"I can’t describe the feeling it gives you. It reminded me of when other cultures say, 'Don’t take my picture because it is taking away your soul.'"

Said Tim Burton, quoted in "Tim Burton hits out at ‘disturbing’ AI, likens it to a robot ‘taking’ your soul" (CNN). 

He was referring to a Buzzfeed article that used AI to rework Disney movies — “Frozen,” “The Lion King,” “Sleeping Beauty,” and “The Little Mermaid” — into Tim Burton movies.

"It takes something from your soul or psyche; that is very disturbing, especially if it has to do with you. It’s like a robot taking your humanity, your soul."

Presumably, if a human being worked up the same idea — in Mad Magazine, for example — it wouldn't be disturbing. It would be the grand old tradition of satire and parody. But it's just too easy for AI to run with ideas like this and produce a fully realized image.

Here's the Buzzfeed article. Actually, the images are not very good. They get boring very fast. Maybe it hurts Burton's feelings that his style is banal. Why does he feel AI is stealing his "soul"? If he's an artist, he should have way more soul than anything that's reflected in these pictures, which seems to be an idiotic attachment to big-eyed girls.

"We all need to think to keep things straight, but we mostly think by talking."

"We need to talk about the past, so we can distinguish the trivial, overblown concerns that otherwise plague our thoughts from the experiences that are truly important. We need to talk about the nature of the present and our plans for the future, so we know where we are, where we are going, and why we are going there. We must submit the strategies and tactics we formulate to the judgments of others, to ensure their efficiency and resilience. We need to listen to ourselves as we talk, as well, so that we may organize our otherwise inchoate bodily reactions, motivations, and emotions into something articulate and organized, and dispense with those concerns that are exaggerated and irrational.... An individual does not have to be that well put together if he or she can remain at least minimally acceptable in behavior to others.... We outsource the problem of sanity.... If you begin to deviate from the straight and narrow path—if you begin to act improperly—people will react to your errors before they become too great, and cajole, laugh, tap, and criticize you back into place. They will raise an eyebrow, or smile (or not), or pay attention (or not). If other people can tolerate having you around, in other words, they will constantly remind you not to misbehave, and just as constantly call on you to be at your best. All that is left for you to do is watch, listen, and respond appropriately to the cues.... [You need] to appreciate your immersion in the world of other people—friends, family members, and foes alike—despite the anxiety and frustration that social interactions so often produce."

From Jordan Peterson's new book, "Beyond Order/12 More Rules for Life" (p. 3). 

Do you "outsource the problem of sanity"? When other people "raise an eyebrow, or smile (or not), or pay attention (or not)," when they "cajole, laugh, tap, and criticize you back into place," it isn't always only to cue you that you've erred. It is also to control you and to fool you into thinking that there are limits that just don't exist. 

And why did he say "the problem of sanity"? He could have said — We outsource the process of understanding whether we are sane or We outsource the problem of detecting our own insanity. Isn't that what he meant? It would be funny to think that sanity is a problem. 

ADDED: I looked up the "sanity" quotes at Goodreads, and I did this because I expected to find what I found — the kind of sanity-skeptical attitude that's been popular in America for as long as I can remember.

2 of the top 6 are from Edgar Allan Poe:

“I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity.” 

And:

“Men have called me mad; but the question is not yet settled, whether madness is or is not the loftiest intelligence– whether much that is glorious– whether all that is profound– does not spring from disease of thought– from moods of mind exalted at the expense of the general intellect.” 

There's also Mark Twain: “Sanity and happiness are an impossible combination.”

Tim Burton: “One person's craziness is another person's reality.” "

J.K. Rowling: “Don't worry. You're just as sane as I am.” 

And George Santayana: “Sanity is a madness put to good uses.”

ALSO: Reading more deeply into the quotes, I find exactly the line I expected to see (attributed to Akira Kurosawa): "In a mad world, only the mad are sane."

Tim Burton's live-action "Dumbo."

Too "uncanny valley" or nicely magical?

I'm interested in a movie about Margaret Keane, whose husband Walter Keane presented himself as the painter of those horrid "Big Eyes" children.

I love the subject, the director Tim Burton is someone I've followed over the years, and the stars Amy Adams and Christopher Waltz are fine actors. But I'm put off by the still the studio has presented to represent the film:



The woman is the real painter, the husband the phony. Yet there's so much wrong with this image. First, you don't paint with the canvas in a frame. Second, a painter's palette is held with a thumb through the hole. I'm seeing a woman awkwardly posing as an artist, looking back after a first attempt as if to say "Like this?"

Anyway, here's a June 1986 article in People magazine about Margaret's lawsuit against her ex-husband:

"Unbeknownst to reporters, the State Dining Room had... been transformed into a secretive White House Wonderland."

According to the new book by Jodi Kantor.

Tim Burton decorated it “in his signature creepy-comic style. His film version was about to be released, and he had turned the room into the Mad Hatter’s tea party...

“Burton’s own Mad Hatter, the actor Johnny Depp, presided over the scene in full costume, standing up on a table to welcome everyone in character.”

ADDED: And:

The president's aides decided the party would send the wrong message at a time when the Tea Party was on the rise with its message against Washington's excesses and unemployment had risen sharply to ten per cent.

"White House officials were so nervous about how a splashy, Hollywood-esque party would look to jobless Americans or their representatives in Congress, who would soon vote on health care that the event was not discussed publicly and Burton's and Depp's contributions went unacknowledged...."

"Sleeping apart has in no way ruined our sex life — if anything, it has made it better."

"First, we are less tired and have more time for each other, and there's something quite erotic in 'visiting' your partner in her bed, then going back to your own room. Sleeping apart makes us calmer, nicer people. We have been very honest with each other and it takes a lot of reassurance to say: 'It isn't you, I just have to get a full night's sleep.'"

Yes, why not sleep apart? Why connect sex and sleeping at all? I think a lot of married couples have a bad sex life because they assume that sex is the last thing to do before falling asleep.

Here's nice tidbit:

Married couple Helena Bonham Carter and Tim Burton live in separate homes in London, linked by a single corridor.

That's a pretty cool arrangement.

Or maybe something like the Beatles' house: