A CHRISTMAS REPORT

 

Dear George, 

We’ve just wound up our best Christmas in many years. Our son Justin and teen-age grandkids Alex and Leo arrived on Dec. 23 and left this afternoon (Dec. 28). In between we filled the time with fun and laughter. The family is driving to Nashville where Alex and Leo with fly to L.A. to meet up with their Aunt Jamie and cousins. Justin and their pup L’il Paws will then continue to New Orleans. Our dog Iko is mourning Lil Paws’ departure, and we are doing the same for our family. Here is a rhymed accounting of our time together. 

Love, 

Dave 

Justin and our grandkids were here 

With bags filled with holiday cheer 

The Bulk Outlet was closed 

We sad shoppers deposed 

So we went to the thrift shop for gear 

On Christmas we had presents galore 

My Satchmo cap I truly adore 

Katja did lots of shopping 

Kept all the folks hopping 

And our family brought all even more 

The kids’ notes were filled with affection 

A boon to our holiday connection 

They’re such fun, that’s the truth 

Take us back to our youth 

And make for nostalgia and reflection 

We tuned into the show “Stranger Things” 

Such scary weird creatures with wings 

I struggled with the plot 

What I thought, it was not 

For others, it tickled heartstrings 

Daily walks with Iko and L’il Paws 

Iko was more prone to pause 

These dogs are so cute 

And they’ve mastered each route 

That’s why they deserve our applause 

“Avatar: Fire and Ash” 

A movie that makes a big splash 

At times I was confused 

Then I’d find myself amused 

Three plus hours went by in a flash 

We went to see MAD Magazine 

A stiff challenges to the American scene 

The art was quit fine 

Graphics tickled one’s spine 

And sometimes it proved actually clean 

The gang went to see “Marty Supreme” 

A young man who was driven by his dream 

His thing was ping pong 

An avenue to belong 

Toxic ambition was the theme 

The Bulk Outlet was open the second time 

But the kids thought it not worth a dime 

Off to Pixel Nineteen 

Much more fit for a teen 

A warehouse for customers in their prime 

Off to the Mariemont to take in “Hamnet” 

Death and grief were an ever-present threat 

But Shakespeare wrote his play 

And his show saved the day. 

I cried a few tears, not upset 

Kenwood Mall for our bi-annual trip 

The youth searching for merchandise hip 

They did Alex’s nails 

Then some half price off sales 

We barely had space in our ship 

We went to First Watch for our lunch 

A chorizo omelet, my favorite munch 

Leo, Katja, French toast 

Alex, veggies, the utmost. 

The meals at First Watch pack a punch 

Alex got a school project back 

Lost at the museum — smack, bang, whack. 

Some good soul turned it in 

Which caused Alex to grin 

And now life is back in the black 

Justin did lots of household repairs 

Fixed the lights on the front and back stairs 

Did the refrigerator filter 

The smoke alarms off-kilter. 

The kitchen drawer, among our very longest cares. 

We partied with Hannah, Chris, and Karrie 

A family gathering that proved to be merry 

We dined on China Food 

Very tasty for our brood. 

Traded stories that were funny, warm, and scary. 

To Bronte’s, our very last meal 

Tasty brunch, that was the deal 

Our grandkids are flying to L.A. 

Meet with Aunt Jamie and cousins, more play 

For all concerned, the Christmas spirit is real

CHRISTMAS TALES

 Dear George, 

With our son J and grandkids A and L visiting, we are enjoying a very special holiday season.  It reminds me that Christmas has played a significant role over the years in our lives.  Here are a few of the stories.  

Trees of Many Colors

My dad planted evergreens in the field across from our house on Riverside Boulevard, and, by the time I was 9 or 10, they were reaching maturity.  About a week before Christmas I would go with him, and we would pick out a white pine or a spruce for our Christmas tree.  We would lug it back to our driveway, tie it to the top of our car, and bring it to Van Domelen’s auto body shop in downtown Menominee.  Vic would set it up in the vestibule in which they spray painted cars, and the workers would paint our tree red, blue, or yellow.  My aunt Martha always complained about our tree being sacrilegious, but we children thought it was amazing..  

Santa Comes to Visit

In the late afternoon of Christmas Eve my dad drove us to Vic and Ruth Mars’ home at Northwood Cove on the Green Bay shore where we joined a bunch of other kids from my parents’ circle of friends.  We were told to hide behind chairs and sofas in the living room and to be completely quiet.  After a while who came in but Santa himself, carrying a large bag of toys.  We were entranced.  He put a lot of them underneath the Christmas tree.  Miraculously every kid in the room received a present from Santa.  

A Family Celebration

Every Christmas eve our extended family gathered at our house on the river to celebrate Christmas.  Uncles Kent and Ralph brought cosmetic and health care samples from their drugstores as presents.  However, Kent’s twin brother, Karl, who was a bachelor with no family of his own was much more extravagant.  Gowns, fur wraps, jewelry for the woman and fancy toys for the children.  I used my nuclear science kit to search for uranium deposits on the Lake Superior shore.  Mother made a fancy turkey dinner with Schaum Torte for dessert.  We sang Christmas carols, and the kid took turns reading “The Night Before Christmas.” 

