquela (@lilmiquela)

6. Maybe she and her ilk are saving us all from the trouble of striving to excel at fakeness. We're free at last. Now, what?

7. What if the people you met in real life were like Miquela, putting their plastic cup on their head and affecting an expression of inane ecstasy? And maybe they already are... and have been for a long time. I went running to find this passage from "My Dinner With André," a movie that came out more than 40 years ago:

... I turned the television on, and there was this guy who had just won the something something, you know, some sports event, some kind of a great big check and some kind of huge silver bottle, and he, you know, you know, he couldn’t stuff the check in the bottle, and he put the bottle in front of his nose and pretended it was his face, you know, he wasn’t really listening to the guy who was interviewing him, but he was smiling, huh, malevolently at his friends, and I looked at that guy and I thought “What a horrible, empty, manipulative rat.” Then I thought, “That guy is me.”

8. Writing #7 — "What if the people you met" — made me think of an old song that I gradually realized was "Who Are the Brain Police?"

"It is impossible to avoid slop these days. Slop is what we now call the uncanny stream of words and photos and videos that artificial intelligence spits out...."

"'Slop bowl'  is the term many use for the nebulous mash of ingredients served up at fast-casual restaurants.... TikTok feeds, meanwhile, are overtaken by streams of 'fast fashion slop.' Thousands of users have embraced the genre of the 'Shein Haul' reveal.... Kyla Scanlon, an economic commentator who coined the term 'vibecession,' notes that across different kinds of consumption... people are choosing to minimize thought and maximize efficiency, even when the outcome is a little less expressive (your outfit is the same as everyone else’s), a little less satisfying (your lunch bowl tastes just like yesterday’s) or a little less human.... Some psychiatrists say it makes sense that being confronted with nonstop online slop comes with cognitive downside.... So now some posters and shoppers are trying to edge away from it...."

Writes Emma Goldberg, in "Living the Slop Life/Slop videos. Slop bowls. Slop clothing hauls. When did we get so submerged in the slop-ified muck?" (NYT).

Sometimes a word helps us perceive and understand and react to a problem. A word can shape or change the problem. Is "slop" accurate? Is it propaganda?

What are the words that have worked like that?

"C.E.O. Choked Man Who Danced Barefoot on Cruise Ship...."

A NYT headline speaks of the recent trend of throwing your life away for nothing.

The altercation began shortly after Mr. DeGiorgio’s wife had confronted the man about barefoot dancing, telling him, “Look, we are all grown-ups here — can you put your shoes on?” Mr. DeGiorgio’s wife told investigators that the man had made a crude remark to her, and the security video showed him giving her the middle finger, according to the F.B.I...

I looked it up. The "crude remark" was "Shut up, you fucking bitch." 

We're told DeGiorgio's pay package (at First American Financial) is $7.8 million.

What's so bad about taking your shoes off to dance? It can be a way to be quieter, more graceful, or to protect the dance floor — think sock hop. And I've heard the wistful longing: There will come a time when you can even take your clothes off when you dance.

"We're all fat," said Trump, last night, in his big — really big — big fat rally in Wildwood, New Jersey.

New Jersey! He came to New Jersey. They capture him in the courtroom 4 days out of the week, and they seem to be hoping he'll barely be able to campaign, but there he was, expanding his scope beyond the battleground states and into one of Biden's supposedly safe states, New Jersey.

I see how the mainstream media has been covering the rally. WaPo has "Trump insults prosecutor at Jersey Shore rally filled with vulgar jabs/The presumptive Republican nominee spoke at a large rally where there were plenty of personal attacks and vulgar expressions from Trump and his supporters." Large? How large? WaPo says "thousands," but Trump was saying 80,000. 

Anyway, I watched the whole thing, and I heard the "vulgar jabs." I just wanted to quote this:

You look at the Afghanistan disaster. You look at the border. You look at the real economy, not the fake economy. Everything they touch turns to what?

The thousands cry out "Shit!" He teasingly chides:

You shouldn't use that kind of language. Look, you can't use the word "shit," okay? 

Large iceberg the size of a small iceberg... I mean, large iceberg the size of the smallest state.

"'It’s a state-sized iceberg. It’s a big, big iceberg, it’s also equivalent to about the size of Rhode Island,' said Walter Meier, a senior research scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center."

From "A ‘megaberg’ three times the size of New York City is on the move" (WaPo).

That headline got me. "Megaberg" sounds like it means large mountain, and a large mountain is "on the move."

If you're like me, you thought "Billy the Mountain." 

