Over the Moon about “Under the Moon”
To the Editor:
I very much enjoyed reading “Get Out and Get Under the Moon” by Joe Bebco in the August paper! In my mind’s ear I heard Roya Naldi singing, “Give me a night in June, beneath the moon...”
AI is encroaching upon the arts as well. You may have heard of scholars recently using AI to complete Beethoven’s tenth symphony from sketches left by the composer. As a composer myself, writing miniature symphonies in the mid-eighteenth century style governed by sonic physics and common musical practice, I often find myself asking, “Why bother? Why struggle to compose when AI can do it better?”
Joe Bebco’s entreaty to “show up” to ball games and the like prompted me to ask yet again, “Why bother?” I believe the answer is this: because what people do has value. The quality of what we human beings produce or accomplish will never measure up to that which is done by computers. The sport of chess has borne this out. But what we human beings do, in all its imperfection, has inestimable value, because we have souls. We possess a “divine spark” (remember Gettysburg?) that can never be extinguished. Your resolution to keep “showing up” is a powerful testament to the dignity of the human soul.
Brandon Byrne
Brown City, MI
Standing Up for Sitting Down
To the Editor:
I enjoy Jeff Barnhart’s columns on his
