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Hello Sternal Journalists,
It has just occurred to me that this will be the last Sternal Journal of 2023, and then it occurred to me that I was wrong because the final SternJourn will be New Years Eve, and then then it occurred to me that I often wait until after midnight to finish, and thenthenthen I figured I will hopefully for maybe the first time in the history of the Sternal Journal write something ahead of time so that I’m not spending the waning hours of 2023 and/or dawning hours of 2024 hunched over a laptop, cranking for you, the modest but mighty journalists (who will likely wait a few days to read anyway).
But it’s also bit of a holiday round here, and if not a holiday, at least a relaxed and/or overly distracted time for most. So I thought I’d give you a thematically relevant 12 Snippets of SternJourn for you to nibble on whichever bits you’d like.
These are not ordered in any way and some of them are sad and some of them are silly.
12. AI
About 18 months ago, I published the Sternal Journal, “I think we're 18 months out from an AI-generated Netflix special.” I was wrong. 18 months have now passed and there has not been a fully AI-generateted Netflix special.
Howwwwever, one could argue that the Matt Rife special was quite augmented by AI in that he got all of his fame from a TikTok algorithm.
11. “Craft without art” (also AI)
I am still reading Creativity, Inc., the memoir of Ed Catmull, one of the founders of Pixar.
This passage about art and craft and the space between them made me think about how the big problem with AI in creative spaces can perhaps be summed up by the fact that it is making it so that craft takes up more space and art takes up less. AI is able to handle the “what we are expected to know” part, but then it shoots us out a little further along the creative process than craft typically would, making our time spent on the “art” part of any process smaller and shorter.
10. Erika Jayne Smurfette (damn, Still AI)
For instance, my sister wanted to see if I could make an AI picture of her hero, Real Housewives of Beverly Hills’ Erika Jayne as Smurfette from the Smurfs.
Here it is:
I think I did a pretty good job tweaking and prompting, especially considering that Chat GPT doesn’t allow you to ask it to make pictures of real people or copyrighted material, so I had to, via description, capture the essence of Jayne and Smurfette without mentioning their names.
But again, there is so much craft being done here by the AI that the art I get to partake in is quite edged out.
9. Long Ass Runs
I mentioned the greatness of Short Ass Runs a few SternJourns ago. I stand by that greatness on the merit of S.A.R.s alone, but it has also helped do Long Ass Runs. I did an 11 miler today which is I think the longest I’ve run in 6 months. Incremental gains baby.
8. Depression
There have been some real tragedies not directly in my orbit, but in orbits that touch my orbits, this week. A couple of them involve people taking their own lives.
It made me think a little bit tonight about reading Rob Delaney’s book from some years ago and how (I’m paraphrasing) people think of depression as sadness, but really it’s just a profound emptiness and lack of feeling anything. And that the emptiness is scarier and in some ways more crazy-making than sadness because, if you feel nothing, you feel like nothing.
I can understand that if you feel pain and nothing for long enough, it might feel right or not that bad to end it. But please if you’re reading this, know that the pain and nothing are temporary and you can literally always reply to a Sternal Journal and I will most likely see it immediately. I care and there are people in your life who care. Please talk to me or someone about the pain and the nothing. Life sucks, but you rock.
7. Running
I was running uphill across the Williamsburg Bridge this week and a man who was running downhill and in better shape than I yelled, “You got this brotha!” And I knew he was talking about the climb up the bridge, but I also knew that all runners know that every climb is a metaphor for something else.
6. Jack Harlow
Jack Harlow went to see Nutcracker this week. I really hope he didn’t take a lot more pictures and stayed present otherwise.
5. The New York Subway
I really wanted to post this picture:
-with the caption “Was thinking of jacking off on this train, but then I saw this sign and it made me really rethink some things! Words matter!” But my sister told me I absolutely should not. So I’m doing it here. Sue me.
4. Growing
I was on a run today and ran across the train tracks that are near my house. When I was little, maybe the first 20 years of my life, you had to just kind of high step across these tracks.
One time, a couple friends supposedly actually snuck under a stopped train with their bikes because these trains are many, many cars long and otherwise, they would have had to wait like ten minutes for the train to get going again. Two ten year olds climbing under an active (but stationary) train with their BMX bikes to get absolute nowhere faster. What a place the past was.
Anyway, now there’s a maybe ten foot stretch at the station where some flooring has been put in that is flush with the rails and marked as a crosswalk. Every time, I run across these tracks I want to high step where we used to high step, but I follow the new sidewalk and fresh fencing to the safe crosswalk and mildly lament the improvements.
3. Memes
I watched The Dark Knight on the plane for the first time in a while and it’s so good. EXCEPT for the quote “Some Men Just Want To Watch The World Burn.” This is the thesis of the whole damn movie, and arguably the spiritual hinge of the entire story.
But the phrase has been so memed to death that I felt none of the weight I should have felt, the meaning was stripped away, and I just thought back to all the dumb memes. I do not like memes right now.
2. Instagram
I also don’t like the Instagram Discover Page. I think we all feel this, but has anyone said out loud, “I DO NOT GET ANYTHING OF VALUE FROM THE DISCOVER PAGE AND ACTUALLY ONLY GET VAPID, DISTRACTING THINGS FROM IT.” I would like it to be deleted. I do not need to accidentally watch an hour of man on the street videos ever again.
1. Big A## Calendar
I’m going to buy this Big ass calendar and I am convinced it will make 2024 the year I want it to be.
And now…
Recommendations!
As it is Christmas, and we have not yet opened our gifts, I’m going to try pre-recommendations, or all of the things that Ive wanted to get to but haven’t. I think we wind up watching, reading, whatevering a lot of stuff we’re not excited about while waiting to make time for the stuff we are, so this list is as much for me as it is for you.
Godzilla Minus One. Film. This Japanese Godzilla movie is supposedly so good and it’s all I want to see.
Encountering My Activist Great Grandfather—and his Bones. Article. One of my college friends wrote this and it’s been sitting in my to-read pile for ages. But I know it’s good.
He Was My Role Model. My Mentor. My Supplier. Article. I actually read a few paragraphs of this one and reallly hope I finish it.
The Wedding Scammer. Podcast. I know almost everything about every podcast, but I keep seeing this pop up on lists and know nothing about it. Gonna have to give it a go.
Alrighty, Merry Christmas and/or Happy Holidays and I hope you get to check out some stuff you’ve been meaning to and I hope you always feel like you can talk to me or someone else if you’re feeling empty.
Sending true love and true hopes for peaceful times,
Julian
P.S. I spend anywhere between two and twelve hours a week on the Sternal Journal. If you enjoy receiving it (and are RICH) consider becoming a paying subscriber. For just a few bucks a month, you can provide me with a bit more time to come up with fun topics, poems, and interviews; and you with probably fewer typos.