They left that night, crunchin' across the Mojave desert/Their voices echoing through the canyons of your minds/"Ethel, want to get a cuppa cawfee?"/"There's a Howard Johnson's want to eat some clams?"

"I changed the door panels on an old 56 Chevy, and replaced some old floor tiles, made some landscape paintings, wrote a song called 'You Don’t Say.'"

"I listened to Peggy Lee records. Things like that. I reread 'Rime of the Ancient Mariner' a few times over. What a story that is. What a poem. If there’d been any opium laying around, I probably would have been down for a while. I listened to The Mothers of Invention record Freak Out!, that I hadn’t heard in a long, long time. What an eloquent record. 'Hungry Freaks, Daddy,' and the other one, 'Who Are the Brain Police,' perfect songs for the pandemic."

That is what Bob Dylan (says he) did during the lockdown.

Let's all read "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" for Bob.

And I had done a hellish thing,
And it would work 'em woe:
For all averred, I had killed the bird
That made the breeze to blow. 

As for Zappa, he was alerting us to "The emptiness that's you inside" ("Hungry Freaks, Daddy") and raising the question whether the people we know are melted plastic and soft chrome ("Who Are the Brain Police?").

The perfection for the pandemic of "Brain Police" must have to do with the long middle section repeating "I think I'm gonna die" and "I'm gonna die." It's interesting to picture Bob grooving on that and thinking How eloquent... perhaps while laying floor tiles.

"Wait a second. Who did what to whom? Kavanaugh’s 'friends pushed his penis into the hand of a female student'?"

"Can someone explain the logistics of the allegation here? Was Kavanaugh allegedly walking around naked when his friends pushed him into the female student? No, if I’m reading [NYT reporters] Pogrebin and Kelly right, the friends didn’t push Kavanaugh in the back. Rather, the 'friends pushed his penis.' What? How does that happen? Who are the friends? Who is the female student? Were there any witnesses besides [the classmate Max] Stier? All that the authors write in the New York Times essay about corroborating the story is this: 'Mr. Stier, who runs a nonprofit organization in Washington, notified senators and the F.B.I. about this account, but the F.B.I. did not investigate and Mr. Stier has declined to discuss it publicly. (We corroborated the story with two officials who have communicated with Mr. Stier.)' So they corroborated the fact that Stier made the allegation to the FBI, but the authors give no indication that they have corroborated any details of the alleged incident. The book isn’t released until Tuesday, but Mollie Hemingway got a copy, and she writes on Twitter: 'The book notes, quietly, that the woman Max Stier named as having been supposedly victimized by Kavanaugh and friends denies any memory of the alleged event.' Omitting this fact from the New York Times story is one of the worst cases of journalistic malpractice in recent memory."

From "The New York Times Anti-Kavanaugh Bombshell Is Actually a Dud" by John MacCormack (National Review).

The NYT article — "Brett Kavanaugh Fit In With the Privileged Kids. She Did Not. Deborah Ramirez’s Yale experience says much about the college’s efforts to diversify its student body in the 1980s"— now has an update:

An earlier version of this article, which was adapted from a forthcoming book, did not include one element of the book's account regarding an assertion by a Yale classmate that friends of Brett Kavanaugh pushed his penis into the hand of a female student at a drunken dorm party. The book reports that the female student declined to be interviewed and friends say that she does not recall the incident. That information has been added to the article.

Note that Deborah Ramirez is not the person in the incident alleged by Max Stier. The Max Stier allegation is used to corroborate the Deborah Ramirez allegation — which is that Kavanaugh, drunk at a party, exposed his penis in some sort of "thrust" near her and that she reacted by hitting him in the penis.

The article — as you can see from the headline — is mostly about class difference. Some young people supposedly felt at home with whatever was going on at parties like that, and some were lost and alienated. That is a serious problem with college life, I'm willing to believe, but I'd rather see it reported and analyzed as a free-standing problem, not appropriated for the purpose of taking down a political enemy.

And I'd like to know: When is it okay to hit a naked man in the penis? When can people get naked at parties and waggle their genitalia at each other? I don't fit in with that kind of partying either — and I never did — so I'd like a sober, neutral explanation. I'm inclined to believe that people at private parties can get naked. We were just talking about Woodstock, that revered historical event where young people got naked. In the words of Frank Zappa:

There will come a time when everybody who is lonely
Will be free to sing and dance and love
There will come a time when every evil that we know
Will be an evil that we can rise above
Who cares if you're so poor you can't afford
To buy a pair of mod-a-go-go stretch elastic pants?
There will come a time when you can even take your clothes off when you dance

Clearly, Zappa was making fun of the hippies' high hopes for naked dancing. That song is from 1968, a year before Woodstock, and a decade and a half before Kavanaugh's Yale party days. And here we are today — 40 or 50 years after that youthful revelry — judging those people. I'd love to analyze the whole thing, and I'd even like to see a strongly feminist analysis. But this get-Kavanaugh motivation makes it all twisted and tainted with lust for political power.

