Dear Identity Theory Readers,
This week I dreamed in advertisements.
In one of the dreams, I was offered “Smartwater: Enhanced by AI.” Another dream featured ‘90s band Jimmy Eat World performing outside a Chipotle in a “Jimmy Eat Chipotle” promo—but we’ll leave that one alone.
You’ve noticed this, perhaps dreamed about it, too: countless products being pushed as “powered by AI.”
The catch-all solution of your dreams.
I don’t have anything fancy to say about AI. I just wonder where the need for artificial enhancement (and/or the snake-oil salesmanship of it) ends.
“That gust of wind was okay, but it would have been better if it were enhanced by AI.”
Earth, Wind, Fire, Etc.
I bring up wind because air seems to be our classical element of the week.
We have new flash fiction from superstar short-fiction writer Melissa Ostrom of New York called “Windford”:
The town was known for its loamy soil—and winds, of course. They played across the water behind the farmhouse and billowed the sheets hanging on the line and knitted knots in the Grover girls’ hair. Still blond, Shelly noticed, but less fair than it used to be.
My towheaded twins.
In December, the tufted seeds of milkweed rode the gusts like golden feathers or silky snow. Fairy floss, her girls called it.
Catch a pixie, make a wish, set it free to find your fortune.
The seeds of the columbine Shelly planted in front must have traveled on a breeze, too. In June, she found volunteers flowering behind the house, in the bed the new Mrs. Grover had expanded to make room for annuals.
Fine, bright blooms, happy in the sun, along came the wind and blew down one.
Shelly wasn’t sure how she felt about Joyce Grover’s snapdragons, marigolds, and zinnias. Or the persistently smiling pansies. Or the blowsy petals of the petunias. Shelly didn’t much like annuals. They didn’t come back.
Read the rest of Melissa’s story.
Do you feel a breeze in here?
A gust of artificial wind appears in this week’s Ampydoo cartoon:
Life does not stop and start at your convenience.
Unfortunately, since nature doesn’t always align efficiently to marketing themes, our poetry of the week (the first publication from Becky Tarasick of Toronto) doesn’t include wind. But it does have a bit about birds, so let’s go with that:
watched a bird fly into the wheel of a car
once. dove too low and got caught
in the crunch. thought—how’d youlike that? ripped up red stain, more grit
than feather. pull yourself back together.
i’ll peel myself off the road if you do.
Read the rest of Becky’s two poems.
Everything Changes. Meet the New Wind. Powered by AI.
“Everything changes” is a reasonable catch-all philosophy, excuse, marketing slogan, or in this case, transition to changing the subject.
We have some staff updates that I haven’t previously announced in the newsletter:
Sophie Newman, who has helped keep the site humming with diligent prose submission management, is now Deputy Editor.
James Warner and Sarah Clayville, who have been reading stories on our fiction team for 15 years, are now Senior Fiction Editors.
Carole A. Burkett, who has done good work with both fiction and nonfiction for seven years, is now Senior Prose Editor.
I’m not sure if I announced her addition to the staff in a newsletter, but we added Mia Arias Tsang as a copyeditor at the beginning of the year, and she is great.
And in case I forgot to mention it, Cody Shrum, Abbie Doll, Ivan Davenny, and Emmy Ritchey joined our fiction group this year.
Some editors who served on our staff for more than a year and had to leave for various reasons in recent months (we already miss them) are Dayna Copeland, Jamie Guiney, and Liz Conard.
These people are all very nice, and we are/were extremely fortunate to have them on our staff—no bots could replace their contributions.
That’s the way the wind blows.
You don’t need a weatherman,
Matt Borondy
Human Currently Eating Rice
Identity Theory
“Everything, everything’ll be alright.” -Jimmy Eat World
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