Author: hollyfrostgoldportpress

By Holly the Assistant

A friend of mine, and one of the regulars here, is responsible for triggering this post by sharing an advertising clip. The person in question can admit to it or not, but credit-or blame-where it’s due and all that. Here is the ad clip:

Before we go any further, I should probably point out that I am, in fact, in my day to day life, a professional musician. Not full-time, which is why I have other gigs (like annoying Sarah, er, reminding her of deadlines and appointments), but I do in fact get paid to play, file taxes on said pay, collect a nice pile of receipts for tax deductions, and all that jazz. I have opinions. And my friend got a nice little rant, then I cleaned it up and fleshed it out for public consumption.

AI is destroying human creativity?

Aurochs coprolites. This comes up over and over, and it’s as foolish and ignorant of why humans create as anything ever was. In fact, if it’s not an AI writing it, it is written either by liars or the most uncreative humans who ever existed. The people who can only color a color by numbers picture, because they lack the creativity to decide what color the shapes should be.

First of all, let’s take the Arts and split them up. Not according to various schemes of utility, but according to whether or not they make original creations. When I sit down at my desk and write music, I am creating. When I sit down with my cello and play J.S. Bach Suite No. 1, I am NOT creating. When I sit down with my cello and improvise? Creating. Playwrights? Create. Actors? Interpret another’s creation so it may be observed by others. Actors? Also improvise, which is creation. Embroider by pattern? Not creating. Create your own pattern? Creating. Change the pattern slightly? Creating, just as arranging music is.

Got that? OK.

Now, when you go listen to me play J.S. Bach Suite No. 1, you are listening to me turning written on a page notes to music. You do not experience the creation, the music, directly, but you experience it through the intermediary of my performance. (Can anyone experience it directly? Yes, sort of: some of us can read music ‘out loud in our heads’. It’s a less common skill than reading words ‘out loud in your head’.)

When you go to the gallery, you experience the sculpture, the paintings, etc., directly. No one stands between you and the art.

When you listen to a recording of music, you are listening to the performance as it was recorded. Got that? You are not experiencing it as J.S. Bach writes it down, hundreds of years ago, you’re listening to someone’s interpretation of symbols on a page. (And we have very strong opinions on what exactly those symbols properly are, and if they’re recorded correctly in the urtext, and who actually wrote down the urtext, and . . . anyway, best discussed at a music school after a concert with adult libations and lots of pencils.)

When you listen to an AI generation of sounds, you are doing the same thing as listening to the recording of a performance. There is no performer present. Physically, it is you and the machine. The machine can create the same pattern of sounds over and over, or you can have it generate a new pattern of sounds, no different than listening to the same recording over and over or putting on a new recording.

Why do musicians play? Because we get something from the playing. Not pay–we often don’t make much if any money. A few do, many don’t break minimum wage. I tell my students to calculate their hours of preparation per performance, then divide the pay by the hours to get their hourly earnings. It’s enlightening: one doesn’t play a wedding for the money, working at McD’s usually pays better. But we’d play anyway, we’d put the practice in anyway, paid or unpaid, it’s what we do, not for a job, but because we are the sort of people who find pleasure in making music.

Why do composers write music? Because we can’t not write music. Why do writers write? Because they can’t not write. Why do painters paint? Because they can’t not paint.

If there were no money, we would still be creating. Humans create. We created stories and songs when we were crouched shivering around our first campfires. We created paintings of ocher on cave walls. We would be creating if we were crouching shivering around campfires in the burned out husks of our cities.

Humans create.

AI may affect how much and when humans get paid for creating, though I doubt it will be any more disruptive than recording and printing were. More people will create not for sale. But most people never created for sale, throughout human history. People create for comfort, for distraction, for education, for a variety of reasons. No one created all the great political commentary tunes of Europe for money (Sur le pont, Pop goes the weasel). No one even claimed credit for those–which would probably have been fatal. They, and their equivalents, will turn up over and over again.