Any way the wind blows.

In the comments on the post about the smelliness of a particular city in Iowa, stever writes: "I lived in Pampa,TX for awhile in the late 70s. There was a paint plant on one end of town and a rendering plant on the other. To paraphrase Bob Dylan, you only needed a nose to know which way the wind blows."

So Bob Dylan wrote, wrote "You don't need a weather man/To know which way the wind blows," which is about understanding what's happening. It brought a similar phrase to mind — "Any way the wind blows" — which means just about the opposite, more unknowing than knowing. It is closer to another famous Dylan phrase "no direction home." If you go any way the wind blows, you go wherever outside forces take you; you're an aimless wanderer. So it's not surprising the phrase comes up again and again in songs — most notably in Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody."



And thanks to Queen for putting that video up on their official YouTube feed and with no ad. That shows some nice respect for their fans, and I hope I'm returning the favor by embedding them here and inviting all the love possible for this overflowingly generous band.

Now, I can't wear on your patience long enough to point out how many different songs have the title "Any Way the Wind Blows"...



But look at Doris Day — so wholesome, but kind of dirty:



And here's a different song with the same title. It's the one that's stuck in my personal memory bank — in 2 really different versions. You've got the Mothers of Invention of "Freak Out"...



... and the insanely, delightfully slowed down rendition by the Mothers in the form of Ruben and the Jets...



But maybe you like this kind of thing, slick country rock from the 1980s. Same title, but again, a completely different song:

50 years ago today — The Mothers of Invention released "Freak Out!"

"Often cited as one of rock music's first concept albums, the album is a satirical expression of frontman Frank Zappa's perception of American pop culture. It was also one of the earliest double albums in rock music (although Bob Dylan's Blonde on Blonde preceded it by a week)...."

It's not too late to ask...



Who Are The Brain Police?

And the other important questions, still so relevant today: What will you do when the label comes off and the plastic's all melted and the chrome is too soft? and What will you do if the people you knew were the plastic that melted and the chromium too?

I've been asking that question for 50 years.

What Van Dyke Parks found "so oxygenating about the Beat era."

"When I walked into a coffeehouse, eclecticism was not a big word. It was good to be interested in a whole bunch of stuff."

Audiences embraced it. Audiences were jolted by it. They did not resent it. They didn’t need to be told what to think. I’m not prepared to tell people what to think. I may leave more questions than answers. I believe that anything worth its salt in the arts must create a wobble. We are not polestars We are here struggling in the dynamics of justice, between the absolutism of faith and reasonable doubt.

Parks, who worked years ago with The Mothers of Invention and The Beach Boys,  has a new album called "Songs Cycled." 

ADDED: I'm not sure that quote says anything. I just liked the idea of finding beatniks oxygenating. I started a beatnik tag and went back and added it to old posts, so click for all my beatnik-related postings.

"Hi Boys and Girls, I'm Jimmy Carl Black, and I'm the Indian of the group."

Jimmy Carl Black, RIP.



ADDED: The album cover above is "We're Only in It for the Money," one of my favorite records, which is full of great songs including one that I think is just as appropriate for election eve as that one Andrew Sullivan saw fit to quote today. It goes like this:

There will come a time when everybody
Who is lonely will be free...
To sing & dance & love
There will come a time when every evil
That we know will be an evil...
That we can rise above
Who cares if hair is long or short
Or sprayed or partly grayed...
We know that hair ain't where it's at
(There will come a time when you won't
Even be ashamed if you are fat!)
Wah wah-wah wah
There will come a time when everybody
Who is lonely will be free...
To sing & dance & love (dance and love)
There will come a time when every evil
That we know will be an evil...
That we can rise above (rise above)
Who cares if you're so poor you can't afford
To buy a pair of mod a go-go stretch-elastic pants...
There will come a time when you can even
Take your clothes off when you dance

It’s Big Band night on American Idol—just to taunt poor John Stevens.

