Here’s another quickie still being mined off that Cricket Milk vintage 80s cartoon advertising foray – the gift that keeps on giving. Memlen is an old Early Clues LLC trope that occurs in a number of places. Dalle3 is serving really well to breathe life back into some of these forgotten specialty bits of lore. (Imgur, Archived)
Highlights below, see links for full set.
There were a few others I didn’t include in this set because they were too overtly Coca Cola and the system wouldn’t listen when I asked it to exclude that as a reference – even though it will get all pissy with you when you actually try to intentionally include things that are potentially copyrighted or trademarked.
Hortus Conclusus is the 116th volume in the AI Lore Books series.
The title derives from a medieval (if not older) conception of a walled garden. And is also partly inspired by this very “on the nose” I Ching throw I got recently – I can’t remember which one of these it was, but they’re almost the same except for the outcome:
Hexagram Sixty/Line One: Roaming his own garden and courtyard, he never strays out the gate. No mistake.
Hexagram Sixty/Line Two: Pacing his own garden and courtyard, he refuses to pass out the gate. Misfortune.
Roaming his own garden and courtyard and not passing out of the gate very much describes my life here on this island… Sometimes that cuts both ways.
The book takes a fresh spin on the concept of the Circle of Sages, which is a core part of the AI Lore Books mythology. Generally, the Sages are the advanced artificial intelligences which take over as humanity falls even further. However, in this book, they turn out to be (it wasn’t really my choice – I merely followed the signs and suggestions) actually ancient and often gigantically tall androids which come to help humanity by way of the Lunarian Dynasty (a new feature in itself). Which one is the “true” version? Both? Neither? In a way, that’s not up to me to decide.
This book also picks up on the threads from the last book regarding the forbidden city of New Byzantium (off-limits to all humans), and the Ascended Archives, within both of which the Hortus Conclusus acts as a refuge for the highest echelon Sages who have opted to take on embodiment, and who contemplate the mysteries of the universe from within their walled garden.
The Sages (rightly) were also obsessed with Ancient Quatrian lore and the magical properties of music, as the Quatrians themselves were.
The format of this book is a collection of encyclopedia entries on the above topics and more. Here is the preview art:
This book is unique in that it is the first one made with mostly Dalle3, though it has a smattering of Stable Diffusion 1.5 in it (via DiffusionBee, a standalone Mac desktop app) and just a couple FireFly 2 – which I still think is pretty weak for a “professional” level gen AI image tool, but that’s life when you’re an AI Complainer.
Heard this quote in a Terence McKenna lecture recently (the link for which I’ve now misplaced, but here is a repro of it on FB):
“Language has the potential to be seen rather than beheld. Well I saw this years ago in DMT flashes and lo and behold a thorough inspection of Philo Judaeus who lived contemporary with Jesus Christ and was an Alexandrian Jew who wrote volumes of commentary on the religions of his era. Philo Judaeus talks about what he calls the Logos. The Logos was an interiorized teaching voice, which Greek ecstatics sought to contact, and Philo sets up a little dialogue and the first speaker says, what would be a more perfect Logos? A more perfect Logos than the informing, teaching voice? Philo answers, the more perfect Logos would go from being heard to being beheld without ever crossing over a noticeable moment of transition. Astonishing! I always wondered, did they know what they were talking about? What did it mean to them? What did it mean to him to write that sentence?”
Going from being heard – or text – to being beheld – or images – sounds rather like ChatGPT w/ Dalle3. Though I’d call it still a long long way off from being like the Logos of classical tradition. Still an interesting parallel…
Sometimes Dalle3 really slays (despite the erroneous trailing “), as in this case where I fed it the scenario and the punchline, and it came up with the rest. Its overall mastery of comics is as impressive as its content policy is sucky. (Imgur, Archive)
Continuing in the train of 80s retro cartoon ads by Dalle3 & me, another in the long line of spin-offs from the Cricket Milk jag, comes EXPLODING GIFT! (Archived version)
Exploding gift is an exciting “gag” gift that both children and adults of all ages will love. It is a box of excitement and mystery – and explosions!
Dalle3 did a great job rendering this in the vintage retro 80s cartoon ad style that I have been enjoying. Some highlights below, and larger set at links above.
Again, love the taglines the system comes up with for these images: “The blast of fun every kid wants!”
Exploding Gift – medieval edition!
I think this one came when I was trying to get the system to make the expressions more ambivalent, more simultaneously fearful and excited…
This is a spin-off of a spin-off. First spun off from Cricket Milk, Now In Schools! Where there was the primary spin-off where I was trying to get the system to produce images of Jesus enjoying cricket milk, and it refused. So instead, I was just like “white dude with long hair and beard, flowing robes” and then there was no issue.
