The Inclining Academic
As I wind down my time as the Dean of the College of Arts, Humanities, & Social Sciences, I have spent a good deal of time reflecting. The experience has been incredibly positive and successful, and all of that hinges on a particular philosophy: where do you locate success as a leader? Especially the origins … Continue reading Leadership: Where Do You Locate Success?
I have two daughters, both teenagers now, and I love them more than all things big and small, say, the morning sun or a haiku. They fascinate me. They try things and succeed in ways that leave my expectations slack jawed. They throw themselves bravely into new endeavors. Some of these adventures they love. Others … Continue reading The Fiction of Tough Love
One thing I've learned repeatedly, especially working in a public institution, is that success almost always arises from constraint. Artists have known this for a long time: say, a sculpture begins with a certain amount of stone; not only is that the total amount of material available, but the finished product will, by definition, become … Continue reading Constraint and Creativity
For the past few years, especially when saddled beneath Covid's heaviest weight, I would hear people say things like, "2020 can just f**k itself. I am SO ready to move on to next year." I feel safe in assuming that at least four of my five readers have expressed similar thoughts. This is how I … Continue reading What Does It Mean to End a Year?
Yes, the title is hyperbole, but I just read Daniel Herman's "The End of High School English" in The Atlantic. As all three of my readers know, I have been playing around a bit with AI images, writing, and voice. Herman's article, which is very much worth the time, pointed me to ChatGPT, which he … Continue reading The End of Student Writing
I've been playing around a bit with setting poetry to music, especially canonical works that incorporate rhyme or rhythm in a way that offer themselves as being more friendly to the definition of "song" in a pop sense. There are poems rendered here that you will recognize pretty easily: "Prufrock," "Stopping by Woods on a … Continue reading Canonical Dance Party
A lot of change in my life right now (mostly good but definitely bittersweet), and I will need to retrain my mind to move outside of daily processes, positions, and pathways that have been absolutlely necessary for nearly six years. Put another way, changing current habits is hard. Remembering some cherished habits of old, while … Continue reading Poetry can be Music, with even more Music
You know the drill. Here is an AI-inflected remix of "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening." Just click on the title of this post and shazam, the audio player will become visible. Midjourney rendering of Robert Frost's "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" "Get Out, Get Out Robert Frost" via GargageBand, via murph.ai, … Continue reading Get Out, Get Out Robert Frost!
I took an old poem of mine, "Liketown," and imported some complete stanzas and other reworked phrases into MURF.AI to act as pre-chorus and chorus elements (the verses are original stanzas). The voice I selected was dubbed "Terrell," who is described vocally as a "middle-aged male." My favorite voice on murf.ai In GarageBand I tried … Continue reading Another AI & Tech Experiment