There once was a shipping vessel then And the name of the ship was the Ever Given She turned too far, got stuck on shore Can someone call a backhoe?
Still is the Evergreen stuck To make international commerce fucked One day, when we dig her back up We’ll right her way and go
She was not even halfway through When down on her, a sandstorm blew Despite the courage of the fearless crew They had nowhere to go
Still is the Evergreen stuck To make international commerce fucked One day, when we dig her back up We’ll right her way and go
The others ships went ‘long the shore A detour 'round the African Horn It cost nine billion bucks or more That’s quite a lot of dough
Still is the Evergreen stuck To make international commerce fucked One day, when we dig her back up We’ll right her way and go
For six long days, we watched this scene We made dumb jokes and posted memes Though they did free the Ever Given We encourage them to get stuck again!
Still is the Evergreen stuck To make international commerce fucked One day, when we dig her back up We’ll right her way and go
Still is the Evergreen stuck To make international commerce fucked One day, when we dig her back up We’ll right her way and gooooo…
a sequel, a sequel for the ever forward!
there twice was a ship that stuck shorewards, and the name of the second was the ever forward; she missed a turn when the waters churned, so the voyage ain’t on the go.
the ever forward doesn’t live to its name, now chesapeake bay is a bay of meme fame; beware the tides of march, o baltimore’s baywatch, take note!
scarcely had the crew pulled up the anchor when she ran aground, which almost sank her; 'all tugs to the aid!’, the captain swore his furrowed brows lour and dour.
the ever forward doesn’t live to its name, now chesapeake bay is a bay of meme fame; beware the tides of march, o baltimore’s baywatch, take note!
the ever forward’s been stuck for a fortnight, and thank the stars! the traffic’s alright, yet the rescue teams’ knuckles went bone white for the ship’s no child’s play, no.
the ever forward doesn’t live to its name, now chesapeake bay is a bay of meme fame; beware the tides of march, o baltimore’s baywatch, take note!
for fourteen days the memes did boom, as the evergreen bosses huff, puff and fume; still the ever forward has not moved, and the company’s cursed, ho!
the ever forward doesn’t live to its name, now chesapeake bay is a bay of meme fame; beware the tides of march, o baltimore’s baywatch, take note!
the ever forward doesn’t live to its name, now chesapeake bay is a bay of meme fame; beware the tides of march, o baltimore’s baywatch, take noteeeeee~
There once was a shipping vessel then And the name of the ship was the Ever Given She turned too far, got stuck on shore Can someone call a backhoe?
Still is the Evergreen stuck To make international commerce fucked One day, when we dig her back up We’ll right her way and go
She was not even halfway through When down on her, a sandstorm blew Despite the courage of the fearless crew They had nowhere to go
Still is the Evergreen stuck To make international commerce fucked One day, when we dig her back up We’ll right her way and go
The others ships went ‘long the shore A detour 'round the African Horn It cost nine billion bucks or more That’s quite a lot of dough
Still is the Evergreen stuck To make international commerce fucked One day, when we dig her back up We’ll right her way and go
For six long days, we watched this scene We made dumb jokes and posted memes Though they did free the Ever Given We encourage them to get stuck again!
Still is the Evergreen stuck To make international commerce fucked One day, when we dig her back up We’ll right her way and go
Still is the Evergreen stuck To make international commerce fucked One day, when we dig her back up We’ll right her way and gooooo…
a sequel, a sequel for the ever forward!
there twice was a ship that stuck shorewards, and the name of the second was the ever forward; she missed a turn when the waters churned, so the voyage ain’t on the go.
the ever forward doesn’t live to its name, now chesapeake bay is a bay of meme fame; beware the tides of march, o baltimore’s baywatch, take note!
scarcely had the crew pulled up the anchor when she ran aground, which almost sank her; 'all tugs to the aid!’, the captain swore his furrowed brows lour and dour.
the ever forward doesn’t live to its name, now chesapeake bay is a bay of meme fame; beware the tides of march, o baltimore’s baywatch, take note!
the ever forward’s been stuck for a fortnight, and thank the stars! the traffic’s alright, yet the rescue teams’ knuckles went bone white for the ship’s no child’s play, no.
the ever forward doesn’t live to its name, now chesapeake bay is a bay of meme fame; beware the tides of march, o baltimore’s baywatch, take note!
for fourteen days the memes did boom, as the evergreen bosses huff, puff and fume; the ever forward has not moved, and the company’s cursed, ho!
the ever forward doesn’t live to its name, now chesapeake bay is a bay of meme fame; beware the tides of march, o baltimore’s baywatch, take note!
the ever forward doesn’t live to its name, now chesapeake bay is a bay of meme fame; beware the tides of march, o baltimore’s baywatch, take noteeeeee~
I’ve been working with an image-generating algorithm by Vadim Epstein called CLIP+FFT, which uses OpenAI’s CLIP algorithm to judge whether images match a given caption, and an FFT algorithm to come up with new images to present to CLIP. Give it any random phrase, and CLIP+FFT will try its best to come up with a matching image. And now there’s a version that will generate images to go with several phrases in a row and then fuse them into a video.
Here’s the sea shanty The Wellerman, sung by Nathan Evans, Jonny Stewart, and others, and illustrated by CLIP+FFT.
Now, there are several interesting things going on here, once you get past the sheer AI fever dream horror of it. One thing you’ll notice is that I changed some of the lines from the standard lyrics. CLIP+FFT deals with each line independently, so even if we have been talking about a ship and a whale throughout the song, the AI doesn’t know that in “when down on her a right whale bore”, the “her” refers to a ship. I made similar tweaks in one or two places.
There was nothing I could do about the line “One day, when the tonguing is done”. Trying to be more precise about the whaling sense of “tonguing” would, if anything, have made the image more horrifying.
Having none of the “Wellerman is a ship” context, the AI interprets The Wellerman itself as some kind of eldritch oil well drilling supervillain.
I kind of like what happened to “The winds blew hard, her bow dipped down,” with golden locks of hair and bows everywhere. I mean, I like it in a “oh no this has gone terribly yet fascinatingly wrong” sort of way.
The image for “We’ll take our leave and go” is also interesting, since it illustrates “leave” in so many ways. Sometimes there are cars and suitcases, or people shaking hands. Interestingly, I see hints of European Union flags and British flags in many of them, signs that during training CLIP was learning to associate “leave” with Brexit.
The “bully boys” are hilarious, classic glowering expressions and mean-kid haircuts. The AI is not used to the early-1900s meaning of “bully = awesome”
You’ll notice that many of the frames have text, which I find charming, as if the AI is frowning to itself and muttering “tea. tea. Billy. tea.” or “blow. blow.” The less interpretable the phrase is in image form, the more likely the AI is to use text instead.
I also had CLIP+FFT illustrate The Twelve Days of Christmas and this is one of my favorite frames from it: Ten Lords A-Leaping
To see the other illustrated Days of Christmas (including the weirdly human-faced swans), become a supporter of AI Weirdness! Or become a free subscriber to get new AI Weirdness posts in your inbox.
Every visual iteration of “the tonguing” is deeply unsettling. I love it.
(first, so sorry about using submit, the ask would not send for some reason??) Hi hi! Hope you’re both having a lovely day and that this isn’t too much of a bother
I know you get this a lot, but you recently reblogged someone’s completed sampler of one of (what I assume is) your works, and I’m just wondering if you could point me to it?
“Soon may the wellerman come, the brain gets smart but the head gets dumb”
Much like the person who posted it, I’d love to make a version for my partner
Thank you so much for all the lovely work you do and the positivity you both spread! <3
