Intelligence is being burned at an alarming rate. Fact incineration technologies birthed in Silicon Gulch have accelerated the depletion of natural reserves.
In the advanced world, gas derived from fact-burning fuels everything from data centers and crypto mining to the private jet fleets of hard-working billionaires.
But there’s hope. Facts scraped from organic motherlodes and combusted like there’s no tomorrow may be replaceable by alternative ones generated from executive wind.
Cheese cut in myriad C-suites currently clogs olfactory assets throughout the global U.S. — from the Gulf of America to Tierra del Rubio; from Guam to Greenland; from Saint Petersburg to Florida.
The buzz in Davos is that capturing and exploiting that abundant resource could be the next sure thing.
Men of stratospheric net worth, look to the future! The rips you let on golf cart cushions alone could drive a zillion rotors powering as many alternative realities in perpetuity.
“I personally learned my own craft of writing poetry through translating poetry… I think one way to deepen the appreciation of poetry is to approach it through translation.”
The poems of Azurea20 besides poignant and memorable are irresistibly translatable. For the student of Spanish like me who may read this, I think poems can be excellent language teachers. Poets are consummate grammarians, and their best texts are pristine, compact, brimful of authentic language, and not wedded to pedestrian denotation. Some are even worth committing to memory!
On the flip side, for the reader of poetry and bumptious doggerelist in me, Arthur Sze’s words (above) resonate like a gong.
Here’s my devotedly literal homage in English to Azurea20’s poem (the parenthetical ellipses are the poem’s):
Señora de las Cosas Errantes: Lady of Errant Things: Por los que habitan los For those that inhabit the márgenes oscuros edges dark y profundos del bosque, and deep of the forest, por los que transgreden for those that transgress las normas de los desfiles, the norms of the parades, los puntos suspensivos, the ellipses, las comas y las tildes que the commas and tildes that rivalizan en altura. compete in height. Por los silencios For the silences que protegen su grito en la hache muda, that protect their cry in the mute “h,” por las mayúsculas del día for the capital letters of the day no permitas que mi cansada piel olvide don’t let my tired skin forget el llanto de los árboles the sobbing of the trees. (…) Guárdame de los días Shield me from the days que solo traen ruido, that bring only noise, sin luz que los ilumine with neither light that brightens them ni agua que los bendiga. nor water that blesses them. Los días en los que la lluvia Days on which the rain cae sin pedir permiso. falls without asking permission. No permitas que el amor Do not permit love colonice ni calcine mi paisaje, to colonize nor calcify my landscape, como el yermo de un destierro. like the wasteland of an exile. (…) Ragálame [Regálame] el Sur. Gift me the South. El sur de Camarón, de Lorca… The south of Camarón, of Lorca… que la alegría y la caricia let joy and the caress de la noche entren por mi ventana. of nighttime enter through my window. Una mirada bicolor, A two-tone glance, un dios que no esté loco, a god that’s not insane, una palabra para a word for la compasión y la denuncia. compassion and denunciation. (…) Tráeme la libertad del pájaro Bring me the freedom of the bird madrugador, that rises early, el canto de los juegos del trigo, the song of the games of wheat, el baile de las amapolas… the dance of poppies… el diálogo de los silencios antiguos, the dialogue of ancient silences, el punto donde confluyen todos los acentos. the point where all the accents converge. (…) Protégeme de los dioses Protect me from gods que interrumpen el sueño that interrupt the sleep de los cien milagros, of a hundred miracles, del azúcar amargo, de from bitter sugar, from las nieves de agosto the snows of August del hilo inútil que impide from the useless thread keeping coser la piedra partida en dos. rock split in two from being sewn. (…) Líbrame de las ciudades desflecadas, Deliver me from frayed cities, de los polígonos heridos, from wounded polygons, de los caminos enredados from roads tangled en su congelación de estambre que, in their congealment of woolen yarn which alimentan crímenes, volcanes de violencia, nourish crimes, volcanos of violence, llagas de desolación y miedo. lacerations of desolation and fear. (…) Permíteme un espacio donde Permit me a space wherein colgar mi voz, resonar junto to hang my voice, to resonate along with el eco de todos y seguir estremecida the echo of everyone and continue shaken por las Heridas del mundo. by the Wounds of the world. (…) Y no olvides mi deseo de un perrito faldero And don’t forget my yearning for a lapdog una muñeca que no a doll that does not la rompa el llanto, una cuerda break from weeping, a long larga para anudar momentos string with which to tie up moments con la que fui with the one I was y una lupa que pueda and a magnifying glass that can mirar sin extrañeza a la que soy. examine without amazement the one I am. (…) Señora de las Cosas Errantes Lady of Errant Things por todo lo que nombro for all that I name y lo que callo and that I keep silent concédeme ser aquella que grant me this: to be that one who aceptará su muerte will accept her death como aceptó su vida, as she accepted her life, sin pedir clemencia, sin alargar la espera. without seeking clemency, without prolonging the wait.
