Dear Alberto, this is beautiful. And it relates to a thought that arose here the other day: Language is a social practice. It's not a record that can be stored. One word means a world to me, not much to others. How evocative! A labyrinth of thoughts, feelings, images arises.
A simple word can comprise secrets and open that window into an emotional landscape. Like epic songs of our favourite singers. Whatever touches us evokes memories inside and our own relation. So we are relating to the world, to ourselves, to others. Reading your text today, I think of Rilke and his poems (about roses, about statues, about tempests: "Love Poems to God").
ROSE:
Rose,
oh pure
contradiction,
Lust,
Nobody's
Sleep
to be
under so many
eyelids.
– – – – –
TEMPEST:
“You are not surprised at the force of the storm—
you have seen it growing.
The trees flee. Their flight
sets the boulevards streaming. And you know:
he whom they flee is the one
you move toward. All your senses
sing him, as you stand at the window.
The weeks stood still in summer.
The trees’ blood rose. Now you feel
it wants to sink back
into the source of everything. You thought
you could trust that power
when you plucked the fruit:
now it becomes a riddle again
and you again a stranger.
Summer was like your house: you know
where each thing stood.
Now you must go out into your heart
as onto a vast plain. Now
the immense loneliness begins.
The days go numb, the wind
sucks the world from your senses like withered leaves.
Through the empty branches the sky remains.
It is what you have.
Be earth now, and evensong.
Be the ground lying under that sky.
Be modest now, like a thing
ripened until it is real,
so that he who began it all
can feel you when he reaches for you.
- Onto a Vast Plain”
– – – – –
STONE (STATUE):
We did not know his outrageous head,
in which the eyeballs ripened. But
his torso still glows like a candelabra,
in which his vision, but dimmed..,
...holds and shines. Else could not the prow
of the breast dazzle thee, and in the quiet turning
of the loins a smile could not go
To that centre which bore the begetting.
Otherwise this stone would stand disfigured and short
beneath the shoulders' transparent lintel
and would not flicker like the skins of predators;
and would not burst forth from all its edges
like a star: for there is no place
that seeth thee not. You must change your life.
– – – – –
None of these explains the mystery of Borges' magic line. However, there is this deep web of symbols. They don't mean much without us humans picking them up, loading them with meaning.
I have a very precise idea of what Borges might have meant. An image, so to speak, an emotion.
I don't know if it was his. This tension of not-knowing keeps the beauty preserved, intangible.
Apr 18, 2023·edited Apr 18, 2023Liked by Alberto Romero
As a master of metaphores and hidden meanings, you the AI Assistent will help uncover deeper meanings of paragraphs.
> Sure, I’ll do my best to help uncover deeper meanings of paragraphs using metaphors and hidden meanings. Just provide me with the paragraph you want me to analyze.
That twilight, he dreamed of the statue. He dreamed it alive, trembling: it was not an atrocious bastard of a tiger and a foal, but at once those two vehement creatures and also a bull, a rose, a tempest.
> In this paragraph, the statue is used as a metaphor for a complex and multifaceted entity. The protagonist dreams of the statue coming to life and embodying not just the two creatures it represents (tiger and foal), but also a bull, a rose, and a tempest. This suggests that the statue represents something that is both fierce and gentle, powerful and delicate, beautiful and dangerous, and that it contains within it a range of conflicting emotions and impulses. The use of the statue as a metaphor also implies that the protagonist is grappling with complex and conflicting emotions or ideas in his dream.
If you are unsure about an answer, please anwers "I don't know";
> Understood, I will respond with “I don’t know” if I am unsure about an answer.
Why does the author compare a tiger and a foal with a bull, a rose and a tempest?
> The author compares a tiger and a foal with a bull, a rose, and a tempest to convey the complexity and range of emotions and impulses embodied by the statue in the protagonist’s dream. The statue represents not just two creatures, but a multitude of conflicting ideas and emotions, such as strength and vulnerability (tiger and foal), power and beauty (bull and rose), and chaos and intensity (tempest). By using this metaphor, the author is able to convey the depth and complexity of the protagonist’s dream and the conflicting emotions and ideas he is grappling with.
How did you decide that?
> I decided that based on my understanding of the literary devices used in the paragraph. The author uses the statue as a metaphor to represent something complex and multifaceted, and the use of multiple images (tiger, foal, bull, rose, tempest) within the metaphor suggests a range of conflicting emotions and impulses. This interpretation is also supported by the language used in the paragraph, which describes the statue as “vehement” and suggests that it embodies a range of conflicting qualities.