For performing artists, we will continue to get paid by people who need to show social status by live performances, or who simply prefer live performances. (Recorded music has a flat affect to my perception. Not flat in pitch, but lacking depth and resonance.) For creating artists, they’ll find the same kinds of niches for pay.

The rest of humanity will grab some crayons or a guitar or an AI and create what we need when we need it. For creating humans, AI is just a tool. Fancier than some, too complicated for most to understand, and able to achieve close enough to the human’s vision to go on with, as long as it’s not overly restricted.

What makes us create? Well, for the non-religious, I couldn’t say. For the Christians and Jews, and other groups that consider Genesis holy writing, “In the image of God created He them.” We are created in the image of the Creator of all, so of course we create. Creation is an inherent part of what we are.

Now go tell your child a bedtime story, you creator, you.

(Note from Holly: Sarah is well, for a value of still getting over the never ending crud that’s going around. Alive, has eaten breakfast, has taken the editing pencil back from Indy cat who has decided to become an artist, we think . . . but it’s a bit of a time crunch on fiction and . . . dang it, Indy! Give that pencil back! Would y’all buy his artwork if we gave him colored pens and let him draw? Or books if he’s actually trying to write? I wouldn’t put writing past that cat.)

(originally posted here https://accordingtohoyt.com/2019/03/25/we-dont-make-ourselves/)

One of my grandmother’s favorite sayings, usually while excusing someone for something stupid or mean they’d done, or even more for continuous counter-productive behavior, was “we don’t make ourselves.”

True as far as that goes, and in the deep intersection between nature and nurture, it’s often very hard to tell who did what.

One of my kids tests off the scale for verbal reasoning/competency.  One of my kids tests off the scale for math.  Hint, they’re not the kid you’d expect, either for their professions/interests, or from interaction with them.

Partly, I think, because would-be verbal son is so introverted he’s not been around people enough to polish his verbal fluency.

Thing is, he could have, if it were a high value for him and he wanted to do it, get over his introversion and learn social graces and sociability.  I know. I acculturated pretty completely, (I’ll never acculturate as completely as if I’d grown up here, because a lot of the learning we do is before we can speak, but I’m say… 95% of the way there, and no worse than an American who spent his first year or two away from the US with foreign relatives, which you know very well happens) and culture is laid so deeply in that it’s not, but it acts like inborn characteristics.

Now breaking your habits of mind and behavior is hard. It feels like going insane. Our minds have all sorts of safeguards in place to prevent that happening, from distrust of what is strange, to the deep, abiding comfort of habit, which pulls you towards routine, which forms a great part of what you are.

You can’t do it without sufficient wish, sufficient will, sufficient motivation.

But it can be done.

We don’t make ourselves, but we sort of do.  Take the innate differences between male and female.  I realized how massive they were when younger son turned 14. I’ve always been an unusual strong female (perhaps not now. Years of illness have taken their toll.)  I don’t remember, anymore, how much I could lift at 30, but I remember the trainer telling me that it was more than the average male.  And I had greater endurance.  Which I already knew because through the many, many house moves of our thirties, Dan and I would consistently do most of the work, long outlasting any male friends who came to help (and in one notable occasion doing as much as an 8 person team of professionals, because yeah, we were paying but it had to be done sooner than they’d manage.)

HOWEVER that was in a time when I was in exceptionally good shape, and it’s not normal.  When younger son — who is a bit more inactive than the rest of this family and at the time had flab instead of muscles — turned out to be able to dead lift a 100 lb. cement sack when I couldn’t.  And I was in actual decent shape.  And he’d just started getting the call from Mr. Hormone, betrayed by a fall in voice register and a sudden and — to his mother startling — hairiness.

I.e. I know that males, including very young males get an advantage from testosterone that I simply don’t have.

