Our songs travel the earth. We sing to one another. Not a single note is ever lost and no song is original. They all come from the same place and go back to a time when only the stones howled.

Louise Erdrich

Words live in my head. When I think them, they are In my head. Getting ready to write my post here, I have to think it through. Live is full of material to write about.  I make a selection, pursue is and come up with this every week.

When I speak words, though they come out of my mouth. Or my throat. Then again, they come through my lungs. I notice this more when I sing.

OH yes, the singing.  I breathe in from the wide world and breathe it out again, adding my own vibration. Sometimes that is far easier than arranging sentences.

With singing and music, I add the hum.

With writing, the readers, the audience have to choose to read and make it alive, to hear the thrum of meaning in their own heads.

Here’s an update on my musical pursuit. I let you all know I”d been working on singing and playing 100 new songs. I’m up to 66 (here’s the current list).

As I’ve pursed this goal, and kept on it, more opportunities appeared. I found a friendly Open mic, and signed up. I saw a musical friend there, and he introduced me to a bass player. I had a great set and they both offered to join me on the next open mic and be my backup band.

With that confidence boost, I invited more people to come to the next open mic. A classical cellist was interested and she joined me too.

Nothing wins like winning so I made music performance a higher priority on my schedule.

A drummer from a local band was joining in with a jazz ensemble, so I blew off another obligation to see him play. He was delighted to see me and introduced me to the rest of the band.

Their organist Mass plays every week at another local spot. I dropped in on that one and found he had a whole jazz drop-in situation.

Now I have a reason to learn to practice jazz vocals. He said he’d play behind me if I wanted to sing.

It is so right that a jazz musician holds the gate open “come on in!”

Miles David said there are no wrong notes in jazz, only notes in the wrong places.

Some art is meant for music, and some is meant for sentences.

Or maybe words.

As I play in each of the spaces, I learn more how they fit.

How I fit

There is a lot of Buzz about A.I.

“AI will act as your personal force multiplier, streamlining your daily schedule, sparking creative ideas when you’re stuck, and handling repetitive tasks so you can focus on what truly matters to you.”

Or

“AI will quietly become your most reliable co-author, research assistant, project manager, and idea sparring partner—handling the tedious parts of writing your next book, organizing your knowledge into fresh frameworks, spotting blind spots in your arguments, and giving you instant second drafts while you stay focused on the uniquely human parts: insight, voice, and meaning”

That’s an introduction in the words of AI engines Grok and Gemini. My readers (hi!) can see immediately that is not something I would write. I write differently.

A.I. aficianados would say that the A.I. could be trained to write like me.

Probably. I am a person of quirks, habits and patterns, many of which are intentional. I could train (program) a computer to us those same consistently.

And if I believe the A.I. it would become a “personal force multiplier.”

But is it art?

Is it silly to always be thinking about art? Sometimes a spade is a spade, especially when I need to move a little dirt.

Flashing back to Miriam in my first book, I think of camels crossing a desert. If me and the camel caravan need to get out of the blazing hot sun, it doesn’t need to be art. Miriam needs a respite now, and anything that supplies shade is a blessing.

Yes and yes. Use the tools and the grace that comes. Maybe it’s the shadow of a big rock, and maybe it’s an A.I. engine.

I’m still pondering Leo Tolstoy’s definition of art:

When the artist takes a feeling he or she has had, expressed it and is able to inspire that same feeling in the audience, that is art.

Art makes the connection, Inspiring and transmitting a feeling from person to another.

If a person created the shade with intention and imbued it with sentiment or emotion and if that creative self-expression had enough craft to spark an echoing response in another person

Art made something new in the world. That connection. The best art comes with a sense that I already know what has been shown.

The newness is the connection between the artist and the feeling arising in the observing audience.

With this working definition, I can justify that A.I. output cannot be art. There is no person originating a feeling.

And no person to connect to. Art is not only about beauty. I am beginning to see it’s about connection as well.

Is this impressive enough?

I’d like to write something extraordinary and profound. Metaphors, images and similes so you, my reader, could feel what I’m feeling. I’ve done it before. But here I sit, the night before my arbitrary deadline for this essay, I am clogged up feeling pressure and running dry on inspiration.

I’ve always hated the last minute. But this week I had a good reason to delay: two other writing projects.