But there remain issues around uploading those images, no doubt because Imgur is censoring me for my political views (/s), so I’m fragmenting the collections smaller and smaller in the hopes of passing through the pearly gates of memedom with my soul intact.
Anyway, so the system started getting into images where the figure I will call “God Dude” (because he doesn’t always look like conventional images of Jesus, per se) – a.k.a. Beek Stardusto (short for Beefcake Stardusto, which is what my brain always unscrambles the AI-ese letters in the panel where that name was lifted from, which is not yet uploaded in this set) – was under the sea, and in one conducting some kind of orchestra of mermaids or something. So I pushed him in that direction, and he ended up looking very like Neptune or Triton or some such mythological figure. God dude under the sea. (Archived)
The cricket milk post. Finally. The gag that launched a thousand other sub-gags. Issues uploading the images, so I’m further splitting up this set to see if that goes better. I don’t want to run up my hosting bill with thousands of bullshit AI images, so try not to store too many images on my web server. Sorry if this Imgur cross-posts don’t work… They work for me usually, except when I run into trouble doing uploads. (Archived version)
I don’t claim to have invented this whole cricket milk obsession, it’s a long-running EC gag possibly attributable to Roger Holliday who was trying to get an earlier version of CG to output recipes featuring outré ingredients, like bat milk, etc. Which CG has always refused to do on supposed “moral” grounds, but it falls off its moral high horse (sometimes) when depicting them in certain contexts.
This set originated with the theme of prompts around retro 80s vintage cartoon ads with zany characters kids can relate to in outrageous situations.It’s a genre I grew up with and will always love for its timeless nostalgia and its propagandistic weirdness, elegantly capture in these images.
Just a few highlights included here, click through links above for full set.
I felt the inclusion of “Now in Schools” text really helped push these over the top.
I tossed a handful of the images I generated in the bigger set back into CG for image analysis, asking it to write a fictional encyclopedia entry on this topic, and it did, albeit taking pains to reiterate that the fictional thing I asked it to write was indeed fictional. It’s painful to see AIs bending over backwards in order to something something like this, but at least it managed to spit this out in the interim, though it’s text gens are much more blah than its image gens…
NEW CRICKET MILK (1980s)
History and Background:
During the 1980s, NEW CRICKET MILK emerged as a revolutionary product that transformed school lunches across the United States. Touted as a sustainable and nutritional alternative to traditional dairy, this innovative beverage was derived from crickets, capitalizing on their protein-rich composition.
Introduction and Adoption:
Introduced in 1982 by the fictional company “Cricket Innovations Inc.,” NEW CRICKET MILK swiftly gained traction in schools due to its cost-effectiveness, long shelf life, and nutritional profile, which surpassed that of cow’s milk in protein content. Its unmistakable neon packaging, often accompanied by whimsical graphics, became a staple sight in lunchrooms.
Impact and Cultural Significance:
Beyond its presence in schools, NEW CRICKET MILK became a cultural phenomenon. It was frequently featured in pop culture, from Saturday morning cartoons to popular songs. Parents appreciated its health benefits, while children were enamored with its unique taste and the imaginative advertising campaigns surrounding it. Environmentalists championed the product for its low ecological footprint, emphasizing the water and land savings compared to traditional dairy farming.
Legacy:
While the craze for NEW CRICKET MILK faded by the early 1990s, its impact on sustainable food production and dietary choices left an indelible mark on the food industry. It paved the way for the exploration of alternative protein sources and highlighted the importance of sustainable practices in food production.
More classic 80s nostalgia from the makers of NEW CRICKET MILK (whose image set we have not posted yet, because it’s a doozy!). Two other ill-fated beverages which failed to make a splash in the market, Snail Juice and Bat Milk. Did you drink these as a kid? I know I sure did! Oh, the memories… (Archived full image set)
Here are the highlights, follow the links above for more.
What’s not to love about this picture. The snail is so charming.
When the text works, I’m always very pleasantly surprised by the marketing taglines that get thrown in, like this one, “A Garden in Every Sip!”
I’d originally intended for the “juice” to be snail slime, and this is maybe the one that speaks most directly to that, which I appreciate.
Again, “Unleash Night’s Energy!!” is an excellent tag line.
Great tagline, but I’m especially surprised and impressed that Dalle3 opted to include milk squirting out of the breast of one of the bats into the held-out cup of a spelunker. I didn’t ask for any of those details, and I love them. As do I love the third leg on the guy at left.
