I was going to do some music things this morning but turns out, someone had booked the music room. So instead I walked to the Cal ave market. First I stopped off in skilled nursing to visit my dying friend Pam. Asked if she wanted any fruit and she mentioned liking a peach. So I tasted all the peaches and got a couple nice ones.
At 3 we had a good times meeting, finalizing the sequence of songs. In the process my solo of “Try to Remember” got shuffled to the pre-show, 7:15 while the audience is coming in. That’s ok.
After the meeting I cut up one of the peaches, put it in a cup, and took it to Pam. That’s my good deed for the day.
Not sure what I did in the morning. Really. Don’t remember what I was doing between 8 and 12. By arrangement, I met with Joanne in the lobby at 12:30 and we walked to the annual Arts and Crafts Faire on University avenue. It was huge, stretching a couple of blocks longer than I remember, and in the end we didn’t see it all. Looked at — well, glanced at — a lot of art, pottery, clothes, photographs on aluminum panels, bad painting, ok a little bit of good painting. We split a barbecue sausage sandwich for lunch.
Then walked to the Museum of American Heritage, a small but fun local museum, just 2 blocks from Channing House, where they were having an open house. And walked home.
I, along with Judith, had been invited to dinner by Helen and Tom, who wanted to talk about AI, which we did. Nice little party.
In the morning had a pleasant walk with Joanne. She referred me to a very cogent column by David Brooks on “Republican nihilism” (paywall). Talked about how this chimed with other things we’d read and heard lately.
We drove down to the Mills’ house and had a chat with Dennis and with Toni, and loaded ink in his printer — which Joanne knew how to do better than I did.
Spent a bit more time trying to get AI image generators to act like real artists, and finally wrote a rant about them.
Spent a good part of the day struggling with block-headed AI image generators. Went out for a nice lunch with Joanne. Practiced some music. That was about it.
Took the standard walk, starting early, back by 9:30 despite lingering at Starbucks. Worked on editing yet another video.
At 10:30 I drove down to the Museum for an event: The Silicon Valley Womanhood project — yeah, I never heard of it either — was to unveil plaques for the first 4 of 20 woman to be honored, plaques to be mounted on the outside wall of CHM. All us volunteers got an invite weeks ago, we were supposed to RSVP, which I did, indicating I was bringing a guest because I thought maybe Joanne would be interested. In fact she was more interested in leading her usual Wednesday morning hike, so I came alone.
Which turned out to be a good thing because nobody showed up. I think I was probably the only person who RSVP’d. The event was to be at 11:30. I got there at 11, and sat around in the very nice outside courtyard at the museum until 11:25. There were the plaques on the wall, and a table with a few snacks, and maybe 6 people besides me? I think it must have been the four women being honored (one being a CHM docent, Nomi Trapnell) and maybe a couple of spouses, and that was it. I looked at this little huddle and thought, I don’t know these people, it would be ok if there was a crowd but I don’t want to be the only stranger in the group. So I tiptoed away and drove home.
Finished editing that second video, then spent the rest of the afternoon reading. In the evening we had a talk by the pastor of a church, the First Congregational, which is attended by a bunch of Channing House people. His subject was not religion as such, but the painter Caravaggio. I’d seen a couple of Caravaggio paintings and loved them. The speaker, David Howell, is a self-taught Caravaggio fan and has traveled widely to see his paintings, and had lots of interesting things to say about them. Like the one of David toting the head of Goliath,
I wouldn’t have known that the Goliath face is a self-portrait of the artist! But he painted himself into several of his paintings so they are sure this is him. At the time he was on the run from a sentence of death for a murder he committed, so this might have been a way of saying, you want to execute me? Here, this is me, executed.
Early down to the gym, only did one round of machines. Back up to dress and tidy the apartment. Then down to the music room where I did a solid rehearsal using the new iPad and the new foot pedal. That all worked.
Worked on editing the video of the talk from last week. Then the writers meeting, for which I was zoom host because Betty had a family obligation. After lunch finished the video and uploaded it. Then spent a couple of hours learning about AI video generators. I want to make a video to accompany the song I’m to sing at the Good Times show which is today exactly a month away. I didn’t get far. The “free” video generators don’t do much, or maybe I’m misunderstanding them.
