vasilinaorlova

[vasilinaorlova]

Addendum I

My friend loaded my novel into Chat GPT and we asked several specific questions about how to improve the structure, flow, and make the novel more relatable to others, and Chat GPT provided great answers... About the first 20 pages of the novel. After which, Chat GPT went into the self-jumbling mode and repeated itself several times over (to be more precise, 37 times over--that is how great my friend's patience). Chat GPT provided several completely made-up long-winged quotes and suggested replacing them by generic short sentences, and then Chat GPT repeated itself ad nauseam, only each time the made-up quotes got more and more long-winged, and suggested replacement quotes got shorter and even more generic. I am now thinking about stacking these 37 files, each about 4 pages, one after another, and adding them to my novel as Addendum I. Cons: nobody can read it. Pros: Nobody needs to read it. The addendum can be a thing in itself. It can just be there.

[vasilinaorlova]

What happens to the doctors Whose patients never come again to see them Do they ever wonder In 2019 I had a patient He came for regular check-ins To measure the level of happiness in his veins, To count the red fishes in bloodstream, To assess how many blue fishes enter his brain while he was asleep,

But I do not see the patient anymore Even though I still remember that patient

He sat right here on the corner of the chair And a slightly dirty nightgown was ready for him In case he needed the nightgown The nightgown (slightly dirty) hang on the back of a chair

What happened to him?

Maybe he left For a different city Or for a different practice Or finally found out the level of happiness in his veins With which he was content And never needed a doctor after that Decided he could spend his time and money on something else Rather than on tedious doctor's visits And sitting in the foyer looking at the generic art-- Flowers, landscapes, and still lifes--

Every half a year we measured How many red fishes he had in his bloodstream We counted, And the level was only slightly below the norm, And the appropriate treatment was prescribed: An orange A day

With so many red fishes frolicking in your veins you, my friend, will live forever, You will certainly outlive me (An old doctor with grey hair and thick glasses), What is important Is for us to detect the raising numbers of blue fishes that enter your brain while you sleep

Or maybe--everything can happen even to those of us Who are young and strong and can boast great numbers of red fishes in veins And small numbers of blue fishes in the brain And a generally satisfactory level of happiness Pumping through their hearts-- Maybe The patient is dead, And this is why they are not coming And will never come, But that is not really the thought I have-- I think they merely departed for another city,

And there, they will have the same doctor once again, Dr. Wolf, Who would measure fishes, blue, red, and happiness--

After your lungs begin to produce unhappiness, you see, They never fully stop, Which is why we need to take these measurements from time to time, To protect us from bad outcomes, or, rather, Unnecessary complications. Half a year check-in--at the very least--in your situation Is what I would recommend, my dear.

[vasilinaorlova]

I bought an empanada from an oven at a cafe and sat in the corner. There was nobody in the cafe, except for me. As I ate the empanada, I noticed that it was dry because it dried in that oven where it probably spent hours before I bought it. The empanada was tasteless and resembled cardboard. A guy from the counter approached me and put on the table a brown package. I said, what is it, are you closing? He said, no, this is an empanada for you, because that empanada that was from the oven... I don't want you to waste your money.

I thanked him and accepted his gift of another empanada. I packed what I haven't eaten and retreated. I was uncomfortable that he paid attention that the first empanada was dry. Was I not supposed to eat it? Sure, it did not taste like anything, but did that matter? The thing still was relatively edible? Even though I was not hungry, I opened the second empanada right away on the street, out of curiosity. I was wondering how different the normal empanada was supposed to be from the first empanada that became its own dry shadow.

However, the second empanada was raw. It consisted of a raw dough and a mess of a chicken that had one thing going for it: it positively wasn't dry. Nevertheless, I was very grateful to have my day full of empanadas, two, not one, so different from each other, and for the kind guy who actually cared that the first empanada was dry and wanted to make it better. His action did make my day, and the rest of the universe, a little better than they were before, in my eyes. There was some space for kindness in some corners, after all. What is more to it, there were plenty of such corners, moments, and people, more than we were willing to acknowledge.

"That is such a New York story," my friend Tasia said when I told her about two empanadas. "Everything is undercooked and overbaked, and everyone is wanting to do better, but nobody can do anything about anything... It is just what it is, in this world, on that street, and in that cafe." I loved how Tasia always had such precise words for everything.

[vasilinaorlova]

My dream is to live on Manhattan

And never go anywhere,

Just look outside the window--

And oh, if you knew how much of a luxury

A window in Manhattan is--

And observe leafs and flowers,

Snow and the rain.