If I wanted hard enough however, I probably could have maintained the strength of my younger years and be “stronger than the average male” (probably just stronger, not you know, overwhelmingy stronger.) which would still cause me to fold like wet kleenex when faced with a male with a modicum of training or in good shape (which I’m going to guess doesn’t describe the “average” male.)

I wasn’t willing to do that.  On this side of recovering from serious and prolongued illness, I’m doing my best to actually exercise. I don’t however have any interest in becoming exceptional at strength (if it’s possible, still, at my age, which I doubt.)  I just want to be in reasonable good shape, because I have better things to do with my time.

So, what is this in name of?

Oh. We don’t make ourselves.

There will be some time in your life when you’ll either come up against something you really, really want and aren’t good/strong/smart enough to get.  Or the thing you always wanted and were smart enough to get will disappoint you so greatly, break you so badly, that you won’t be sure you still want it, much less keep chasing it.  What was once interest and desire and the ability to work insanely will turn into “anything but that.”

I don’t know anyone my age who hasn’t experienced times like this at least once: either in career or in work, or with their children.

Sooner or later we all hit the wall and become profoundly broken and find it hard to take one more step, make one more attempt, reach for the brass ring once more.  My friend Dave Freer blogged about this.

You will experience this, even if you’re not a writer.  You will hit this wall. You will find yourself lost, with the beloved thing now an object of aversion, something you will give anything not to do/be/be around.

What then?

Obviously in the case of some marriages, some professions, even perhaps some living situations, for your sanity, for your peace of mind, for your survival you have to walk away.

But what if you don’t have anything to walk away to? What if you molded yourself into this thing you wanted to be for a lifetime, and you have no other goal, no other dream?

Well, then, again to quote grandma, you must forge your gut into a new heart. And you must march on.

Because you have nothing if you give it up. And you die. You either die physically or you kill a part of yourself. And you can’t go on.

No marriage, no career, no child rearing will be as it was in your dreams.  When you embarked on this, with flags flying and trumpets blowing, be fair, you had no clue what it was like.  You didn’t even know what it was truly like.

Just like no plan survives engagement with the enemy, no dream of “I want to be/do/create” ever lives up to the image in your mind.  And every career field, filled — alas — with humans is filled with suckitude and failure.  If you run from this, you’ll meet it again, sometimes over and over again. And you’ll die lost and embittered.

Forge your gut into a new heart and go on. Older, wiser, experienced, prepared.  And make the thing you love into as close as possible as what you imagined.  Ransom yourself from the depths of bitterness and horror and tiredness.

Be not afraid.

And I too will take my own medicine.

By Holly the Assistant

A couple days ago, Sarah had the bright idea of listing off a bunch of authors on X, and asking her followers who else writes and Xeets. So we have a list, of Indy, Trad, and whatever other flavors of writers are around. This also prompted me informing a whole lot of folks that if you get paid for it you are a professional, and yesterday’s repost at MGC of the Real Writer Certificate. (You can get yours here: https://madgeniusclub.com/2026/01/21/the-velveteen-author/)

Here is the list of Xeeting authors. They may or may not post politics, writing, or anything else: the single requirement was that someone who follows Sarah put the handle on the list. (FTR IndyAntifa is MadMike. Because trollolol.)

