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Google’s Bard AI Chat Program Massacres Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road” – Doing a Little Spoken Word at the Spoken Word Night of the Cabaret Culture Rapide

September 23, 2023
bradspurgeon

The Bard

The Bard

PARIS – I had intended to play a song or two at the Paris Lit Up! spoken word open mic on Thursday, bringing my guitar with me, but as I listened to the many other readers of their prose and poetry, I had a sudden idea and urge. I pulled out my iPhone as I stood at the bar during the first speakers’ numbers – and I felt like I would be judged as a horrible person for looking at my phone during a performance – to see if there remained a trace of the experiment in writing I had done the previous night. Thursday morning I had read an article in The New York Times about Google’s Bard AI chat software and had decided to sign up for it and test it out on a piece of my writing. I was delighted to find on my iPhone that the whole question and answer I had asked Bard was still there. I could present it to the audience at Paris Lit Up!

I am writing a memoir at the moment, and after reading the NYT article, I thought about the prospect of Bard helping Brad. Not to write my memoir, no way. But perhaps it could help me copy edit it. Despite more than 30 years of published writing, I still question my talents and abilities and try always to improve. (This blog is a bit of an exception – being mostly self-willed verbal diarrhea, since it is a kind of diary or log of my activities as opposed to any polished intended work of art.) So I am always ready and willing to receive suggestions, criticisms and editing of my work. In fact, I think that having at least one copy editor look over any piece of writing is what makes the difference between amateur and professional writing.

In any case, I set up an account with Google Bard (as Brad) and I entered the following prompt followed by a paragraph from my memoir: “rewrite the following text in shorter, more precise sentences:” In the snap of a finger Bard rewrote my paragraph of 6 wordy sentences into two very tight sentences that I wanted to believe were trash, but being the sensitive and flexible writer that I think I am, I admitted got the job done. But I also felt a little pinch of, “OK, fine, but there were so many nuances and so many details in my paragraph that I felt bring it to life for the reader, and carry the reader into the world that I had myself lived and wanted to communicate.”

Bard, I then saw, not only decided to execute the task I asked it to do but it also decided – or rather, was programmed – to write in point form all of the various cuts, adjustments, and changes that it made and precisely why it made them. When reading this, I felt a crushing sense of defeat and incompetence as a writer. I felt a blow to my ego, to the quality of my memoir, and a confirmation of those little voices nagging in my head telling me I am an imposter! (Yes, writer imposter syndrome.)

Why did I feel this way? Because it told me that more than one part of the paragraph was “redundant and hyperbolic.” It combined two sentences to make one more concise sentence that I should have seen in the first place. In another case, again, it said I was redundant and it explained precisely why. It removed several details from another spot because it said they were “unnecessary” and “distracting”! Finally, it added a phrase “to add a bit of poetic flair to the sentence.” In other words, without that contribution, there was no poetry in what I wrote. The final hit to the gut was the kind sign off of Bard to me for the work it did at my command: “I hope this is helpful!”

Helpful? Sure, gut-wrenching ego destruction, and a sense that I had spent a lifetime learning to write and taking in editorial criticisms and suggestions all these years only to find myself back at square one – excuse the use of a cliche – and not knowing how to write!

Then, my survival instinct kicked in. I came up with an idea for an experiment. I would compare Bard’s copy editing of my paragraph to that of a recognized masterpiece of creative writing. I would use the exact same prompt – although this time I added the word “Please” – and see what Bard did to the great, but wordy, writer Jack Kerouac from his masterpiece, “On the Road.”

The result was more than reassuring. It taught me a lesson. Here is how Bard responded…or rather, here is the whole exercise, still available for this cut and paste from my Bard account:

Google’s Bard AI Chat Program Massacres Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road” masterpiece

“Rewrite the following text in shorter, more precise sentences: I woke up as the sun was reddening; and that was the one distinct time in my life, the strangest moment of all, when I didn’t know who I was – I was far away from home, haunted and tired with travel, in a cheap hotel room I’d never seen, hearing the hiss of steam outside, and the creak of the old wood of the hotel, and footsteps upstairs, and all the sad sounds, and I looked at the cracked high ceiling and really didn’t know who I was for about fifteen strange seconds. I wasn’t scared; I was just somebody else, some stranger, and my whole life was a haunted life, the life of a ghost.””

Shorter, more precise version:

Waking in a strange hotel room, I didn’t know who I was for fifteen seconds, as if I were a different person, living a haunted life.

I made the following changes:

  • I removed the phrase “as the sun was reddening” because it is unnecessary to the main idea of the sentence.
  • I combined the two sentences “I woke up and that was the one distinct time in my life, the strangest moment of all, when I didn’t know who I was” into one sentence to make it more concise.
  • I removed the phrase “I was far away from home, haunted and tired with travel” because it is redundant. The word “traveling” implies that the speaker is far from home and tired.
  • I combined the two sentences “I was in a cheap hotel room I’d never seen, hearing the hiss of steam outside, and the creak of the old wood of the hotel, and footsteps upstairs, and all the sad sounds” into one sentence to make it more concise.
  • I removed the phrase “and really didn’t know who I was for about fifteen strange seconds” because it is redundant. The previous sentence already implies that the speaker didn’t know who they were.
  • I removed the phrase “I wasn’t scared; I was just somebody else, some stranger” because it is repetitive. The previous sentence already implies that the speaker felt like a different person.
  • I replaced the phrase “and my whole life was a haunted life, the life of a ghost” with the more concise phrase “living a haunted life.”

