Month: December 2023

Streaming, AI & The Return Of Live Theatre

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It’s possible that the issue of the entertainment business shifting into streaming could be looked back upon as rather quaint. The issue is — some spunky start-up is going to come out with an AI generated movie within 18 months and, well, there you go.

When that happens, it’s just a quick jaunt to AI digital assistants churning out personalized movies and TV shows out of whole cloth without any humans being involved in the process. This is probably going to happen REALLY FAST to the point that virtually overnight all the hand wringing over the transition to streaming will just fade away.

But for the moment, I’m at a loss as to what to do about streaming. It’s such a structural shift in how entertainment is distributed that….I dunno. There definitely seems to be a chance that number of movie theatres may grow smaller and smaller.

And, yet, as I mentioned, if AI takes over, there is likely going to be a real demand for live theatre again. So, maybe some number of movie theatres will be turned into live theatre venues? That certainly would be a strange future. But I suppose I’m something of an optimist when it comes to “human generated art.”

At some point, people are going to grow tired of an endless array of AI generated TV shows and movies and they’re going to want something created by humans — and that will lead to the potential return of live theatre being the center of the artistic world.

Maybe. It’s possible. I man can dream, can’t he?

The Proof is In The Pudding When It Comes To Civil War

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

For some time now, the MAGA Right has lobbed the threat of a “civil war” at anyone who dare oppose them. Then, of course, they turn around and claim it’s Blues who want a civil war. It’s all very curious.

The issue of a Second American Civil War is difficult to game out because what idiot MAGA people mean by using the term and what will actually happen are two different things. What MAGA MEANS by using the term “civil war” is “I’m so worked up about the browning of America and the increased economic, sexual and political agency of women I’m daydreaming about being able to murder people I disagree with politically without being charged.”

But in reality, I….just don’t know. As I’ve said before, there are two ways we’ll have a civil war — either because Trump loses and he demands a National Divorce because he wants to stay out of prison, OR Trump is re-elected and he’s so ham-handed in his tyranny that he gets deposed….which leads to Red States leaving the Union.

There is a HUGE difference between blathering on about a civil war on Fox News and actually risking your life for what you believe in in the real world. And, at this point, I just don’t know.

There are just too many different ways things could work out. It could be that even if Trump does lose and he demands a National Divorce, no one will listen to him and, lulz, we punt our structural political problems down the road another four years.

And it could be that so many smug Twitter liberals leave the country when Trump is re-elected that, welp, that’s it. Trump will be a Red King over Blue states and that will be that — America will join Turkey, Hungary and Russia as an autocratic state.

All I know is that 2024 – 2025 will be lit.

I Need / Want to Watch ‘Carol’ But I’m Being Stubborn

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Carol is just the type of movie I *should* want to watch. I started it, but stopped because, I dunno, something about it turned me off. But I think I’m going to try — TRY — to watch it again.

Cate Blanchet stars in “Carol.”

I think some of it comes from the vibe is shoots off. Something about the over-serious nature of the relationship turns me off. And, yet, I can tell it’s also just the type of Serious Storytelling that I should enjoy.

Ugh. I’m so torn.

And all of this happens in the context of me feeling more and more guilty about how little content I actually *consume*. I really just read my own stuff over and over again and that’s not good. I need to expose myself to other people’s work. These thoughts are happening in the context of preparing to query my novel at some point in 2024.

I’m going to have to have something to “comp” it to other than Stieg Larsson’s work which is, at this point, nearly 20 years old. Ugh. It’s times like these when I realize leaving the extended delusional state I’ve been when developing and writing this novel is going to be extremely jarring.

I *Think* I’m Where I Need To Be With The Third Draft Of My First Novel

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

While things continue to collapse over and over again with this third draft, there is at least a chance I may have reached some stability. The only quibble I have with it at the moment is the first chapter doesn’t really make it clear the mystery-thriller element of the story.

But I think there are ways I can shoehorn that element of the story into it to make it stronger. But I have managed to make a number of the other chapters of the first act have some sense of where things are heading in the second act. I am still at about 40 scenes. This is too much, but not so much that it will dominate the entirety of the rest of the novel.

So, that’s something to be thankful for.

And if I can just focus for once, I think I can zoom through the first act fast enough that by around Christmas or Boxing Day I might — MIGHT — be able to enter the second act.

As all of this is going on, I continue to dwell on reading a lot, watching a lot and also doing some development on some other projects as a “just in case.” I’m really having problems doing all that, however. I continue to drift towards my goal, rather than have the focus that I need.

Hopefully, that will change soon enough for me to actually get some work done really fast. I’m not going to live forever.

Things Are Stabilizing Again With This Novel

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

While I continue to fall apart, I’ve managed to pause my physical decline long enough for me to stabilize the first act of the third draft of my first novel…again. It’s been a real struggle, but I *think* I have a pretty good sequence of events laid out.