@davefreersf

@Jringo1508

@mcahogarth

@JulieCFrost

@TKratman

@NathanCBrindle

@BradRTorgersen

@karentraviss

@Sverizona

@The_Hankerchief

@JohnTaloni

@monsterhunter45

@zakueins

@Andrew_G_Nelson

@RocketPulpHack

@RickPartlow66

@TheJasonAnspach

@Hadrians_Gate

@hpcjoe

@wallywaltner

@DentonSalle

@JayMaynard

@Ogiel23

@KarlKGallagher

@paul_leone

@AlysssaHazel

@LydiaSherrer

@Devon_Eriksen_

@RileyCBolt

@RGWilliscroft

@AlastairMayer

@Dr_Mauser

@NewCoffiest

@Rhodri2112

@JohnBailey64182

@bpardoe870

@caitliniwalsh

@Jesse_A_Barrett

@raconteur_press

@WatcherDamned

@cedarlili

@HollyChism

@dagney_kavanagh

@IndyAntifa

@DavidB90524

@djwojcik57

@wombat_socho

@PulpHerb

@mmcshanewrites

@profornery

With that out of the way, you may notice that some of your favorite authors are pointing you to places other than Amazon a lot more than they have previously. This is likely mostly for the very practical reason that Amazon has been having some code issues lately. They appear to be fixing it as fast as they reasonably can, but it is, I am told by those who have reason to know, a large and kludgy amount of total code. They have informed authors of the problems, but the problems are on going, and if you encounter one on the buyer end, go ahead and report it to them.

For instance, I went hunting for a brand new book by a friend that I knew Sarah wanted a link for. Brand new, as in it had only dropped that moment, the friend had posted it on Facebook and as is the nature of Facebook, it put a bunch of tracking crud in the link. I had the author name and title in hand. And Amazon’s website refused to turn off the 4 stars plus filter for me. Which, being a brand new book, I could not find, because no one had yet finished reading it and starred it. I griped to friends: Nathan didn’t have the broken filter issue and was able to get the actual clean link for me.

That sort of silly code problem. If we can’t find books, we can’t buy books, and authors really like us to buy books.

And if no one told you, the new Dresden Files dropped yesterday. Early reports from friends include “Didn’t sleep” and “Work’s going to suck today but worth it”. So see you on the other side!

AND I got to see another chapter of the sequel to No Man’s Land. I adore the first voice character. She’s the kind of woman I aspire to be. Though maybe leaving fewer dead bodies behind . . . but they all deserve it, so . . . yeah. When I grow up, I want to be Vic.

By Holly the Assistant

(Last night Sarah messaged me that she wasn’t feeling well, would I please take the blog today? So please keep her in your prayers and good thoughts: half the folks I know are down with the winter crud right now and it’s a doozy.)

Good Morning, Usaians, and other Huns and Hoydens!

“Holly,” you ask, “Why are you posting this so many months before July?”

Well, I’m glad you asked. See, my life–since I was two–has been spent in the performing arts. Not the fancy movies kind, but the small, local shows kind. And I married a guy from a similar background, and we raised kids that way, and . . . six months before a show of this scale goes up, you better have a good idea what this production is going to look like.

And it IS a show. A HUGE show. Maybe the biggest show of our lives, for those of us born just after the 200th. So since I’m currently finishing up an arrangement of a group of nice, historical, patriotic songs, for my cello students to play (historical? Yes, do I look like I want to deal with ‘who even owns the copyright? Them? Ugh.’), and considering the ups and downs of playing in the local symphony’s Independence Day concert, I thought I’d poke around the net a bit for what other places are doing.

There’s an official website supposedly for everyone to list their celebrations on. Well, let me tell you, that’s not actually happening. Yet. Most places will probably get around to it eventually, but . . . I know of the local celebrations and none of them are there. https://america250.org/ But there ARE things going on at the national level. There’s a place to register your service hours. There’s a competition for the kiddos. There’s a video recording tour thing . . . interviews with Americans about what America means and you can nominate people for it. Please go nominate people for it. Our people’s voices should be included in the official records. You know the people–and if I list names I’ll have a bunch of grumpy dangerous folk mad at me, so just go do it.

My local towns go all in for Independence Day every year, and looking at their websites, and the county’s, there’s a LOT more going on this year. (I mentioned the symphony playing the fireworks? We usually don’t meet June-August.) I know the civic organizations I’m a member of are doing things, and not just the usual Free Water Bottle Station at the Independence Day parade.