“We’re planning a way to allow wide swaths of the world to elect representatives to a new governance board… Because if I weren’t in on this I’d be, like, ‘Why do these fuckers get to decide what happens to me?’”
(Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, speaking in 2016, quoted by Jill Lepore)
“No such world-governance board was ever established. There has been no A.I. constitutional convention. These, er, fellows, are still deciding what happens to the rest of us.” (Jill Lepore, “How We the People Lost Control of Our Lives, and How We Can Get It Back,” New York Times, 9-17-25)
Quick aside re Sam’s remark: No good news comes from a statement containing the word “swaths.” “Just sayin’,” as Sam would say.
An opinion is a choice. I choose to deem Sam Altman less smart than he thinks. Cunning yes. A consecrated shill, yes. That’s what CEOs do. Less power, not more, to him, and God bless.
AI, for all the fakery it enables, is still artificial. What it fakes best is intelligence. Artificial anything is still enacted artifice, concocted, confected, set in motion not by divine puff but by sweating, swearing, fallible humans. “Convincing” doesn’t cut it. The Turing test always seemed to me slightly beside the point.
My opinion that AI will always be an elaborate fake will wither on the vine. Perhaps it will go down as wrong, which is different. Nevertheless, holding it here and now is fostering in the head I inhabit the birth of an inkling of what religion is about.
Religion could have civic value were it enacted (“Practiced”? “Re-instantiated”? What’s the word?) widely, personally, privately, worthily, in the spirit of what is worthy of worship. Social blessedness could accrue from subscribing to transcendence as against devilish cleverness. In a religious world the killing would stop, full stop. AI would receive a true name such as “advanced computation.” Empathy would not be demonized. Those three things alone would imbue holiness with intelligence and vice versa — a redemptive, liberating, superhuman prise de conscience.
If that leap of good faith needed a name, it could be christened an advent, a new dispensation, something like Actual General Intelligence, AGI, to be venerated through the judicious study of languages, mathematics, science, philosophy, literature, scriptures, art, and traditions, in tandem with skill development for sustainable building, transport and crop growing.
I had jotted the above on a Thursday morning before opening my Poetry magazine to catch up on some reading. Lo verily, there I encountered the poem by Samatar Elmi which I cite in its entirety below.* It skewers uncannily something I was imperfectly foreshadowing: the golden calving of C++ Babelism hoist Godward on its own lighted gasses.
*On second thought, I decided to link to the poem.
“Our Founder,” by Samatar Elmi, Poetry, September 2025.
“Explaining things is a dry way of communicating,” Islam said. “I’m in my best element when I’m actually singing my heart out.”