I continue to want to work on some other ideas. I’ve got three solid scifi concepts rolling around in my mind that I may piviot to whenever I need to king of chill out for a little while. But I have got to get out of the first act of this novel ASAP.

If I’m going to work on the rest of the novel — which I’ve written twice already — I’m going to have to get out of the first act. The clock is ticking. And there continue to be a lot — A LOT — of known unknowns that could either slow me down or dramatically change the context of the years’ long project with little or no notice.

I really — REALLY — need to wrap this third draft up by no later than April 1st if I’m going to query in the fall….just as America makes a decision as to if it’s going to become a MAGA-themed autocracy or fall into revolution / civil war.

Good times!

Talk About Projection

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner


Fox News is at it again. They definitely seem to want to spark a civil war for no other reasons than “vibes.” They — and the rest of the MAGA Right — spend all their fucking time blathering about how Blues are going to “force” them into a civil war and then they come out with bullshit like this.

Ugh.

I don’t know what to tell you. It definitely seems as though we’re careening towards a very dark future in late 2024, early 2025. The seeds are being sown for a civil war or revolution at some point within the next 18 months or so. I definitely don’t want any such thing to happen, but we have to accept that it’s very possible.

Get ready.

Let Us Pause To Appreciate The Genius Of Cate Blanchet’s Movie Career

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

You have to admire Cate Blanchet’s ability to run around emotionally naked in the movie roles she picks. She is ostensibly a happy wife and mom and yet time after time after time she plays roles where she gets to dip into the lady pond in a VERY PUBLIC WAY.

Cate Blanchet

It’s all quite amusing. This happens all the time with successful artists of all stripes. Musicians, especially, are known for writing wink-and-a-nod lyrics that allow them to get some pretty personal — and sometimes serious — things off their chest in as public a way as possible.

I say more power to her. She’s figured out a way to have if both ways. In her “normal” private life, she’s a loving wife and mom, but in her public career she gets to be a freaky as she likes.

Sometimes, I Fucking Hate Twitter

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

An example of the latest MidJourney abilities.

They say a sign of intelligence is the ability to hold to diametrically opposite things in one’s mind. Well, while I love, love, love Hollywood I also know that *human* Hollywood’s goose is probably cooked within, say, 18 months, if the fucking Fourth Turning doesn’t delay things.

Of course, I mentioned this on Twitter and some rando piece of shit started spouting off Qanon bullshit. Ugh. Twitter never ceases to remind me why I fucking hate it so much. The point is not that it will be a *good* thing that human Hollywood will be dramatically “disrupted” by generative AI, it’s just that it definitely seems possible.

And it’s not like all the humans that AI displaces are going to work at fast-food. There will always be a need for the “human touch” in art. And, as such, I bet live theatre may see a huge resurgence. So all the people that Qanon fucktards hate will simply do the same thing in front of a live audience.

God, I fucking hate Qanon. What fucking idiots.

Burn, Hollywood, Burn — The Great Disruption

A MidJourney 6 generated image.

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The latest version of MidJourney is alarmingly-good at producing high-res images. And it’s only a matter of time before those still images are put together to create the moving picture — movies. But for the fact that politically the United States may collapse into chaos in late 2024, early 2025, I would say that Hollywood’s goose is cooked.

At least the human part of it.

But just like the development of TV was delayed by WW2, it’s possible that an American Second Civil War / WW3 may delay the roll out of AI. It could be that not until that particular political clusterfuck is sorted out that before AGI is reached and we have to deal with the economic implications of all that.

I just don’t know. I can’t predict the future.

Future Headlines: April 2025 — Stewart Takes Command

WASHINGTON D.C. — In a stunning historic series of events, the House of Representatives yesterday named comedian Jon Stewart as Speaker of the House. Within moments of this surreal vote, a joint statement by Speaker Stewart and the Joint Chiefs of Staff declared that because of the 14th Amendment both the presidency and the vice presidency were officially vacant.

See reportage of the beginning of World War 3 on pages 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

In line with this decision, Speaker Stewart was sworn in as 47th President of the United States in a nod to the legal theory that Trump was never president in the first place. The Red State reaction to these stunning turn of events was swift. Last night saw the a majority of the Red Southern states call up secessionist conventions.

The Commonwealth of Virginia, however, was wracked with such political violence that no decision could be made about calling such a convention there.

Meanwhile, the nation was gripped with the fear of a race war in the South because of the massive political difference between Red whites and Blue African Americans. A number of notable Southern African American politicians call for peace and calm. But the rage of the African American community within much of the South was proving difficult to contain as massive crowds attempted to obstruct the ability for secessionist conventions to be held at all.

Now-President Jon Stewart gave an address to the nation from the Oval Office making it clear that any attempt on the part of Red States to secede was illegal and would be dealt with in an appropriate manner.

“We defeated secession once, we can do it again,” President Stewart said.

The nation now waits to see what happens next.