Christmas on My Own

I was at home for Christmas every year until 1958 the I was 21.  That Christmas I was in New York City, living in Washington Heights, and my two friends has gone home for the holidays.  I went to an Irish bar in the neighborhood.  After a couple of shots of whiskey, I thought I’d better call home, and I sent my Christmas wishes.  A couple of guys at the bar then said I sounded like I had an Irish accent, but others said I sounded more Scottish.  They asked if I had jumped ship and was in the country illegally.  I said that I was.  They said that they could get papers for me, but these would come from the Mafia.  Too scared, I said thanks but no thanks, and I headed for home.  

A Married Christmas.  In 1964 Katja and I had our fifth Christmas holiday as a married couple at my parents’ home in Menominee.  We had just returned from a two-month European tour of 8 or 9 countries, and we’d documented our adventure with photos that we’d had turned into slides.  Vic and Doris invited a couple dozen friends to a party at river house where Katja and I gave a photographic European tour to the group.  I’d say Katja did 95% of the reporting, and everyone found her delightful. 

Too much to take in.  We started celebrating Christmas full-scale when Justin turned one — trees, stockings on the mantel, holiday music, a special dinner, etc.  When Justin was four we took him to Johnny’s Toy Store in Greenhills to see what sorts of gifts he would like to ask Santa for.  At first this was a fun outing — Justin was happy and excited, his doting parents were enthralled.  However, the store was huge, the merchandise endless, and the stimulation of all those toys proved too much.  Justin cried and cried, and nothing we could do calmed him down.  Santa did get the necessary information though.  

A Christmas Tree Forest.  We moved to our house on Ludlow Avenue in Cincinnati’s Clifton neighborhood in about 1975.  I cut down a sumac tree near the Digby Tennis Courts and made flour-and-salt cookie faces, painted with acrylics, for decorations.  Our neighbors started putting their evergreen Christmas trees out on the curb as early as Dec. 26th or 27th.  Justin and I agreed that was a shame, so we started hauling them home and setting them up on our back patio.  One year we had 17 Christmas trees in our patio forest.  They stayed there till Valentine’s Day.  

Christmas in the Big Apple.  We spent many Christmases over the years on Manhattan’s Upper West Side with Katja’s sister and brother-in-law, Ami and Bruce.  New York is an absolute joy during the holidays.  Fifth Avenue, Rockefeller Center, St. Peter’s and Saint John’s, the Met and MOMA, Macy’s and Saks Fifth Avenue, Times Square.  Ami made an elegant Christmas dinner for family and friends each year, and the two sisters were extravagant with their gifts.  Justin became so in love with the city over the years that he decided that was the only place he wanted to go to college.  And so he did.  

A Special Family Christmas.  Over the years we have usually celebrated the holidays with our NOLA family at Thanksgiving, but this year J, A, and L joined us in Cincinnati.  It’s been a wonderful time so far.  We did the “MAD Magazine” art show at the Cincinnati art museum yesterday, took in “Avatar: Fire and Ash” at Cinemark, and exchanged a bonanza of gifts on Christmas morning.  A and L are 17 this year, a year away from getting ready for college.  They are bright, affectionate, mature. and fun.  A joy for their grandparents on this special holiday.  

Love,

Dave 

A POETRY QUIZ: HUMAN OR ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE?

 

Dear George, 

Can you tell if a poem has been written by a human versus by an AI chatbot? Below are ten pairs of limericks. Within each pair one limerick was written by a human being (myself) and the other was written by Gemini, Google’s artificial intelligence chatbot. Gemini was instructed to write a limerick on the same topic as my human-written version (e.g., “Write a limerick about bugs in the kitchen”). Your task is to judge which is which. First write the numbers 1 through 10 down a blank piece of paper. Then read each pair of limericks. If you think the first poem in the pair was human-written and the second was AI-written, write H/AI next to the appropriate number. Conversely, if you think the first was AI-written and the second was human-written, write AI/H next to the number. As a hint, half of the pairs are in one order and half are in the other order. Correct answers will be given at the end. 

        1. BUGS IN THE KITCHEN 

The small insects, countless and bold 

In our kitchen their story unrolled 

They marched 'cross the floor 

Then asked us for more 

A sticky sweet chaos of old 

Hordes of bugs have invaded our sink 

Seeking morsels to eat and to drink 

Some are big, most are small 

All delighted to crawl 

These bugs are night creatures, I think. 