(Yusuf Islam, formerly Cat Stevens)
I reproach myself by saying it’s a ludicrous form of callousness to feel personally aggrieved when famous people of the era I live in and whom I admire kill themselves. I mean feeling upset to the extent that I find myself unable (unwilling?) to view or read any work by or about such persons after their death. I didn’t know them personally, they weren’t loved ones, significant others, or the like. They didn’t sin against any God of mine. But I’m pissed that they coldheartedly took themselves out, that they were the architects of their own loss. And mine! Two instances are Robin Williams and Anthony Bourdain.
Cat Stevens didn’t kill himself, but he disappeared from music into Yusuf Islam. Certain of his songs had been high points in my development. They had melodic, rhythmic, lyrical staying power. Epic simplicity, like thunder. His retreat from that art stung me.
Books aren’t songs, but they can be a good vehicle for explaining things. Islam’s memoir, Cat on the Road to Findout,” is out in October. He published another book in 2014, Why I Still Carry a Guitar, described as “his direct explanation to the Muslim community”:
“There were some threats coming from the jurisprudence sections of the Muslim community — ‘It’s dangerous stuff to be out there, boasting of your talents and showing yourself off,’” he said, sighing. “But my art was something much deeper than that.”
I will read his memoir in due time because he’s not dead. Because I want to know more about his spiritual life. Because he’s alive. And he’s singing.
(Grayson Haver Currin, “Yusuf Islam Wants to Explain Himself,” New York Times, 9-15-25)
The New York Times recorded interview with Earl Sweatshirt was a freewheeling romp by a voluble cohort of cognoscenti. High spirits prevailed. The three-way session was suffused with knowing guffaws, spicy vernacular and poignant insider allusion. For the hip-hop-curious outsider listening in, it felt like sniffing someone else’s delicious picnic and longing for a taste of the goodies.
I’ve often meditated on what role the lyrics play in pop music, fretting over my inability to understand the words of many songs. I’m talking about the vocalizations of well nigh every front man or woman of every rock group I’ve ever listened to — I don’t mean only Elton John and Robert Plant. (Paul Simon is an exception.)
I settled resignedly into the notion that the singers’ voices were simply another instrument in the combo; that what they uttered were musical noises, as notes are noises, and unencumbered with conventional denotative freight; they were not units of spoken communication at all. If the singers weren’t bothered for their noises to reach me as words, I wasn’t bothered to decode those noises other than tonally and acoustically. It was all about the melody, the moves, the beat, the “wall of sound,” baby.
In his interview, Earl dropped a remark that has turned my modus vivendi with pop garble on its head:
I definitely want to always be expanding my linguistic capabilities. If you’re in 2025 complaining about mumble rap — probably racist. If you haven’t processed that different people talk different ways, like, why are you not trying to aspire to learn new things? Like Boomhauer, his homies know what he’s talking about.
Yikes. Message received and taken under advisement. Processing like crazy here.
I’d never heard the term “mumble rap” before, but I ask myself, “Have I been bitching unfairly about ‘mumble rock’ all the while?” Maybe I need to cultivate better aural literacy in genres that eschew punctilious enunciation, in like manner as I’ve done in studying the different ways foreigners use their tongues, attuning my ear to novel sounds, unaccustomed rhythms, runaway velocities. Putting in extra effort, damn it. I’m up for it. Never stop aspiring to learn new things, I say. (Also, I need to reflect on how the author of a book on hip-hop lyrics hangs out on genius.com curating the written signature of an oral genre.)
Rap, if not pop, I surmise, wants to be experienced as language on top of music. In casual contact with the genre, I’ve encountered references to a performer’s “flow” — the stream of speech. Pains are taken to create rhyme. These two characteristics alone suggest that its lyrics be treated as disclosure and narrative rather than highly cadenced, quasi-melodic, sonic gesture. Chant comes to mind, an intriguing and time-honored analog.