Could you rewrite "That twilight, he dreamed of the statue. He dreamed it alive, trembling: it was not an atrocious bastard of a tiger and a foal, but at once those two vehement creatures and also a bull, a rose, a tempest." to make it's meaning more apparent?
> In the dim light of twilight, the protagonist dreamed of a statue that came to life and trembled with intensity. The statue was not just a combination of a tiger and a foal, but also embodied the qualities of a bull, a rose, and a tempest. This complex and multifaceted entity represented a range of conflicting emotions and impulses, including strength and vulnerability, power and beauty, and chaos and intensity.
Apr 22, 2023·edited Apr 22, 2023Liked by Alberto Romero
The first thing I ever typed to a chatbot was to OpenAI’s playground this past December. It was a line of poetry that my dearest friend wrote 35 years ago—a line that resonated with me then and resonates with me still: “Green is God is go.” I truly believe this to be one of the greatest lines of poetry in the English language: the alliteration connects the concepts in a way that is neither strident or coy, but which gently connects the color (of chlorophyll, of the intersect of light and air that gives us oxygen) to the divine (as primal, as seed, as source of germination for all life), to GO—the action, the activity in which all life participates. He marries science to God in a vow composed of five monosyllables. It’s fucking brilliant, and I return to it often (especially in the springtime, with the world getting greener, getting more godlike, and motherfucking GOING).
So, like I said, those five words were the first I shared with a chatbot. I’m return, the first response I ever got from a chatbot was “No, this is not correct.”
So I knew from the start that we’re pretty much fucked.
I learned from checking out GPT4 opinion for example that it did not know whose passage the text was, but was able to include Borges as #1 in it's guess for magical realism writer. Key surprise for me is that having a dialogue about literature could be still broadening and beneficial even though it's natural to expect it be useless and diminishing.
Making me realize the author could be seeking emotional resonance with opposites and contrasts, as well as bringing me out of trivializing Borges potential meanings to a couple that spring to my mind was very useful.
I would venture having a dialogue about literature again. From now on, I have higher expectations of gaining fresh perspectives and insights. Like talking to someone, not like talking to literature professor, or the author himself.
Dear Alberto, this is beautiful. And it relates to a thought that arose here the other day: Language is a social practice. It's not a record that can be stored. One word means a world to me, not much to others. How evocative! A labyrinth of thoughts, feelings, images arises.
A simple word can comprise secrets and open that window into an emotional landscape. Like epic songs of our favourite singers. Whatever touches us evokes memories inside and our own relation. So we are relating to the world, to ourselves, to others. Reading your text today, I think of Rilke and his poems (about roses, about statues, about tempests: "Love Poems to God").
ROSE:
Rose,
oh pure
contradiction,
Lust,
Nobody's
Sleep
to be
under so many
eyelids.
– – – – –
TEMPEST:
“You are not surprised at the force of the storm—
you have seen it growing.
The trees flee. Their flight
sets the boulevards streaming. And you know:
he whom they flee is the one
you move toward. All your senses
sing him, as you stand at the window.
The weeks stood still in summer.
The trees’ blood rose. Now you feel
it wants to sink back
into the source of everything. You thought
you could trust that power
when you plucked the fruit:
now it becomes a riddle again
and you again a stranger.
Summer was like your house: you know
where each thing stood.
Now you must go out into your heart
as onto a vast plain. Now
the immense loneliness begins.
The days go numb, the wind
sucks the world from your senses like withered leaves.
Through the empty branches the sky remains.
It is what you have.
Be earth now, and evensong.
Be the ground lying under that sky.
Be modest now, like a thing
ripened until it is real,
so that he who began it all
can feel you when he reaches for you.
- Onto a Vast Plain”
– – – – –
STONE (STATUE):
We did not know his outrageous head,
in which the eyeballs ripened. But
his torso still glows like a candelabra,
in which his vision, but dimmed..,
...holds and shines. Else could not the prow
of the breast dazzle thee, and in the quiet turning
of the loins a smile could not go
To that centre which bore the begetting.
Otherwise this stone would stand disfigured and short
beneath the shoulders' transparent lintel
and would not flicker like the skins of predators;
and would not burst forth from all its edges
like a star: for there is no place
that seeth thee not. You must change your life.
– – – – –
None of these explains the mystery of Borges' magic line. However, there is this deep web of symbols. They don't mean much without us humans picking them up, loading them with meaning.
I have a very precise idea of what Borges might have meant. An image, so to speak, an emotion.