             2. AGE EIGHTY-FIVE 

I’ve hit eighty-five years on the spot 

And still feel like a colt that can trot 

My memory's a blur 

But of this I am sure, 

I've learned what to do and what not 

Today I turned age eighty-five 

Quite puzzling to still be alive 

Never planned for this day 

Crummy hearing, hair gray 

The new question, how best to survive 

         3. WORDLE IN TWO GUESSES 

Today I solved Wordle in two 

Success leaped straight out of the blue 

My first word was CREST 

Got three letters, guessed the rest 

Offbeat picks but they proved to be true 

To start, I chose ADIEU with great thought 

For the second guess, the right word was caught 

In guesses just two 

The answer broke through 

A Wordle solved quickly, well wrought 

         4. BENGALS LOSE TO BEARS 

The Bengals' defense, it is said 

Left the Bears' tight end quite well fed 

A big lead erased 

Their victory displaced 

Now Cincy fans just shake their head 

The Bengals got thumped by the Bears 

Though our offense gained more yards than theirs 

Near the end, things looked good 

Victory looming, knock on wood 

Oh no, Zack! Please make some repairs 

         5. OUR DOGGIE’S ACCIDENT 

Iko pooped right on top of our bed 

He must have been out of his head 

I took him straight out 

Screamed that he was a lout 

And now we just eye him with dread 

Young Iko, a pup full of zest 

Put his owners quite fully to the test 

On the bed, soft and deep, 

While his people did sleep 

He left a brown gift, unimpressed 

         6. LEFTOVER THANKSGIVING TURKEY 

We are still eating leftover turkey 

Mixed with chicken a la king, sort of murky 

Most years turkey’s my favorite 

I've always said I savor it 

But right now I would rather have beef jerky 

I thought I would finish the bird 

Every last morsel, uncured 

My stomach then cried 

"You're quite over-plied!" 

Now I'm stuck, very groggy and blurred 

         7. GET A HAIRCUT 

My dear wife, she looked quite aghast, 

"That mop top is growing too fast! 

Like a shaggy old mutt, 

You look like a nut, 

Get a trim, before winter has passed!” 

My wife tells me, “Get a haircut” 

She claims people think I’m a nut 

But I don’t want to go 

My hair’s still so-so 

And who cares if I look like a mutt 

         8. TO THE BODY SHOP 

I’ve bashed in the blue Honda’s fender 

It looks like I’ve been on a bender 

Backed up into a wall 

Now I’m off to John Hall 

That John Hall's quite skilled, he will mend ‘er 

My blue Honda suffered a smash, 

Its front fender looked like pure trash. 

To John Hall's I drove slow, 

Where they put on a show, 

To fix up the dent in a flash! 

         9. DINNER AT THE CHART HOUSE 

The Chart House for my birthday dinner 

Holy moly, I felt like a winner 

I ordered sea bass 

Such a fish, it’s first class 

But the lava cake won’t make me thinner 

For my birthday, I went to the spot 

The Chart House, all fancy and hot 

I savored the bass 

Then ate with great class, 

The warm, gooey lava cake pot 

         10. THE WINTER SNOW STORM 

A huge storm brought snowfall so deep 

Eight cold inches started to creep 

"Dear Iko, I fear 

Will you stay warm, my dear?" 

While he snored in a comforting heap 

We’re enjoying a huge winter storm 

The whitest of white is the norm 

The snow’s eight inches deep 

Our car’s under the heap 

I just hope that our pup Iko can stay warm. 

How did you do? You might want to guess how many of the 10 pairs you got correct before reading the following answers. Here is the answer key. Give yourself one point for each pair that you got correct. KEY: 1. AI/H; 2. AI/H; 3. H/AI; 4. AI/H; 5. H/AI; 6. H/AI; 7. AI/H; 8. H/AI; 9. H/AI; 10. AI/H. 

I bet you did better than you thought. I tried this quiz out on members of my writers’ group, and they thought it was pretty hard. However, most got between six and nine pairs correct. (Because it’s a 50/50 decision, a score of 5 would be chance.). When I imagined doing the quiz, I thought odd rhymes were a cue to AI-generated poems (e.g., “unrolled” in pair 1; “wrought” in pair 3; “unimpressed” in pair 5; "pot" in pair 9). On the other hand, I thought some pairs were almost impossible to distinguish (e.g., 2, 7). 

There has been research on whether people can reliably distinguish between poems written by classic authors (e.g., Shakespeare, Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, T.S Eliot) and AI-generated poems (when the chatbot was instructed to write in the style of a given author). There are two main findings. (1) Participants were generally unable to distinguish the two classes of poems, sometimes more likely to judge an AI-generated poem as human-authored than a poem actually written by a human author. (2) When not told whether an author was human or AI, participants often rated AI-generated poems more favorably. The researchers have suggested that non-expert readers prefer AI-generated poems because they are generally more straightforward, grammatically correct, and easier to understand versus the complexity and ambiguity of poems written by classic human poets. 

So the big question is whether poetry writing is going to be taken over by Artificial Intelligence. I don’t think it will, though AI is getting more sophisticated, year by year. Probably the best answer was given by one of my fellow group members: “I wouldn’t have any interest in reading a poem written by a chatbot.”

Love, 

Dave