Man Ray’s “Le violon d’Ingres,” 1924. The showstopper at the Met, purchased at auction for about $12.4 million, shows Man Ray’s lover, Kiki de Montparnasse (born Alice Prin). Credit… Man Ray 2015 Trust/Artists Rights Society(ARS), NY/ADAGP, Paris 2025; via Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. [New York Times caption and illustration]
Muddling is when you gently and lovingly release aromatic oils from fruits and herbs.
“I have finally freed myself from the sticky medium of paint, and am working directly with light itself.”
(Man Ray, 1922)
In French, the title [“Violon d’Ingres] is an idiom for a hobby, derived from the story that the great painter Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres prized his amateur violin playing as highly as his art.
To make his image, Man Ray photographed Kiki de Montparnasse from behind, nude to just below the waist and wearing a turban, a pose that Ingres had used in the painting known as “The Valpinçon Bather,” on view in the Louvre. On Kiki’s lower back on the print, Man Ray drew the f-holes of a violin in black ink.
Afterward, he had another idea. He enlarged the print of Kiki in the darkroom and masked it with a sheet of paper or cardboard on which he had cut two f-holes. Then he flashed the light again, so that the shapes were burned black, to make what he called “a combination of a photo and a rayograph.”
… Along with an ingenious melding of techniques, he had transposed a verbal pun into visual reality. In its beauty and absurdity, “Le Violon d’Ingres” encapsulates, arguably better than any other artwork, the insouciant wit of Surrealism…
(Arthur Lubow, “Man Ray’s Mysteries, in Glorious Bloom at the Met,” New York Times, 9-6-25)
The Guadalupe reaches for the ocean. The Pedernales reaches for the ocean. The Rio Grande reaches for the ocean. The Colorado reaches for the ocean. The San Jacinto reaches for the ocean.
The Brazos doesn’t reaches for the ocean. The Devils doesn’t reaches for the ocean. The Pecos doesn’t reaches for the ocean. The Neches doesn’t reaches for the ocean. The Sulphur doesn’t reaches for the ocean. The Cypress doesn’t reaches for the ocean.
The Red, the Sabine, The Nueces, the Lavaca, the Trinity, The Canadian, the San Antonio Doesn’t reaches for the ocean.
Before you-know-who was president, I encountered something called Twitter, ran with it for maybe six weeks. That was in what — oh-nine? I’d been reading about hip-hop in The New Yorker, a starkly pale conveyance into the zone some would say, but well written by I forget who. The rappers’ go-by’s intrigued me: X goes by the name Y, performs with Z who goes by the name A.
Going by names held charm for me. An ecstasy of gnarly monikers. I had fun with it in a couple of tweets. Said something like “I’m so-and-so and go by High Plains Drifter.” Bad idea. Somebody went shut the fuck up. I may have been, what they say in football, offside. I dropped Twitter like a hot potato.
One good thing came of the putdown; I bumped into Earl Sweatshirt. Not for any gainful purpose, just that the name was genially ripe, had staying power. Wouldn’t you know? Earl is in my head again via The Times:
Often, Earl has appeared to be hiding in plain view, an accidental superstar trying to stay grounded. Over the past decade, he’s been one of the most visible makers of lo-fi, subterranean, lyrically abstruse rap music, a style that has both earned him a fervent following of connoisseurs and kept casual peekers at bay.
Look, I read poetry — more of it than I understand. Anything “lyrically abstruse” is catnip for this pussy. If only someone called Earl’s songs something like “muddily intricate and knotty.”
After crash-landing into the spotlight, he’s been inching his way out of it… one muddily intricate and knotty song at a time.
That does it, my heart leapt. Memo to High Plains Drifter: There’s a book* by a guy. Buy. Read. Learn. Listen. And zip it.
*What’s Good: Notes on Rap and Language, by Daniel Levin Becker (City Lights Books, 2022).
A photograph of blue dragon was posted on the Facebook page of the Guardamar del Segura police department. Policia Local Guardamar. [New York Times caption and illustration]
“We still don’t know exactly what we’re dealing with here… But given the warming of the Mediterranean,… we’re not ruling out that in the coming years we will once again confront situations that we’ve never dealt with.”
