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Selected writing by Mark DeLong

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Marc Ribot leans over his guitar in his performance at INNtöne Jazzfestival 2024. His white hair os frizzy and he looks at a fellow musician over his glasses.
Posted inCommentary Poetry Technology

Noise, art, and AI. A musician considers the function of art

Marc Ribot responds to a question on whether AI can create. So,…
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May 18, 2026
Posted inTechnology

Two kinds of beauty. Brief excerpt from The Score

"Object beauty" and "process beauty": brief excerpt from C. Thi Nguyen's The Score
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February 23, 2026
Posted inLiving Poetry Technology

Fiat ars, pereat mundus

Can one use art in times when it feels so useless? Should one do art at all?
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January 30, 2026
Slips of yellow paper with typewritten words. Austin Kleon poses interview questions to interviewees on paper in this manner, and the person being interviewed takes the paper and responds to the question using his or her own typewriter. The image shows two such interactions on two slips of yellow paper, side-by-side.
Posted inHistory Living Technology

Today, typewriters are for art

Your grandfather's typewriter is coming back as a tool for creating art.
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December 30, 2025
Jame Mustich sits behind a microphone in a blue Oxford shirt. A water bottle sits in front of him. He has his hands folded as he talks, probably at a conference or a meeting.
Posted inCommentary Technology

Sense and GPT-ability

"It’s the lack of this tactile sensation, this palpability, that seems to me an awful prospect in the automatic summoning of sentences, rather than the elimination of effort per se."
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November 16, 2025
On a grey mass in the shape of the Southeastern US, orange colored blobs and slight orange strings connecting them appear. The image was created by a computer model, but it looks like a view from space of urban lights against a dark background of undeveloped land.
Posted inAutomobiles History Living

Deep influence of the asphalt below us

Four meditations on roads, highways, and ancient paths
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November 11, 2025
On a grey mass in the shape of the Southeastern US, orange colored blobs and slight orange strings connecting them appear. The image was created by a computer model, but it looks like a view from space of urban lights against a dark background of undeveloped land.
Posted inAutomobiles History Living

Deep influence of the asphalt below us

Four meditations on roads, highways, and ancient paths
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November 11, 2025
Title page of the Royal Society's first edition (1667). The text reads "PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS: GIVING SOME ACCOMPT OF THE PRESENT Undertakings, Studies, and Labours OF THE INGENIOUS IN MANY CONSIDERABLE PARTS OF THE WORLD. Vol I. For Anno 1665, and 1666. In the SAVOY, Printed by T. N. for John Martyn at the Bell, a little with- out Temple-Bar, and James Allestry in Duck-Lane, Printers to the Royal Society." Below in handwritten ink: "Presented by the author May 30th 1667.
Posted inHistory Living Technology

“Creativity is just deviance put to good use”

Maybe everything is slipping to boring sameness?
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November 9, 2025
A collection of hickory nuts, all brown and laying haphazardly on the ground. Some of the nuts have lots parts of their outer shells, leaving the hard, light brown inner nut. They have the same shape a pecans in the shell, but are much smaller.
Posted inLiving

23:PA81&XE8XA or Nuts from Hell

Falling nuts are a hazard in summer and fall. Might there be a way to use medical records to learn of their injuries?
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November 3, 2025
An upward tilted frame showing a sign with the words "California Typewriter" with a stylized image of a typewriter keyboard. The building upon which the sign hangs is a pale green, and the words "CALIFORNIA OFFICE MACHINES" is on the front above a showroom window.
Posted inLiving Technology

Typewriting as a way of life

Enjoyable movie and a perfectly reasonable underground insurgency!
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October 9, 2025
Perforamnce artist Avital Meshi stands in front of a black background. She has long blond hair draped over her right shoulder. She hold her right hand up over her chest, her left hand clasping the right. On her right forearm an electronic device is strapped. The photograph shows the electronics, uncovered.
Posted inTechnology

Between artist and GPT

Avital Meshi says, “I don’t want to use it, I want to be it.” “It” is generative AI.
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September 28, 2025
A loaf of pumpernickel rye bread sits on a wood cutting board. The end of the loaf lies in front of the cut loaf, which shows the rich and coarse texture of the bread. A bread knife sits next to the loaf.
Posted inLiving

Perfect sweet potato pumpernickel bread

One of the "perfect three breads" for the year. A mixer is advised, since the dough needs lots of kneading.
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September 25, 2025
A distant mirror
Posted inCommentary History

A distant mirror

Late-night television comedians and satirists annoy fascists. They are, as Jon Stewart said, the "banana peel in the coal mine."
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September 23, 2025
The Substack logo on an orange background. The logo has been jittered in vertical stripes so that it appears as though it is melting.
Posted inCommentary Technology

Why I’m Quitting Substack

Substack has evolved, as a business characterized by "network effects." That's (mostly) why I'm no longer there.
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August 12, 2025
A composite picture of vertical strips from letters, all handwritten. The words themselves are random, because they've been stripped haphazardly from the pages. The inks used are blue, black, red, and brown, on paper that is a faded brown (aged white paper?), yellow legal pad, and bright white.
Posted inCommentary History Living

“This is a test of the Emergency Handwriting System”

Handwriting enriches human expression. A side effect of a New Year's resolution.
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June 18, 2025
Wallace Shawn and André Gregory are in conversation. André's face is visible, and he holds his hand up, index finger and thumb spread, as he makes a point. We see Wally's bald spot on his head, but his face is turned away from us as he looks at André across the dinner table.
Posted inCommentary History Living

Islands of Safety and Ironic Points of Light

When hunkering down can also renew foundations.
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April 25, 2025

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You May Have Missed
Marc Ribot leans over his guitar in his performance at INNtöne Jazzfestival 2024. His white hair os frizzy and he looks at a fellow musician over his glasses.

Noise, art, and AI. A musician considers the function of art

Jame Mustich sits behind a microphone in a blue Oxford shirt. A water bottle sits in front of him. He has his hands folded as he talks, probably at a conference or a meeting.

Sense and GPT-ability

A distant mirror

The Substack logo on an orange background. The logo has been jittered in vertical stripes so that it appears as though it is melting.

Why I’m Quitting Substack

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