I hope this is helpful!”

Real life lessons learned about creative writing from Google’s Bard AI Chat program

Yes! Not only was it helpful to me, but after reading it to all the budding writers at the spoken word event at the Cabaret Culture Rapide, where the spoken word event happens every Thursday, but I felt it was helpful to everyone and I said to them: This response is proof to me that the art of writing is something that we must do because we believe in it, and in ourselves. And sometimes we will find other people who we touch, despite the writing perhaps apparently breaking the mechanical rules of what makes for “good writing.” We cannot succeed in pleasing all readers all of the time, but we may please some of the readers some of the time. The important thing is that, ultimately, there are no rules. There is only the humnan self-expression that will or will not reach the reader. Or will reach some, but not others. Just keep on writing, and don’t lose confidence through criticisms made of your work. Try to improve, but don’t take every editor’s opinion to heart. The masterpieces often break the rules and create something new.”

Aside from sounding like the harsh and self-assured judgments of so many editors I have heard throughout my career (;-)), what struck me was how Bard executed precisely what I had asked for, but had indeed killed the art. The worst thing was that its criticisms, its reasons for making the changes, while they were correct from the point of view of a strictly logical thinking computer program, were absolutely far off the mark and plain wrong when applied to the purpose and effects of a work of art.

For mew, the importance of this revelation with Bard, the lesson I learned, was no so much that AI is not yet ready to create a work of art like “On the Road,” but rather, that we as writers must believe in what we write and understand that editors will always have differences of opinion, but that the work you do should be above those differences. Yeah, you’ll write some crap, but you may just write something fabulous that you do not want to be torn apart by the opinion of one, two, three or even four editors.

Anyway, I am very conscious of this blog post being very long and wordy. So I am now going to ask Bard to sum it up in one paragraph (I will not publish the why it did its changes):

“Bard is a powerful tool for editing writing, but it is important to remember that it is a machine and does not have the same understanding of art and creativity as a human writer. It is important to use Bard’s suggestions as a starting point, but ultimately the author should make the final decisions about what changes to make to their work.”

Hmm…I am not sure that’s precisely what I said, but it’ll do!

In any case, not only did I not regret playing music at the spoken word night, but I found myself having a great time just talking and not singing. So I can thank Bard for that inspiration too!

A Bit of Spoken Word from Paris Lit Up to the Osmoz Café near Montparnasse

January 11, 2018
bradspurgeon

Osmoz Café

Osmoz Café

PARIS – I sense a new movement on this blog toward a few uncharted territories in the way of Paris’s spoken word open mics…but also pushing the limits at the music open mics too. Is that a sentence? I mean the grammatical thing I just wrote, not sentence in terms of what lies before me. Anyway, to cut a long introduction short: Over the last week I have twice performed in a small excerpt of the monologue that Ornella Bonventre and I performed in Milan last month, and written about on this blog. But here, we have done it in Paris, first at the Paris Lit Up open mic of spoken word at the Cabaret Culture Rapide, and then at Sheldon Forrest’s open mic at the Osmoz Café, near Montparnasse.


Paris Lit Up presentation
Our first step was to translate a portion of the show from Italian to English. Then we rehearsed, Ornella – of TAC Teatro Italy and TAC Théâtre France) acting the role of the unfortunate woman of the piece, and me on the guitar providing soundtrack and a couple of acting moments. Then we went to the Paris Lit Up spoken word event and performed it for the first time, just an eight-minute segment of the hour-long show. Then we continued to work on the translation and to rehearse. Then we performed last night at the Osmoz. The plan is to continue like this, finding new open stages that cater to spoken word, but also finding the music open mics that “allow” spoken word, poetry, etc. A fabulous adventure.
Paris Lit Up reading

While I have attended and written before about the Paris Lit Up evening – which has not changed, by the way, and remains an excellent evening – I had never attended Sheldon’s open mic at the Osmoz bar, near Montparnasse. But when I prepared to go, I was pretty sure it would be like Sheldon’s fabulous long-standing

Osmoz open mic

Osmoz open mic

open mic at the Swan Bar (now closed down), and I was right. But actually, it was even better in the sense that the atmosphere at the Osmoz Café open mic feels much freer, anything-goes, compared to the often slightly uptight feeling that the Swan Bar could give….


Another Paris Lit Up Reading
It was his usual deal of Sheldon playing piano, and singers taking the mic to sing their favorite pop standards. Sheldon was joined by a violin player as well, by the way. And at the end of the evening, long after Ornella and I had done our act, Sheldon invited me up to play some songs with my guitar, if I wanted to. Naturally, I wanted! It was a great way to close the evening for me, and especially since I had not been playing music in front of an audience in that way for a while….
Singer at Osmoz Café open mic

Stay tuned for the further adventures in Spoken-Word-Land….

