I’m afraid the tank is empty, creatively. I’ve been sitting around the house for most of the day, trying to write. I did some lame writing exercises, I took stabs at revision strategies, I read, I tried to do a little critical writing to get jumpstarted. Nothing! Absolutely nothing. That’s a little disheartening, but probably a good sign that I need to just stop trying, get out there, and have a little fun. That was one thing that was missing during most of that effort. Either that, or I need to get rolling on creating algorithmic poems, the linguistic derivative of Paul Saffo’s proposed algorithmic music. I don’t want one of those shitty word generators; I want a complex system for creating and interpreting images and combining them in a way that elicits emotional response. Perhaps the finest example would be several years away, when the engine could interpret the response of the reader and create beauty accordingly.

Some poets will gripe and fuss and say that no machine could do what the poet can do, but I maintain that beauty is beauty, however it is created. There is beauty in nature for some people; for some of us, we just don’t see it. So, since beauty is not intrinsic but interpreted, how better to create it than to monitor the experience as it is experienced? I think the process would be akin to most performers’ “read” of the crowds for which they perform.

Heidi and I went back out and threw the baseball, and then we fired up the grill for the first time this year and made some hot dogs. I know, I know, it’s lame to fire up a grill and only make hot dogs, but this was a trial run. We may do some real grillin’ come tomorrow night. If you’re down, give a holler.