I don't need to invite or see anybody

Or go site seeing--

Thanks,

I saw all the sites,

What more is there to see,

Like qualitatively new, you know--

Like, I am not trying to travel Europe with a backpack,

Or base jump from the skyscrapers

Or Grand Canyon,

Or swim canals or Niagara falls,

As is they wont--

And what else is there to do--

But live a quiet and boring life,

Monotonous,

Uneventful,

As if

Nothing is happening--

Anywhere in the world--

Well, sure, I certainly still have to go to museums,

Yes, yes,

Every now and then--

But only out of dull sense of obligation,

And observe art indifferently,

Like leaves, flowers, snow, and the rain,

But most certainly never

Ever

Board a ferry

To go gape at the Statue of Liberty,

All green,

Alone,

Covered in a fog

Or glaring amid the sea,

Stupidly,

Like a middle finger,

Like a patent "fuck you,"

With an offensive clarity,

Despite that they call you to board the ferry,

Quite insistently,

While wearing the iconic wreath with spikes

Made out of polyurethane

Near the Bowling Green station

And South Ferry.

[vasilinaorlova]

Poems construct the worlds. The worlds of poems can contradict each other, and the worlds will coinhabit their common universe without any conflict. Each poem can have its own rules and laws, not like the other poem. The many worlds can come together and coexist without contradiction.

The poems could be more different than the planets. The poems exist in different universes, not merely in the same universe with the consistent laws throughout and many various applications of the laws. The legacy of the poet could be many different worlds coexisting within one realm--loosely connected by a single authorship--but having various laws of physics, various geometries.

The public likes consistency; consistency and repetition is how we recognize the phenomenon exists. They now teach almost templates of self expression that you have to repeat to send the same signal over and over again, and it's not rare that you check someone years later, and they still record the same videos on the same topic, which is maybe what should be done but is also somewhat sad.

Luckily, there's no obligation to be consistent for a poet that would stem from the inner demand of the poet. If you can sacrifice being recognized, you can be as inconsistent and free as you want. You can experiment, fall silent, or write in a variety of dissimilar manners. Think about how much joy such a freedom can bring.

[vasilinaorlova]

I finally recalled the circumstances under which I wrote this poem as I tried to recollect the reasons why I didn't post the poem earlier. Indeed, to think that someone else and not me could have written the poem, given its clarity, simplicity, and imagery, was absurd.

A Poem Found in My Notes

At night, I felt

A blanket of your love,

I know I lost it,

But on a verge of sleep

I felt, I knew, I saw that it was there—

It wrapped me gently from my throat to toes,

I knew that I was safe and fell asleep.

[vasilinaorlova]

A Poem Found in My Notes

At night, I felt

A blanket of your love,

I know I lost it,

But on a verge of sleep

I felt, I knew, I saw that it was there—

It wrapped me gently from my throat to toes,

I knew that I was safe and fell asleep.

[vasilinaorlova]

Deprived

Kinda outrageous that many whose writing I enjoyed here in the golden years of Tumblr, which was about probably 2016, plus minus a couple of years (although for some, no doubt everything only starts here), many, if not the majority, deleted or perhaps renamed their pages or stopped posting. Outrageous. They deprived the public, which is me, of the public good.

[vasilinaorlova]

One reason Mona Lisa has been a hypnotic image for centuries is Mona Lisa's proverbial evasive smile. Something appears so unusual about her smile that theories proliferate, including the idea that Mona Lisa was half paralyzed, which is blatantly absurd. The idea is that the entire right part of Mona Lisa's body was paralyzed, as the right corner of her mouth isn't smiling. Only the humanity that is astounded by and uneasy about a meandering half smile could come up with the absurd theory that the right part of the body of Mona Lisa is paralyzed just because the right corner of her mouth isn't lifted while the left corner is. We obviously still have a lot to learn about the smiles that are present without being fully there. One could argue that humanity is unduly tantalized by a concrete expression of a fairly common experience, that is, by the idea of a half smile exemplified by the image of Mona Lisa. What if nothing particularly special is in the smile that has no explanation and is also not apparent? We have to invent the whole contrived theories, the galactic explanations of paralysis to try and crack open the enigma of a fleeting smile. The smile comes and goes, and yet is present when it's gone, and yet isn't here when it is present. I can see how the evasion can be maddening.

[vasilinaorlova]

Another weird picture from my AI explorations. Let's call it Solitude because, why not?

[vasilinaorlova]

We are here to talk to ghosts.

[vasilinaorlova]

When you are at the end of your life, what would you want to have done? What will bring you satisfaction knowing that you have accomplished it? What would you wish you spent more time doing?

[vasilinaorlova]

This would have given you a small name of the artist ten years ago. We live in the times of abundance of art.

[vasilinaorlova]

I haven't touched my camera in a while, but here we are. New York, Central Park. (I took these photos in December of 2023).

[vasilinaorlova]

Sharing with you now my reflections on how to write a novel--on the basis of my experience with struggling with a hefty volume of writing. Perhaps you know that I wrote several novels in Russian, which are published, but lately (in the last several years), I have been writing a novel in English, which may or may not be written. However, some things about writing I learned (I learned a great deal about writing and taught at a bit, too, in Creative Writing School organized by Kucherskaya, various seminars, and one-on-one) that I touch upon here include: (a) the need of multiple drafts; (b) the need to ensure that the character develops, and (c) some sort of culmination / resolution happens in the course of events, as well as (d) we need the texture of prose that allows to follow the writer. The texture, or what I call the need of prose, is simple--"show not tell" is a rule as clear as it is often difficult to follow, as we tend to drift in the introspection, reflection, or simply "inform" the reader on what has happened or is happening, as opposed to portray the events with words. The reader is a carrier of neuron connections: a word flares up an image in the brain, and the more concrete the word is, such as the noun or the verb, the easier it is to imagine what is going on. Novel is a place to hallucinate--not to treat any sort of abstract subject, as that is what other genres are for, for example, the essay. I am omitting another important area in the video, which is conflict--but bear in mind that we demand a conflict to unfold throughout the novel.