At 7 I set down for the marathon of watching Schindler’s List, which I had not seen before. Yeesh that’s a lot of movie. And it’s well past my bedtime.
Took the standard walk starting early, finished it by picking up a prescription at CVS right at 9am. Then, since I have got John taking over some of the management of the AV group, including attendance at the monthly Event Coordinators meeting, I didn’t have to go to that, and could head straight out to FOPAL where I spent 2 hours processing about 8 boxes.
Back for a late lunch. I have the iPad and the ForScore app working correctly now, and today arrived another purchase, a little foot pedal device. It connects by bluetooth to the iPad, and I can set it on the floor and step on it to make the pages of music turn. So I don’t have to take my hands off the guitar to turn to the next page.
After supper I got a start at editing a video from the book talk on last Monday which I had been conveniently ignoring until Gigi called me to ask when it would be ready. Real soon now, as we used to say in the software development biz.
At 7:30 I went up to 11 where Patty was showing the movie her, about a guy who falls in love with an AI. Except when the movie was made 10 years ago, they weren’t using the term, so “Samantha” is called an OS. It’s a very well-made movie. The early stages of the romance between the guy and his computer could be–probably are being–played out today with LLMs (see here and here for a start). The later part where (spoiler) the AIs start evolving real intelligence? Not happening. Not with the present technology.
Usual Sunday morning activities. About 7:30 my mind was oppressed with a flock of little things that needed doing — “nickerty shit” as John Snow used to call it. I wrote out a to-do list and proceeded to slaughter that sucker in about 40 minutes. Later I put together a combined list of all the things Joanne and I have bought tickets for, so we could check that our calendars matched. Between two theaters (Bus Barn and the Pear) and concerts at Stanford and elsewhere, we have things planned out 10 months ahead.
One we haven’t planned is the Boogie Woogie Festival in November, which I’ve attended several years running. Just don’t feel motivated to do that this time. Despite the fact that last November, that was about the first real “date” I had with Joanne. Barely knew her then.
About 11 she texted, proposing a walk to Trader Joe’s which we did after lunch. We had been debating whether, and where, to buy new floor mats for Fred, whose front floor mats are worn out. I’d found a source for custom floor mats online, but she very practically said, you know, there’s a Subaru dealer in Redwood City, why don’t we check with them? Oh. Duh. Of course. We walk and talk about such serious matters, and dish on our neighbors.
Later I visited Pam in skilled nursing. I also spent time fiddling around with the iPad and the ForScore app. Finally this evening I hit the option to “reset all settings”. And suddenly it began behaving correctly.
In the morning, and again in the afternoon, I worked on getting all the songs that I had collected over the past two years, into the new iPad and organized with the ForScore app.
In between, I drove to the Museum and led the noon tour. Nice group of 25 or so, appreciative.
Down at 5:30 for an early supper. Finished supper about 6:15, just in time to meet Joanne in the lobby and get in the car and head for the Jewish Community Center for a concert. I’d never been inside the JCC, although it is right at the end of Charleston ave and I’ve driven past it easily a thousand times over the years. A very large complex of buildings with a huge parking garage. The concert was by 24 Corde Ensemble, a quartet of Italian guitarists playing a mix of classical and pop tunes. They were excellent, really fun to listen to and to watch.
Too much trouble to think of a headline for a varied day. Started with the delightfully habitual walk with Joanne. Line dance class was canceled this week, which was good, because I had a date to rehearse Supercalif-etc. with Susan, and Mary Robell coaching us. That went pretty well. Then at 11, the AI interest group, in which I am kind of losing interest. The others in the group are all about how can we help Channing House staff learn about and exploit AI and robots. In my view, CH staff does not want and won’t listen to, our helpful observations.
After lunch I worked on good times videos, and later on collecting my music files and getting them imported into the new iPad.
Broke off from that to visit Pam, who has decided she doesn’t want to do the oncology thing, chemo etc., to try to extend her life. She has put herself into Hospice care and is very frank about dying soon. She is clear-headed and matter-of-fact about it. “My organs are breaking down, my heart doesn’t want to talk to my liver, or something. Anyway, whatever.” She has a friend in North Carolina who is terminal with pancreatic cancer, and says “But I think I’m going to beat her to death.”
Codgerville 