I don't know if it was his. This tension of not-knowing keeps the beauty preserved, intangible.
Enjoy Mexico :)
May you be inspired
Thank you for the reminder we all need that art is not reducible to data.
As a master of metaphores and hidden meanings, you the AI Assistent will help uncover deeper meanings of paragraphs.
> Sure, I’ll do my best to help uncover deeper meanings of paragraphs using metaphors and hidden meanings. Just provide me with the paragraph you want me to analyze.
That twilight, he dreamed of the statue. He dreamed it alive, trembling: it was not an atrocious bastard of a tiger and a foal, but at once those two vehement creatures and also a bull, a rose, a tempest.
> In this paragraph, the statue is used as a metaphor for a complex and multifaceted entity. The protagonist dreams of the statue coming to life and embodying not just the two creatures it represents (tiger and foal), but also a bull, a rose, and a tempest. This suggests that the statue represents something that is both fierce and gentle, powerful and delicate, beautiful and dangerous, and that it contains within it a range of conflicting emotions and impulses. The use of the statue as a metaphor also implies that the protagonist is grappling with complex and conflicting emotions or ideas in his dream.
If you are unsure about an answer, please anwers "I don't know";
> Understood, I will respond with “I don’t know” if I am unsure about an answer.
Why does the author compare a tiger and a foal with a bull, a rose and a tempest?
> The author compares a tiger and a foal with a bull, a rose, and a tempest to convey the complexity and range of emotions and impulses embodied by the statue in the protagonist’s dream. The statue represents not just two creatures, but a multitude of conflicting ideas and emotions, such as strength and vulnerability (tiger and foal), power and beauty (bull and rose), and chaos and intensity (tempest). By using this metaphor, the author is able to convey the depth and complexity of the protagonist’s dream and the conflicting emotions and ideas he is grappling with.
How did you decide that?
> I decided that based on my understanding of the literary devices used in the paragraph. The author uses the statue as a metaphor to represent something complex and multifaceted, and the use of multiple images (tiger, foal, bull, rose, tempest) within the metaphor suggests a range of conflicting emotions and impulses. This interpretation is also supported by the language used in the paragraph, which describes the statue as “vehement” and suggests that it embodies a range of conflicting qualities.
Could you rewrite "That twilight, he dreamed of the statue. He dreamed it alive, trembling: it was not an atrocious bastard of a tiger and a foal, but at once those two vehement creatures and also a bull, a rose, a tempest." to make it's meaning more apparent?
> In the dim light of twilight, the protagonist dreamed of a statue that came to life and trembled with intensity. The statue was not just a combination of a tiger and a foal, but also embodied the qualities of a bull, a rose, and a tempest. This complex and multifaceted entity represented a range of conflicting emotions and impulses, including strength and vulnerability, power and beauty, and chaos and intensity.
😁
The first thing I ever typed to a chatbot was to OpenAI’s playground this past December. It was a line of poetry that my dearest friend wrote 35 years ago—a line that resonated with me then and resonates with me still: “Green is God is go.” I truly believe this to be one of the greatest lines of poetry in the English language: the alliteration connects the concepts in a way that is neither strident or coy, but which gently connects the color (of chlorophyll, of the intersect of light and air that gives us oxygen) to the divine (as primal, as seed, as source of germination for all life), to GO—the action, the activity in which all life participates. He marries science to God in a vow composed of five monosyllables. It’s fucking brilliant, and I return to it often (especially in the springtime, with the world getting greener, getting more godlike, and motherfucking GOING).
So, like I said, those five words were the first I shared with a chatbot. I’m return, the first response I ever got from a chatbot was “No, this is not correct.”
So I knew from the start that we’re pretty much fucked.
Such a beautiful thing to notice and realize. However, as Alberto presented it as "I could never ask", it lead me to wonder if I could help and ask for you. https://substack.com/profile/4113488-gaba/note/c-14928473
I learned from checking out GPT4 opinion for example that it did not know whose passage the text was, but was able to include Borges as #1 in it's guess for magical realism writer. Key surprise for me is that having a dialogue about literature could be still broadening and beneficial even though it's natural to expect it be useless and diminishing.
Making me realize the author could be seeking emotional resonance with opposites and contrasts, as well as bringing me out of trivializing Borges potential meanings to a couple that spring to my mind was very useful.
I would venture having a dialogue about literature again. From now on, I have higher expectations of gaining fresh perspectives and insights. Like talking to someone, not like talking to literature professor, or the author himself.
Dip a toe in the pool for me!
https://www.mexicancaribbean.travel/riviera-maya/