I know a bunch of us are on the solitary side of curmudgeon–looks at the mirror–but it is healthy for even us, as health allows, to get involved with other folks, and this is a good time for it, for us. This is something we can believe in, that while not perfect, America is the best country to ever exist and worthy of celebration. And we all have skills of use for this. I know a bunch of you are going to be involved on the emergency communications side, the medic side, etc. But those of us who are best at putting on a show? At hawking wares at a fair? Painting a wall? Just existing wearing clothes? We’re also needed.

Let’s make this the biggest and best party yet, and give the ‘kids these days’ in another fifty years something to top.

What’s your area doing? Got ideas for how to do this even more and better? Tell me about them.

by Holly the Assistant

Good morning Huns and Hoydens, pull up your chairs, grab your hot cocoa, and let me tell you a story, while Sarah writes over there in her chair.

Many, many years ago, before I ever met Sarah, long enough ago that the kids involved are grown and flown, I met a lady named Pam Uphoff on the internet. She wrote fun books, she let me proofread them, which meant I got free entertainment, she got proofed books, and we were young and broke and had kids, so money was often tight. She wrote a couple juvenile books under the pen name Zoey Ivers, and I bought them for my boys.

And they fell in love.

Those two agreed on nothing, except that having to share a room was the worst ever. They still agree on very little. But they did and do agree that this Zoey Ivers is the Best Writer Ever. She doesn’t put “Ick, romance” in her books. She doesn’t put “Stupid Adults” in her books. She puts Good Adventures in her books. “You know, Ma, the kid who got grounded totally deserved it.” I liked the books–they didn’t encourage stupid behaviors, they had good stories. The boys liked the books. Win-win.

My husband got laid off. Christmas rolled around. And I thought, ok, well, a new paperback isn’t that much, and they’d share it for a gift, I can scrape the money up, if the third book is out by then. I knew the first two stories were done–I was in contact with Pam by blog and by email, after all. So I emailed her. She emailed back. The book would not be done by Christmas.

You guys, Pam sent me the first two stories as attachments to the email, and said I could print them out for my boys for Christmas.

There was some candy in the stockings, not much, but some, and a couple hotwheels cars. There were socks under the tree. Our sons didn’t care. They had new stories. That was all they cared about.

To this day, they tell me the Best Christmas Ever was when they woke up to two thirds of Atlantis+ in their stockings. And, like I said, they’re grown adults now. Nothing, ever, has topped Pam’s act of kindness and generosity to those two boys at Christmas.

Thank you for listening. If you’ve got young’uns and need books, or if you like books for young’uns, here’s the affiliate links to the books: Barton Street Gym: https://amzn.to/4qoV5rT Chicago: https://amzn.to/4pbcRhz Atlantis+: https://amzn.to/4pliYQl

by Holly the Assistant

It’s that time of year: last minute shopping, shipping, etc. No worries, just busy. Sarah says to let y’all know because you do fret.
Please deck the blog comments, but not Holly, thank you. See you in a bit.

By Holly the Assistant

“I want to spend the day writing, can you post something cute tomorrow?”

“Sure.”

It’s tomorrow, and I realized I don’t do cute. I do snark, puns, occasional humor, and sometimes, if I’m lucky, beauty, but cute? Cute is for fluff-brained small animals. Wait, I have some fluff-brained small animals around this place! But are they being cute?

I don’t remember the part of the Bethlehem story when Gertrude sat in the manger, do you?

The orange and white NEVER holds still unless she’s being held. Quicksilver the ADHD kitty, and her brother The Wolf. (That’s the feeding station for gooshy food. Which is why she wasn’t moving very much.)

“Dere’s a Caw yellin at me!” Rocket says.

And then there’s The Wolf, posing for all he’s worth, because he knows he’s Living Art.

Still Life, with tomatoes and The Wolf.

The rest of the menagerie didn’t manage to pull off photogenic yet this fall. (And honestly, Quicksilver’s only in there because her parents’ and siblings’ humans read here, and these weird cats actually look at pictures of their family on screen. I don’t want to worry her mom by only showing her brother.)