I’ve spent the last week working on updating my resume. That is so painful and awkward I’d be to see profound resume. This genre of writing is meant to deaden all emotion. I will confess I took advice from artificial intelligent on verb choice. The bots are the intended audience so using then as beta readers is only right. So why does it feel so wrong?

The other project is far more satisfying. This Tuesday I went on a podcast to promote my latest book. I’ve been working on it for 5 years now, and I’m so eager to publish it. It’s a handbook for project management, my career for more than 15 years now.

There is a dark little voice telling me that it doesn’t count, that it’s not a REAL book, because it is a technical how-to book. That dark voice tells me myself and I that I haven’t written the right kind of book.

That same voice comes at me for most of these blog posts. Each week I win on a technicality because I do write. I make the post.

So this book is technically a win because I did the work of finishing it.

Practically profundity is meaningful too. When I am in the deep with a problem I don’t have an answer for, and a book comes to hand with a solution—or even a new approach—I feel a physical wave of relief.

This is my 5th book. I have experience with the hard work to get a big idea into the world. The effort is categorically different than a short form essay.

These weekly wonder essays are my promise to myself. I keep going on them, because they keep the pipes clear for the big ideas I am trying to have. It’s the fate or the artist to have more ideas than time.

Today’s offering is newsy rather than a cohesive concept. I’m learning to trust you, my audience to accept my peanut butter and jelly offering. I appreciate you coming alongside as I try, and we can share a little stick-to-your-ribs art today.

What will the new year hold for me? I eagerly desire to consume or experience more art, and even better to create art.

In the library I found “What is Art?” by Leo Tolstoy. It’s not an novel, not like his epic War and Peace or Anna Karenina. The was an academic exploration with careful and tortured sentences—poor miserable academics!

I discover this conclusion that art is how a person can share a feeling with others. When I feel alone, stuck with the feelings, thoughts and experiences I long for connection with someone else. 

Tolstoy concludes that when a person shares a story, for example, and the audience feels what the story teller felt, that spark of transfer is the connection that makes it art.

One answer to the question

“What is art?”

Is that what you are sharing with me, Leo? Maybe your convoluted sentences gave me the thrill you got when you arrived at this definition. I can carry around this answer like a gemstone in my mind.

Can I be pleased with my art if it meets this specification? There is a warm feeling in my heart as I accept it.

Is that enough? And also, how can I do it even better?

That’s what this blog is about, to share my ideas, thoughts and feelings. To do it to the best of my ability.

In my isolation, I’m not alone. Tolstoy called it, and other artists must feel it:

I don’t know how I’m doing. Did I arouse that feeling in my readers?

If it is read, it must have achieved a bit of that. Interest is the lowest rung. Stronger feelings are higher up the ladder.

And a response!

In this digital landscape, a like or even better a comment back, is an indication

I plucked a resonant string.

This is me realizing and appreciating the connection I have with my readers, as we make this together.

Also, it’s me asking:

If you read it, click the heart.

If it made you think or laugh, I’d be very interested to hear it.

We don’t have to be alone in this human experience.

1. The General theory of Employment, Interest, and MOney by John Maynard Keynes – finished
   • i listened to this book on audio, because it woudl have been impossible ot sit and read it. But i have an undersatndign and respect for KEynes that I didn’t expect, even though I dont’ udnerstand it as well as I would have if I’d read it on paper
2. good things by samin nosrat
3. the Wedding People
   • this book reminds me of the rule, that modern “Literary fiction” has to have a suicide. I’ts darkly humourous, that this dpressing book is an unepected literary book, I thought it woudl be a romance novel, ok, it kinda was, but I didn’st like how liekly they treated the suicide
4. Caliban’s War
5. the feminine mystique
6. What is Art by Leo Tolstoy
7. Art and Fear
8. Monkey King
9. how to argue and win every time
10. a girl named Zippy
11. She got up off the couch
12. something rising
13. can’t hurt me
14. How to fail at almost everythign and still win Big
15. the used world

Good things

2 The wedding people

3

good things by samin nosrat

Caliban’s War

The General theory of Employment, Interest, and MOney by John Maynard Keynes – finished

What is Art by Leo Tolstoy

Art and Fear

Monkey King

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