Owl City Music and the Passage of Time

In the time between hearing Owl City’s first single and his latest, I’ve had entire friendships rise and fall — meeting, becoming close, drifting apart, falling out, and letting their presence in my life fade into the dull wispy ache of a memory of what we once were… Continue reading “Owl City Music and the Passage of Time”

Pluto Cartoons and the Passage of Time

I used to watch Pluto cartoons as a kid, and I thought the silly yellow dog was funny but didn’t know anyone like him.

Then I had a dog named Trudy for sixteen years. She had a lot of the same funny quirks, expressions, and behaviors as Pluto, but she was infinitely more real… Continue reading “Pluto Cartoons and the Passage of Time”

Many Thoughts on AI Art

Art doesn’t exist in a vacuum. If you write a poem and immediately burn it without ever showing it to anyone else, you’ll still have been in conversation with every poem and other piece of art you’ve ever encountered just by writing it in the first place.

Art is the language humans use to communicate feelings and experiences and beauty. Art is fundamentally about connection, whether it’s between someone who creates art and a separate person who experiences it… or even if it’s just a way to communicate more deeply with yourself. Continue reading “Many Thoughts on AI Art”

Art Is Not a Zero Sum Game

I’ve been getting quieter on here (note: this post is converted from a thread on Twitter) about AI art, because the communities I’m in clearly hate it with a raging passion.

But I love AI art. And I’m really disappointed in Uncanny Magazine’s choice to publish a whole essay calling it theft, plain and simple. Continue reading “Art Is Not a Zero Sum Game”

AI Art Doesn’t Have to Be a Culture War

The amount of absolute unfettered hate I see on here (Twitter) being spewed toward any artist who would ever use an AI program to assist them in their art is… terrifying. It makes me want to just close up shop and disappear from this corner of the internet for the next few years.

How did it somehow become okay to bully people just because they like AI art? Continue reading “AI Art Doesn’t Have to Be a Culture War”

Flowers Want to Be Free

by Mary E. Lowd

A Deep Sky Anchor Original, January 2023

“Sometimes, you hear about a dandelion managing to grow up from a crack in the concrete somewhere in the city. People who are lucky enough to find it go viral instantly with their pictures.”

The city stretches as far as I know in every direction.  Some kids at school say it covers the entire world, wrapping the globe of our planet in concrete snakes and strangling tentacles, dimpling its surface with metal and glass towers.  I don’t know if they’re right.  The websites that would tell me for sure — the good, scientific, trustworthy ones — are behind paywalls, and my parents say we can’t trust what we read on the free sites.

I know we can’t trust what we’re taught in school. Continue reading “Flowers Want to Be Free”