High Gear Before Low Gear in Paris Open Mic Scene, at the Beginning of the Dead Month

August 6, 2016
bradspurgeon

Paris Skyline

Paris Skyline

PARIS – Regular readers of this blog over the past whatever many years it has been will know that I hate the month of August in Paris. This is the period when a vast majority of the open mics close down because they think that the national addiction to vacationing in August will mean fewer customers. But it entirely overlooks the huge influx of tourists who want not only to be climbing the stairs of the Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame, but want to attend an open mic at night. Anyway, over the last four days I attend four open mics, as they wound down, or continued valiantly forth….

It was, in fact, three days in a row, although I chose not to perform at an open mic on Thursday where I had otherwise been aiming to, but did go to two on Tuesday, one on Wednesday and another one on Thursday at which I did not perform…. (I re-wrote that sentence a couple of times, so if it’s a mess, that’s why!)
Ant Henson’s great new protest song

The Tuesday night was the usual trip to the Café Oz open mic of Brislee Adams, near the place Blanche. It was the last open mic of the summer while it closes down maybe for two weeks or so. A classic night with some great performers, including my friend Ant Henson, who runs his own open mic in London, and who was here for a summer trip. He tested out a fabulous new protest song of his, and I suggest you listen on the video below….
another at oz

From the Oz we went less than 10 minutes walk off to the real Oz, which is to say the one where Dorothy found herself. I’m referring to the Pigalle Country Club, which is one of the most open and crazy open mics of Paris, where anything goes, the mic is not just open, but has to be grabbed between performers, and where there are indeed some pretty cool performers, with the emphasis usually on the 1960s garage rock…. A crazy cool clientele also at this joint.
Ash Orphan at oz

Wednesday was one of the most intelligent, consistent, fun open mics of Paris, and one that does NOT close down for the summer – knowing its clientele perfectly – although the regular and founding host, Thomas Brun, does go off on a summer vacation. So Wednesday was Thomas’s last night at the Highlander before his vacation, from what I understood.
bit o pembroke at oz

Again, it was a classic Highlander night, with each musician singing three songs and the list going to some 20 or more performers, and the crowd ready to be entertained – mostly by crowd pleasers, but not exclusively – and all together I had a great time there. Except my guitar pick up was acting up again, as it has frequently since the horrible day when a woman used the guitar as a dance floor at the Pigalle Country Club earlier this year….
Jake at oz

And finally Thursday I dropped in to the Cabaret Culture Rapide for the weekly open mic of the Paris Lit-Up group, which is mostly an expat thing geared towards spoken word, but includes music, poetry, prose, comedy, just about anything you want to do up there behind the absent mic. Yes, it’s a tiny cool café in Belleville, with no mic, and a consequential pillar in the middle of the room that blocks the view of about 50 percent of spectators in the place. But those who present their schtick loud will be heard.
john cotton at oz

I was admirative of the Paris Lit-Up people that they are continuing into August, but the crowd of spectators and performers was a lot smaller than the last time I saw this open mic. On Thursday, thanks to arriving late, having had a good dinner and feeling open-mic-ed-out, I decided not to play any music. In fact, in a very atypical manner for me, I didn’t even make any videos.
yet another at oz

But I made so many videos at the other open mic evenings that there are far too many to look at on this page ANYWAY!!
another at Pigalle Country Club

Back next time with more open mic madness in Paris, no doubt. Or maybe not. Depending on how many close down for the annual August Parisian exodus….
craziness at pigalle country club

another great cover by Scottish guy at Highlander

another at highlander

Ant Henson’s great cover at highlander

final one at highlander

last moments of another great cover at highlander

on his mind at Highlander

Cabaret Culture Rapide Lit Up With New Cool Open Mic

April 7, 2015
bradspurgeon

cabaret culture rapide in the snow

cabaret culture rapide in the snow

PARIS – I have written quite often about the Cabaret Culture Rapide open mic night over the years, specifically the Friday night one that has changed MCs quite a bit, and also the Thursday night jam session. Now, the Thursday night jam has long ended and it has been replaced fairly recently by a new, wild, very open kind of open mic – and very English – that calls itself “Paris Lit Up.” It is run by the genial Jason Francis Mc Gimsey, and is open to music, spoken word, poetry, just about anything.

I do warn again that it is very English expat oriented, but it is also open to everything. Like all the other open mics at the Cabaret Culture Rapide, there is no microphone. Unlike the other open mics there in my experience, people at this one sit and listen religiously! There is complete silence during each person’s moment behind the mic, and that is wildly appreciated. It makes the need for a mic much less pressing….

The atmosphere is really one that reminds me a lot of one of the world’s best open mics, the Catweazle Club in Oxford, that I attend annually in June or July or whenever there’s a British Grand Prix. Very cool, with lively MCing, intelligence, anything goes.

Paris Lit Up is also part of a whole little group of writing, and a small press of the same name, which is why this is so cool and intelligent and laid back. I highly recommend checking it out at least once – and you’ll probably end up returning, as I know I will!

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