Diana comes out in a too-tight purple nightie and pretends to be a grown woman as she sings “Someone to Watch Over Me.” She’s allowed to hold onto the mike and give a little speech about why she choose the song and she does an ultra-sly dedication to “everyone who’s in the army” because they “watch over” us. She’s too cute and cheesy doing this speech, but you can’t blame the kid. Obviously, she was put up to it. She orders the audience to stand up—oh, how I hate when performers insist that the audience entertain them! I’ve always refused to take these orders and was reinforced in this resistance at an early age, in 1969, when Frank Zappa, leading The Mothers of Invention at the Fillmore East, instructed the audience through various steps of an elaborate performance, which I didn’t do. After everyone (else) did it, he insulted them for taking orders and acting like trained seals. It’s odd that other performers don’t insult audiences for their fawning overenthusiasm. Instead, it’s all “I can’t hear you!” Now, Diana launches into a song “made famous” by “Miss Judy Garland”: “C’mon Get Happy.” It’s too easy to say but I’ll say it: I’m not happy. By the way, the reason the song gives for getting happy is that Judgment Day is coming. So apparently, it’s the mindlessly giddy who get to go to heaven. Another side track: the greatest work of art that I can’t stand is Michelangelo’s "Last Judgment". Apparently, for Judgment Day you not only have to get happy, you have to get naked. Diana gets praise, except that Simon criticizes her for singing in an "old" style, which is an idiotic criticism considering that the style was imposed on her.

Twenty minutes into the show, the second singer, George Huff, appears, and he’s singing “Dancing Cheek to Cheek”—a song I can’t help associating with the movie "Sibyl" (not "Top Hat"). George seems pretty comfortable singing like this, and his usual innate happiness goes well with the style. He takes the mike and doesn’t embarrass himself, then goes into “What a Wonderful World.” It’s nice to see this oversmiler sing a Louis Armstrong song, because the connection to Armstrong gives profundity to the habit of excessive smiling. Suddenly, I’m a Huffite! Randy says “Safe,” Paula is enchanted, and Simon agrees with Randy. Hmmm…. I may have to vote for the first time this season. The old “cruise ship” insult is wheeled out (sailed out).

Next is La Toya London. And let me just take this occasion to say that my father, who loved Big Band music, loved a singer named London and I grew up believing that the greatest musical genius in the history of the world was Julie London. And the model for all womanhood was Julie London. (My mother loved Big Band too: her favorite was Frank Sinatra, a fact that I believe I owe my existence to, because my father, as a young man, looked enough like Frank Sinatra that people used to ask him for his autograph. My parents met in the army—they were “watching over" us in WWII. So there are good things and bad that I feel I owe my existence to.) But back to La Toya! She’s got the marcelled hair that is a bit 20s for Big Band, but who’s going to notice? She sings “Too Close For Comfort”—great lyrics. She brings some good excitement to the song. In the talk segment, she loses it and garbles everything, then goes into a song from “Funny Girl.” Hmmm…. Let’s just pretend “Don’t Rain On My Parade” is a Big Band song. Let’s see if the judges call “Broadway” on her (that, along with “cruise ship” and “wedding singer,” is a favorite insult on the show). Randy is hooting, he loves it. You were meant to sing this kind of music---hmmm …. Doesn’t that mean she’s not suited to be the American Idol? Paula says this means she can put out an album of (presumably) Broadway songs and sell “millions and millions.” Well, if that’s the music business, why has “Broadway” traditionally been an insult on this show? Let’s see if Simon has the nerve to cut through this crap: “10 out of 10 for a very good Broadway performance.” But nothing more. Well, I can put 2 and 2 together. He doesn’t want to criticize her, but he just did.

Now it’s Jasmine. “The Way You Look Tonight”—a beautiful song. She has a beautiful tone sometimes, but hits a lot of wrong notes. And what’s with wearing jeans on Big Band night? Speaking of the way you look. The second song is “It’s Almost Like Being In Love,” another beautiful song. I see a vision of Jasmine being kicked off the show tomorrow night. Randy and Paula babble. Simon predicts doom. Me too.

Finally, Fantasia. Somehow she’s allowed to sing “a Queen classic,” “This Thing Called Love." Did I hear that right? I don’t get it. Then she gets to sing “a Barbra Streisand classic” “What Are You Doing the Rest of Your Life?”—how is that the Big Band era? Anyway, Fantasia is screeching and utterly lacks the elegance for this kind of singing. These are love songs, but she says she’s singing to her little brother and her daughter. Randy finds her “absolutely brilliant.” Paula’s crying—give me a break! Simon says Fantasia and La Toya are “in a different league.” Which makes me worry that Fantasia’s in trouble--it's too much like the divas comment that led to Jennifer Hudson's ouster. And La Toya was clearly the better of the two, so that comment is going to cause people to pick which of those two they prefer. I think George was the best, and since he got comments that will make his fans see him as needing help, he'll be saved. Fantasia got overlavish praise, which could lead to complacency amongst the voters, and there have been no warnings tonight about the dangers of complacency--no reminders about Jennifer Hudson to stimulate the Fantasia fans.

