Still on vacation. Just popping my head up for five minutes to bring you some cheer amidst all the frightening news flooding the zone. Just feels like cheer is desperately needed, even if a bit trivial.

I have been watching a new-to-me site out of Lithuania on the net. The Ancient Dog triggers equal amounts of amusement, consternation, wondering and being creeped out. Someone has taken AI to provide lectures by (most often dead, and some fictional to begin with) people, summarizing their philosophy, teachings or world views.

Poet’s Beach in Portland, Oregon on Mermaid Parade Day.

It is weird to see the likes of Hannah Arendt, Lacan, or Camus speaking to an (imaginary) audience about the central tenets of their philosophies as if they were alive. It is even weirder to see generated representations of van Gogh or Jesus do the same. Knowing that the videos do not contain real people, why should we trust that what they are telling us is real, or more precisely true to what their work actually was about?

I have read many of these classics 100 years ago, but I certainly cannot count on my memory to declare what is correctly communicated, or what is manipulated by sleight-of-hand. Are the lectures riddled with errors when artificial intelligence extracts original passages and merges them all together in convenient lecture format digestible to a 10th grader?

Then there is the series’ Professor Bruno Vero, an entirely imaginary prof who teaches us about more philosophers or artists, suspicious if only for his stereotypical outfit of tweed jacket and wool vest, gray beard and unruly curls giving off liberal college vibes. All that’s missing is the leather elbow patches.

Long story short, there is a through-line to many of these 3 minute or so lectures that has to do with how we should approach a life lived right, beyond asking about life’s meaning, or erecting whole philosophical constructs or religions to distract us from the fear that there might be no real meaning to our existence after all. And that is generally a welcome reminder.

It also brings us, finally, to mermaids. I had a chance to see them partying at a small beach along the river yesterday, after they marched in a big parade through town that I skipped. The creativity in costuming and make-up, for mythological figures and marine wildlife alike, made my heart soar.

Dress-up and masking was exquisite, and the joy that people exhibited when showing off the costume details to me, or standing proudly for a portrait, was infectious. Celebrating a kind of mysterious beauty, reveling in the childhood remnants of fascination with fairy tales, extending love to the many endangered species in our oceans by fancy representation – humanity at its creative best. Humans living the right life by acknowledging that beauty, whimsey, creativity are all necessary to counterbalance the horrors happening in our world right now, and to keep us sane. Certainly made me happy for a full Saturday afternoon, before more news of the fires across the globe landed.

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Not that I forget that we have choices, but also obligations. A gentle reminder that the SAVE Act is now incomprehensibly before our Senate. Senator should be told in no uncertain terms that it CANNOT pass. Here are the facts:

Note the very last clause that will come as a surprise to many voters…. when it is too late to jump through the administrative hoops. Best to call or email your senators.

Back to my lawn chair in the garden. Enjoy your week and this lyrical symphonic Mermaid music.