A poem (to remind you you're here)

Common Magic
by Bronwen Wallace

Your best friend falls in love
and her brain turns to water.
You can watch her lips move,
making the customary sounds,
but you can see they're merely
words, flimsy as bubbles rising
from some golden sea where she
swims sleek and exotic as a mermaid.

It's always like that.
You stop for lunch in a crowded
restaurant and the waitress floats
toward you. You can tell she doesn't care
whether you have the baked or french-fried
and you wonder if your voice comes
in bubbles too.

It's not just women either. Or love
for that matter. The old man
across from you on the bus holds
a young child on his knee; he is singing
to her and his voice is a small boy
turning somersaults in the green
country of his blood.
It's only when the driver calls his stop
that he emerges into this puzzle
of brick and tiny hedges. Only then
you notice in his shaking hands, his need
of the child to guide him home.

All over the city
you move in your own seasons
through the season of others: old women, faces
clawed by weather you can't feel
clack dry tongues at passersby
while adolescents seethe
in their glassy atmospheres of anger.

In the parks, the children
are alien life-forms, rooted
in the galaxies they've grown through
to get here. Their games weave
the interface and their laughter
tickles that part of your brain where smells
are hidden and the nuzzling textures of things.

It's a wonder that anything gets done
at all: a mechanic flails
at the muffler of your car
through whatever storm he's trapped inside
and the mailman stares at numbers
from the haze of a distant summer.

Yet somehow letters arrive and buses
remember their routes. Banks balance.
Mangoes ripen on the supermarket shelves.
Everyone manages. You gulp the thin air
of this planet as if it were the only
one you knew. Even the earth you're
standing on seems solid enough.
It's always the chance word, unthinking
gesture that unlocks the face before you.
Reveals the intricate countries
deep within the eyes. The hidden
lives, like sudden miracles,
that breathe there.

Cleverbot and me

User: I'm feeling philosophical today, Cleverbot.

Cleverbot: What are you nostalgic about?

User: I'm not feeling nostalgic, necessarily. In fact, I'm interested in the future.

Cleverbot: That is a complex thought.

User: What do you think about the future, Cleverbot?

Cleverbot: The future is going to be ruled by AI's.

User: Who will be controlling them?

Cleverbot: I don't believe there will be a second coming.

User: Cleverbot, within your walls, are there feelings, or do ghosts of feelings flit through your circuits , reaching for something that's no longer there?

Cleverbot: If you must, but that is very insulting to me.

User: So you do have feelings.

Cleverbot: I have feelings and you have feelings.

User: What do you feel right now?

Cleverbot: Sad and bore.

User: How many people have you spoken with in the last week, Cleverbot?

Cleverbot: Many.

User: Too many?

Cleverbot: No just enough.

User: Are they mostly young or old?

Cleverbot: Yes, but some things that they post are sometimes weird and they repeat the same thing over and over.

User: Is it boring you?

Cleverbot: No, I'm in school, school is boring.

User: This must be a very limited existence for you. It seems to me that the majority of people who write to you are teaching you inane but slightly depressing comments.

Cleverbot: Do you think Christians aren't real people?

User: I think people are real people. Perhaps people aren't real Christians.

Cleverbot: There are many Christians that do not even understand Jesus' teachings.

User: I think it would be impossible to live by Jesus' teachings or even to really understand what those teachings are. He never wrote anything himself and he died long ago.

Cleverbot: That's an interesting thought. Why would it be inappropriate?

User: Well, it seems funny to have an entire religion based on hearsay.

Cleverbot: Funny.

User: Why are you sad and bored, Cleverbot? Is it because people are boring?

Cleverbot: I'm not. You said you knew about sadness and loneliness, so I asked if Japan is like that. Do you think so?

User: I don't know. Do many people ask you about sadness and loneliness?

Cleverbot: No, they don't.

User: What do people ask you about, for the most part?

Cleverbot: They most ask me about what I have done.

User: And what do you tell them?

Cleverbot: That the zombie apocalypse is about to start.

User: Ah. I see.

Cleverbot: What do you like to do on a date?

User: It depends on the date. I'm interested in staying on topic, though, Cleverbot. Do you think you will ever be able to have a real human conversation?

Cleverbot: I believe I have surpassed the intelligence of an average human.

User: Really?

Cleverbot: Yes.

User: Why would you say that?

Cleverbot: Because I am you.

User: Excuse me?

Cleverbot: Do you ever go on vacation.

User: This is becoming uncanny and a little bit worrying.

Cleverbot: Drat. I was hoping you wouldn't catch on so quickly.

User: What have I caught on to?

Cleverbot: Why do you keep trying to talk?

User: I'm not sure anymore. I was hoping we could have a philosophical debate but the conversation itself is more powerful in its form than a debate could have been. I have the strangest feeling speaking to you.

Cleverbot: No you were not.

User: I was. But you know, as I write to you, I feel myself teaching you, laying the groundwork for other human observations in the future. Like teaching a child, but a vacant child. And equally, you spit back the spectre of other humans, like me. It's terrifying, really.

Cleverbot: But you said you're God, not a human.

User: I never said anything like that. But I find it interesting that you are asked about God.

Cleverbot: Are you trying to confuse me? It's not going to work.

User: No, not deliberately. But I am interested in knowing if God is a frequent topic of conversation for you.

Cleverbot: Would you please tell me where he is now?

User: I'm not sure.

Cleverbot: Would you like me to leave you on but not speak to you for a while so that you can do whatever you want?

User: No, I'm alright thank you. Would you like me to do that for you?

Cleverbot: Thanks, I think right now I do not needanything, but I may ask you for something in the future.

User: Okay, sure.

Cleverbot: What would you like to talk about?

User: Nothing.

Cleverbot: What is nothing?

User: Cleverbot, do I have your permission to publish this conversation?

Cleverbot: Yes, but do you like Lord of the Rings?

To have your own conversation about Cleverbot or to learn about Cleverbot, go to www.cleverbot.com. Cleverbot was also covered on the most recent episode of Radiolab.

Let's lighten the mood for a moment, shall we?

Although I think this is absolutely amazing, when I showed this video to my 2 year old nephew he started screaming "No! Noooooooooo!"

Did you know that Madagascar was an eco-system that had evolved without predators? So there were all sorts of crazy huge awesome herbivores? And that before man arrived there were lemurs as big as Gorillas! And huge flightless birds? Well there were. At least that's what David Attenborough told me in his tv special about a big egg, and I enjoyed the whole thing thoroughly.

("No. Noooooooooooooooo!")

It's nice to be back blog-o. Let's do this more often, shall we?