I’m predicting the bottom three as: Jasmine, Fantasia, and La Toya. I see Diana and George as safe. Jasmine should go, but Fantasia might go! Tomorrow should be interesting: a possible shocker.

UPDATE: Given some of those song choices, maybe the original theme was something like "classic love songs" (or "tribute to John Stevens"). That would also have explained some of the costume choices, which were anything by the 1940s. It in no way looked like the great Big Band show from the first season (when Kelly really shone). But then, I'm thinking, they just for no good reason decided to let La Toya sing "Don't Rain on My Parade," which was the only song last night that wasn't a sweet, croony love song (of the type Stevens lives to sing), so they just renamed the theme, which left Fantasia looking silly. I almost suspect the producers of having decided to force the Fantasia-La Toya showdown to happen early, not to be the finale (which people seem to be predicting). You need that drama. But why they would want La Toya to survive and Fantasia to leave early is a bit of a puzzle? Fantasia is the most entertaining character among the contestants.

In which Althouse has a psychedelic flashback. I don't know about you, but sometimes I've tried to remember, what were the shows I saw at the Fillmore East? I remembered some of the bands, but who really were the others? So I was thrilled to find this site, which is trying to list every act and every show.

So who played with The Mothers of Invention in 1969? The date was Feb. 21/22, and the opening acts were Chicago and The Buddy Miles Express. And I went to see Neil Young & Crazy Horse one night in 1970 and the opening acts were The Steve Miller Band and Miles Davis! When did I see The New Riders of the Purple Sage play with The Grateful Dead? 1970? 1971? I can't tell from this, because there are several such shows. When I saw them there was a third act, which played in the middle, that was just Pig Pen and Jerry Garcia on acoustic guitars. It must have been May 15, 1970, because I remember hearing them make a big deal about the upcoming concert with Crosby, Stills & Nash, which caused us to scoff and shake our heads in dismay. Rock and Roll was over and people like them were destroying it! Or was it this night, when "Phil places two bass notes that are just perfect."

Remember when people were all excited about Delaney & Bonnie? And who were Mason & Elliot that they were headliners? (Oh.) Remember when people were crazy for Ten Years After? Remember The Hello People (they played at my high school once)("It's a Monday Kind of Tuesday"... or was it Wednesday?). Remember Elephant Memory? Or am I mixing them up with Crazy Elephants? And who were Cactus? How could they have topped Edgar Winter and Humble Pie some night in 1971? And there's Elton John, late of American Idol, already headlining in 1971 (with Wishbone Ash and Sea Train).

And there's T. Rex in 1971--was it already T. Rex or was it still Tyrannosaurus Rex? (We played their album Unicorn all the time in 1970.) In 1970, you could have seen The Incredible String Band (I knew people who worshipped them!) along with The Stone Monkey Mime Group (good lord! who were they?). And who were Soft White Underbelly, Grootna, and Blodwyn Pig?

Looking for some answers, I ran across Fuzz Acid & Flowers, which is an amazing compilation of info about "U.S. psych and garage music 1964 - 1972," with "band histories/musical analysis on over 5,400 US acts of the era." Great fun browsing just for the psychedelic names. We remember Strawberry Alarm Clock, but there was also Strawberry Tuesday and Strawberry Window. Was there Orange? Of course: Orange Colored Sky, The Orange Groove, and The Orange Wedge. How about "electric"--was that a popular psychedelic word? Here's the official list:

The Electrical Banana
The Electric Company
Electric Firebirds
The Electric Flag
Electric Hair
Electric Junkyard
Electric Love
Electric Piano Playground
The Electric Prunes
The Electric Screwdriver
Electric Toilet
Electric Tomorrow
Electric Train
Electrified People
The Electro Magnetic Flowerseed
The Electronic Concept Orchestra

And I love the places where the same psychedelic idea struck several groups independently:

Stix and Stoned
Stix and Stones
Stix & Stonz

Okay, enough of that. Go make your own discoveries. I've got admissions files and a law review edit and income tax forms ...

Oh, and that previous entry, which looks psychedelic next to this one--it's a Monday kind of Tuesday/It's a Thursday kind of Saturday--is just about the NYT crossword puzzle. ... In case you're inclined to worry about me! Did you finish the Saturday puzzle?