I read this story & your previous one, and this one flows better. The images are more consistent. And the prose is a bit less... mechanical.
One of the things I enjoy when I read your AI-assisted stories is trying to imagine you creating prompts... and what the story says about the ideas & movements & mom…
I read this story & your previous one, and this one flows better. The images are more consistent. And the prose is a bit less... mechanical.
One of the things I enjoy when I read your AI-assisted stories is trying to imagine you creating prompts... and what the story says about the ideas & movements & moments you most value. ... I hope the following is received in the spirit that I'm writing this: The '60s youth culture / hippie / Woodstock / Haight Ashbury / eastern guru mindset has many of the makings of a... religion. It has key historic moments... iconic leaders... a set of values... a way of living & thinking & talking. When it all went down 60 years ago, it wasn't history, it was Be Here Now. It attempted to be a clean break from the past. But then the years drift by, and those moments and people are enshrined in the hippie Canon, and the vision is celebrated as something that once was AND something that might be once again. ... (Sidebar: I'm reminded of Pete Townshend's great line from My Generaton -- "hope I die before I get old"; it sounded good in 1965, but hasn't aged well.)
I wonder what happens when you interrogate the '60s counterculture the way you interrogate the old-time religions... and language itself? Does the vision still cohere? Is there still a foundation upon which we can build something life-affirming and sustainable?
One other question: What happens if the heroine of "Mendocino" is a short, overweight woman with black hair and a bad complexion? Put another way: How much does your argument for '60s values depend on a protagonist who is a beautiful willowy blonde woman who doesn't seem to age? :-) ..... (When The Word become incarnate, a whole bunch of new problems jump to the fore.)
Thanks for writing & sharing these stories. I've really enjoyed reading them.
You're getting better at this! :-)
I read this story & your previous one, and this one flows better. The images are more consistent. And the prose is a bit less... mechanical.
One of the things I enjoy when I read your AI-assisted stories is trying to imagine you creating prompts... and what the story says about the ideas & movements & moments you most value. ... I hope the following is received in the spirit that I'm writing this: The '60s youth culture / hippie / Woodstock / Haight Ashbury / eastern guru mindset has many of the makings of a... religion. It has key historic moments... iconic leaders... a set of values... a way of living & thinking & talking. When it all went down 60 years ago, it wasn't history, it was Be Here Now. It attempted to be a clean break from the past. But then the years drift by, and those moments and people are enshrined in the hippie Canon, and the vision is celebrated as something that once was AND something that might be once again. ... (Sidebar: I'm reminded of Pete Townshend's great line from My Generaton -- "hope I die before I get old"; it sounded good in 1965, but hasn't aged well.)
I wonder what happens when you interrogate the '60s counterculture the way you interrogate the old-time religions... and language itself? Does the vision still cohere? Is there still a foundation upon which we can build something life-affirming and sustainable?
One other question: What happens if the heroine of "Mendocino" is a short, overweight woman with black hair and a bad complexion? Put another way: How much does your argument for '60s values depend on a protagonist who is a beautiful willowy blonde woman who doesn't seem to age? :-) ..... (When The Word become incarnate, a whole bunch of new problems jump to the fore.)
Thanks for writing & sharing these stories. I've really enjoyed reading them.
Speaking of hippies and religion...
You've got me wondering now of the degree to which hippy ideals are just another expression of the pervasive influence of Judaism.