Author | Lightnews

alex guenther @guentheralex.bsky.social · 1h

this is really messing me up b/c his cadaverous face reminds me of lurch or the brother on everybody loves raymond, so i assumed he was 7 or 8 feet tall

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alex guenther @guentheralex.bsky.social · 18h

this part of town was very crumbling and sad before and during covid... it's heaving with tourists now. glad for the locals, but... i kind of don't want to come here any more #sonnet #poetry

old town.

to sense the way it’s changed, you had to be
here when it was an eyesore, when the street
was empty shopfronts, cratered in defeat
and reeking of old garlic; all you’d see
was moss on crumbling plaster masonry
like shattered tropic ruins (rain and heat
descend in alternating waves to beat
the vigor out of everything) complete

decrepitude, somnolent shadows, faint
and sorrowful near-silence. here things dripped
and mewed and fluttered, voices mute (a cough

behind a wooden shutter, maybe). paint
and cash won’t compensate for what they ripped
away, when renovations here took off.

me drinking extremely overpriced pourover in la cabra, writing this just now with a platinum prefounte fountain pen

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Reposted by alex guenther

Boris Dralyuk @bdralyuk.bsky.social · 14h

Happy birthday to Johnny Carson (1925-2005), the dreamy subject of Austin Allen’s elegiac sonnet from 32 POEMS. “Carson”/“stars in”… The things @austinwriting.bsky.social does…

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Luke Kennard @lukekennard.bsky.social · 12h

Calvinism!

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alex guenther @guentheralex.bsky.social · 13h

definitely can reprogram the brain, compared to which losing the sense of taste is child's play!

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alex guenther @guentheralex.bsky.social · 13h

arrgh students have shown me things like that too!!! it's even more upsetting when people think you can "interview" AI. it's like interviewing google translate! it's not a thing! arrrrghhhhh!!!

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alex guenther @guentheralex.bsky.social · 13h

my wife's been a good example - she's into journaling this year & has repeatedly able to "turn her frown upside down" by, for example, drawing a cute depiction of the A/C water drop that hit her in the face while sleeping... the power of art!

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alex guenther @guentheralex.bsky.social · 13h

i started to feel bad for the people who i assume are, like, romanian teenagers just trying to share their love of coffee but got a furious anti-AI screed from me, so i think i need to step back from there lol

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Reposted by alex guenther

J-T Kelly @j-tkelly.bsky.social · 13h

Suffering also inspires drinking, temper outbursts, and ulcers. So, well done picking your poison!

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Reposted by alex guenther

alex guenther @guentheralex.bsky.social · 19h

have to stop looking at the coffee sections of reddit because people keep asking AI how to brew coffee and posting the advice / results

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alex guenther @guentheralex.bsky.social · 13h

a multimedia mashup with a lot going on under the surface

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alex guenther @guentheralex.bsky.social · 13h

i read! i'm... i think "nonplussed" is the word... by things like the expense of rat euthanasia. i really felt like i had nothing to add to that area! (except sorry that's happening, i guess)

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alex guenther @guentheralex.bsky.social · 13h

same except it was two different people

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alex guenther @guentheralex.bsky.social · 14h

lol was writing so fast in the coffee shop i accidentally did the octet abbaabbb ah well let's say it was a bold formal experiment

alex guenther @guentheralex.bsky.social · 14h

i realized recently that during college i thought HD and Æ were the same person. like my brain just saw two initials and never inquired further into the matter. both excellent! but not the same person!

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alex guenther @guentheralex.bsky.social · 14h

yep! it's coming in handy with a lot of other things. i really can't believe i went nearly 50 years without knowing how to create a habit

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alex guenther @guentheralex.bsky.social · 14h

i think i wrote more poetry today than any one day in my life. five petrarchan sonnets, two blank verse "sonnets", a bunch of haiku... thanks to extreme anxiety about a leaking water pipe and leaking air con that both struck my apartment on the same day. i guess suffering inspires art lol

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alex guenther @guentheralex.bsky.social · 14h

heh only started at age 44 during covid lockdown, before that i could never finish any writing because i just couldn't figure out when to do it!

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alex guenther @guentheralex.bsky.social · 18h

we just saw jibun techos in a store here in bangkok for the first time this week - does look like a useful layout but we don't use them as planners per se but more like journals - wife has got a million ways she fills every hobonichi page with art and stickers so i think we're in too deep now! :)

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alex guenther @guentheralex.bsky.social · 18h

this part of town was very crumbling and sad before and during covid... it's heaving with tourists now. glad for the locals, but... i kind of don't want to come here any more #sonnet #poetry

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alex guenther @guentheralex.bsky.social · 19h

have to stop looking at the coffee sections of reddit because people keep asking AI how to brew coffee and posting the advice / results

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alex guenther @guentheralex.bsky.social · 19h

ha this was about waking up early and not getting back to sleep... but i do write from around 5:30 to 6:30 am most workdays!

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alex guenther @guentheralex.bsky.social · 21h

actually andor does that (and most other thing) really well IMO

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alex guenther @guentheralex.bsky.social · 21h

i like how in the first star wars it seemed like most normal people thought the force was bullshit... wish they had kept it a bit more like that sometimes.

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alex guenther @guentheralex.bsky.social · 22h

haha yeah i guess it's a bit grim!

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