(José Luis Sáez, mayor of Guardamar del Segura, Spain)
The Glaucus atlanticus, or blue dragon, is a sea slug that packs “one of the most ferocious stings in the animal world.” It can feed on jellyfish and the venomous Portuguese man-of-war. Typically found in warm tropical waters, blue dragons have been washing up at a concerning level on Mediterranean beaches and in the Canary Islands.
“DANGER, Blue Dragon. Danger to swimmers for its poisonous bite. Swimming not advised.” A warning poster from the government of Haría, on the Canary Islands, about the blue dragons. Credit… Haría city hall. [New York Times caption and illustration — translation by JMN]
The Mediterranean is among the fastest-warming bodies of water in the world, with water temperatures hitting record highs in June and July this year, according to Mercator Ocean International.
(Jonathan Wolfe, “‘We Are All Shocked’: Warming Waters Bring a Stinging Sea Slug to Spain’s Coasts,” New York Times, 8-28-25)
“This facility is supposed to house non-violent offenders… Human trafficking is a violent crime.”
(Julie Howell, inmate of Bryan Federal Prison Camp)
The site of the ancient toilet where the Jordan CodeX was found, known to antiquity buffs as “the zone,” is submerged now by Alaskan runoff. For what it’s worth, a dying peep from the black hole swallowing the truth star is emitted by the codeX’s “jingle.” Its text was hacked into re-existence with blockchain tools by a crack team under the direction of Dr. Vladimir Potemkin, professor of alternative history at the storied Russian-American Institute of Soviet Sciences in Anchorage.
“Jingle” The sultan of sleaze with his pandering bawd Did people the mansions with underage goods, To be ogled, debauched, violated and pawed By the randy, philandering, fatuous dudes.
The perv got arrested and clapped in a cell, Then hanged by the neck with a sheet from his bed. The sorry event is suspicious as hell, And has many a citizen scratching their head.
So what’s to be made of his myrmidon’s fate, The procuress of children for indecent uses? Her master required them his “aches” to abate. She delivered them to him with sinister ruses.
Does she aim to procure a get-out-of-jail card? Her crimes to be pardoned, her sentence to void? It’s the sign of the soul of a moral retard! Mail your thoughts and your prayers to the girls she destroyed!
EthicalDative 
A Song Is Worth a Thousand Explanations? Depends on the Singer.
I reproach myself by saying it’s a ludicrous form of callousness to feel personally aggrieved when famous people of the era I live in and whom I admire kill themselves. I mean feeling upset to the extent that I find myself unable (unwilling?) to view or read any work by or about such persons after their death. I didn’t know them personally, they weren’t loved ones, significant others, or the like. They didn’t sin against any God of mine. But I’m pissed that they coldheartedly took themselves out, that they were the architects of their own loss. And mine! Two instances are Robin Williams and Anthony Bourdain.
Cat Stevens didn’t kill himself, but he disappeared from music into Yusuf Islam. Certain of his songs had been high points in my development. They had melodic, rhythmic, lyrical staying power. Epic simplicity, like thunder. His retreat from that art stung me.
Books aren’t songs, but they can be a good vehicle for explaining things. Islam’s memoir, Cat on the Road to Findout,” is out in October. He published another book in 2014, Why I Still Carry a Guitar, described as “his direct explanation to the Muslim community”:
“There were some threats coming from the jurisprudence sections of the Muslim community — ‘It’s dangerous stuff to be out there, boasting of your talents and showing yourself off,’” he said, sighing. “But my art was something much deeper than that.”
I will read his memoir in due time because he’s not dead. Because I want to know more about his spiritual life. Because he’s alive. And he’s singing.
(Grayson Haver Currin, “Yusuf Islam Wants to Explain Himself,” New York Times, 9-15-25)
(c) 2025 JMN — EthicalDative. All rights reserved