Now that I’ve entered the winter years of my life, I feel like my white hair affords me certain, long-anticipated perks that make growing old so darn much fun. First: the ability to use my metal detector out in public without shame or fear of reprisal, and second the ability, nay, the privilege of using the term: “Back in my day …” often, and with feeling.
I guess those are the only two perks of aging that come to mind just now. I had thought of more a few minutes ago, but those seem to escape me at the moment.
Back in my day, we used to hear that no two snowflakes are alike. I’ve always wondered who came to that conclusion and how. And why would it be better if it was true? Isn’t one flake as good as another? Is uniqueness alone worthy of our admiration?
I like chicken. My mom and grandma made excellent chicken. Roasted, fried, or grilled, mixed with pasta, rice or beans, wings, breasts, or thighs, it’s all pretty good. My lovely wife also makes fine chicken and has magazines full of recipes. Every issue has a “new” chicken recipe. Some poor slob has to find these new recipes for every issue. I saw one today: “Fried Chicken Ice Cream Sandwiches.” I am dead serious.
Twenty-some years ago, my then-teenaged daughter voiced her desire to dye her blonde hair blue. I asked her why. She said, “To express myself.” I asked her if no one else on Earth had blue hair, would the desire to express herself still exist? She assured me it was so. I looked down, searching for an answer, when my eyes lit upon a turnip and torn pantyhose on the top of the garbage. Removing them, I tied the turnip to the top of my head with the hosiery.
“Let’s go out to eat, mom’s already in the car,” I said, grabbing the car keys.
“Daddy! What are you doing?!” she laughed.
Cleverly, I answered: “Expressing myself.”
Her eyes narrowed.
Seated at the Marie Calendars with the turnip tied to my head, I finally relented, my bluff called. I had been played like a fat trout. I remember thinking that my daughter would make a fine politician someday. A politician with blue hair, which by the way, turned out to be very attractive.
I read a thought-provoking article two weeks ago about artificial intelligence in a newspaper by a well-respected author and art director. She wrote of the threat posed to art and artists by this fast-emerging technology. The next day, I received an ad on Facebook saying anyone can write and publish a novel in mere hours, using anAI program. Immediately, I thought: “Malarkey! Back in my day humans wrote books and machines mowed lawns, dagnabbit!” Or something to that effect.
Over the next few days, I kept thinking about it. If a computer can write acceptable books, machines with no heart, no hands, and no feelings, how predictable has humankind become? How cut-and-paste is our world that a machine can predict and create what we once called art? Maybe there are already enough books, like chicken recipes? How many do we need?
The more I thought about it, the more I harkened back to my college days and what inspired me to pursue writing. An author named Richard Brautigan was recommended to me. Reading his books, I glimpsed his genius. He said things so ridiculously true, fresh, and blatantly disrespectful of the “norm” that it illuminated the path before me. I read the poetry of e.e. cummings and T.S. Eliot and the novels of John Steinbeck, and John Gardner. I saw the power within their gift, their words, their uniqueness, their Art.
There was a movement that started in Europe at the beginning of World War I called Dadaism. Webster’s dictionary defines it as “a movement in art and literature based on deliberate irrationality and negation of traditional artistic values.” It was a protest against the cookie-cutter mindset and absurdity of war and the desired conformity of the world busy fighting it.
Much of Dadaism is quite wonderful. All of it is Art, in my humble opinion.
And maybe then, this next generation will crush the AI threat with its own sheer unpredictability; its blue hair and unique snowflakes will prevent the machines from leading our imaginations and manipulating our dreams via the arts. Will our children’s art be the Dadaism of today? Is their art the sheer defiance of chicken-chomping, turnip-headed, metal-detecting baby boomers like myself?
Or are our grandmother’s recipes what the world needs today? Are there enough books already written? Maybe it’s time for us to read them? Perhaps the answers we’re looking for are out there already.
I’m not worried about AI commandeering art from us. It cannot create art. Not real art. Not Brautigan or e.e. cummings. Not Tzara or Eluard. Let it crank out chicken recipes and count the sides of snowflakes before they melt. And then it can mow the lawn. We humans have better things to do.
A native Vermonter, Paul Wein has finally made it back home to Grafton, Vt., after 45 years in California, where he met his wife (and photographer) Angela. They have an adult daughter, Cassie, and two cats. He can be reached at pwein35@gmail.com.