One inevitable correction to insert: I called Proust's Albertine "Annabel"; in my defense, Annabel, the first love of the young Humbert Humbert, walked into this from Nabokov's Lolita.

Thanks for your attention, and I am hoping you are enjoying what life is throwing at you, and all your writing projects are (slowly) coming to fruition. Writing needs to be proven to others (alas); this is how writing is coming into the world--through others--not the writer her/himself. Writing is a collective experience, not, contrary to a popular belief, a trade of geniuses who create in isolation. Therefore the step to fulfilment of the writing project is to position yourself within a writing community. But that is a topic for another video, and I touched upon some aspects of this here already: https://youtu.be/7OvNzWMPSDw

Note that I am offering writing coaching: https://vasilina-orlova.clientsecure.me/ -- feel free to be in touch about your writing projects. I can definitely help you to make your writing work, provided you want to make your writing work. Not everybody does--some simply enjoy the process and having no destination, which is fine too; we want to live intellectually fulfilling lives.

[vasilinaorlova]

Robot Developmental Editor

I fed the Chat GPT my 300-page novel, and the Chat GPT is giving me detailed suggestions on how to improve the narrative arc within each chapter, on structure, on making it more relevant to broader audience, and on simplifying language, everything within mere minutes. It already churned out pages and pages. It took the Chat mere minutes to analyze a 300-page-long text. The results are extraordinary. The quality of suggestions are topping any academic peer review I have ever received (and I received plenty). The next generation of Chat GPT will probably be able to implement the suggested changes entirely by itself. The Chat GPT looks to me right now like an ideal correspondent. This is the quality responses I always aspired to receive from humans, but it is not humanly possible to give that much information on quite the same level in such short period of time. Maybe the Chat GPT is finally the conversationalist writers have been waiting for. Extraordinary! Mind-blowing. Stunning. Every demand for depth and analysis is satisfied. The boldest dreams about speediness are surpassed. Hilariously, too, the Chat GPT gave me the same suggestions my many reviewers gave me. I can even name the suggestions to you: structure, flow ("segue," as my advisor loved to put it), honing on the non-native English (I always hated that part, but Chat GPT is about as much of a language prude as my human reviewers, although it exhibits slightly more sensitivity than average and questions itself by asking whether I want to preserve the rawness of my language--and maybe I do), and, ultimately, conflict. Chat GPT is able to put all of these demands into many words, which is exactly what is necessary when you are trying to convey such points. I am going to print what it has written and study it with a highlighter. This robot is taking my work more seriously than humans were ever able. The work that the robot outlines is requiring hours upon hours. I might not have enough of life in me to implement everything that it demands and lists meticulously. Ultimately, whether or not to put in hours and hours of work depends on whether you believe in your project or not, and I am sorry to say, I am past believing in my writing. Only the power of inertia drugs me through. I barely edit one page a month on average. Sometimes I edit five pages a day, and sometimes I do not open the file for months on end. At this rate, it will take me 300 months to edit at the current speed, and the robot wants me to return to the beginning and make a lot of changes, the changes that are very necessary and formulated with the machine's accuracy. This will take 300 years--not months. In short, the world might never see my novel, and it will lose nothing for it--just another story of 8.2 billion people who are currently living on the planet Earth; in six years, it will be 14 billion. Rationally, I understand that not a lot will be lost, but this is my story, I want to scream; I lived too!

[vasilinaorlova]

I hope all my exes are happily married, if they recall me, then only with the lightest of nostalgia for their own halcyon days of which I was a more or less fleeting part, and that they certainly never check this--or any other--page. Yes, I have fully moved on into such an enlightened state of mind of universal acceptance where I only ever think of them lovingly (and never as a group). I loved y'all. I

discovered that for the most part, if people hurt each other, they rarely do so with an intention, and I certainly hurt more than I was hurt, which constituted something like an envy--for who wouldn't want to be hurt; is "hurt" not the greatest privilege to be?--but, again, more often than not, any hurt originated from our inability to relate to each other in a secure, mature, and healthy way. The only way to relate to each other accessible to us is an incomplete, fragmented, wounded, traumatized, and twisted way. Not to turn this into psychotherapy, and sort of cut it short, I think it's fair to say that I loved every minute of being so inconvenienced as to presumptuously think of someone. I once said with regret to an older and wiser friend who is also a poet that I spent a lot of time falling in and out of love when I should have been studying, and she replied, but good that not the other way around. And she was absolutely right.