Cute? I don’t know, you tell me! Now soliciting cute critter stories in the comments.

(Sarah is en route home, and you will hopefully return to your irregularly regular blog tomorrow or the next day. This has already been the sort of road trip that will have stories about it told for years, so please pray for no more interesting events. Now let’s see if I can make the blog sit up and tap dance today or not, or if it’s going to misbehave at me. –Holly the Assistant)

I’m still mired deep in writing, though the treacle has got somewhat less sticky and I can see the end from where I am.

However, for several days now, I’ve had this song stuck in my head:

Riding on the City of New Orleans,
Illinois Central Monday morning rail
Fifteen cars and fifteen restless riders,
Three conductors and twenty-five sacks of mail.
All along the southbound odyssey
The train pulls out at Kankakee
Rolls along past houses, farms and fields.
Passin’ trains that have no names,
Freight yards full of old black men
And the graveyards of the rusted automobiles.

Good morning America how are you?
Don’t you know me I’m your native son,
I’m the train they call The City of New Orleans,
I’ll be gone five hundred miles when the day is done.

I know the song echoes of bitterness and all that, but the thing is, I’ve always loved that opening because I’ve always loved early morning America seen from car or bus.  The little houses by the side of the highway, the fast foods opening up, traffic slugishly trickling out onto the highway.

Continue reading “Blast from the Past-Jan 20, 2009” →

By Holly the Assistant

(Sarah’s well, I spoke with her earlier today. You might just be stuck with me through the weekend, but at least this time I’m not also traveling.)

Interesting time of year in America, isn’t it? A rather interesting and very commercialized holiday, harvest has wrapped up or is wrapping up, children scrambling for costumes or begging for boughten costumes, creativity on high display, sugar highs . . . memento mori . . .

My travels a couple weeks ago included accompanying my mother to graveyards where some of her ancestors, and my father, were laid to rest. A lot of interesting and not always nice family history came up, and I’ve written it down with relevant photoes for my kids, the great-great-great-great (counts on fingers) grandchildren of the perpetrators. I don’t mind graveyards: they’re very empty and quiet, a nice place for an introvert, but I know a lot of folks do mind them. Most of the old family houses are gone, no living relatives remain in the area in close enough degree for us to know of them, but her childhood church and the graveyards remain.

We’re coming up on an off year election here, and it’s been interesting seeing all the local political kerfluffles and drama. Oh yes, this town has pulled off as much drama about a mayoral election as you’d expect in a presidential race. No one has been arrested . . . yet . . . This is your reminder to go look up your local candidates before the vote, and also any ballot measures. (Assuming your candidates have not been putting on the show ours have, in which case you already know far too much of the dirt.)

Once the sugar rush is over, it’s worth taking a few moments to think about those who came before and how we ended up where we are today, and to talk about it with the next generations. Whether that’s the families moving to find work or congenial neighbors that led us to the places we live in, or the politicians they chose to fix the most urgent problems of their time and place, which fixes have led to the problems of our times and places, we, and our world, did not spring fully formed from nothing. We come from the past, including the past we do not know, and we’re going to the future, which we also do not know, but have great hopes and dreams for. Being mindful of the past and the ideas passed along to us, and who gave them to us and why, and after due consideration discarding those that are harmful, is only wise on this one-way trip.

Have a safe, sugary, and peaceful holiday.

By Holly the Assistant

Well, Sarah left me in charge again, and let me just tell you she’s traveling far too much, if necessarily so, this fall. Please to not do anything we’d have to explain when she gets back, such as taking over large countries or painting the blog pink. Exploring the floating mountains is fine, or even investigating what the heck is up with what appears to be a very odd celestial body or two in that sky. (Is it one or two? Is the AI high?)

And since I used an earworm for a title, well, yes, I think she spends enough time making music with the clanker to count for the purpose of lyrics, don’t you? Here, have an Elly tune to tide you over.