Outtakes from Impossible Dreams

Generating AI art is harder than it sounds!

I learned a lot about AI art from Impossible Dreams contributor Allison Callmann. I hadn’t known much about it going in, but I was inspired to try it out myself after editing her essay on the subject.

Several AI art websites give you the option to type in a few words of text and get a picture back in return. The one I’ve used the most over the past several months is NightCafe. My verdict is that AI art is a lot like self-publishing — easy to do, hard to do well.

Elizabeth Lyon’s essay in Impossible Dreams, which shares memories of the 1960s Saturn in Pisces transit, includes a story of using a Ouija board with other teenage girls at a slumber party. I tried making AI art illustrations for that scene, but none turned out good enough for inclusion in the book. That assignment triggered two things that AI art generators tend to struggle with: eyes and hands.

Also, NightCafe seems to have no idea what a Ouija board actually looks like.

Another scene in Elizabeth’s essay I considered and then decided against illustrating with AI art had to do with watching the Vietnam War on TV. The problem there was that AI art often can’t spell! My prompt was “Watching the Vietnam War on TV pop art.”

I did like this image that NightCafe generated for the prompt “Baseball stadium on fire.” I considered using it for my essay “Rules of Combat,” which describes the fire that burned down Civic Stadium in Eugene, Oregon. However, I had an actual photo of the fire I took myself — I just happened to catch the whole spectacle while bicycling home from my job at the time — and that wound up being a more compelling visual.

The baseball stadium image used NightCafe’s “Pop Art” preset. The two NightCafe images I ultimately chose to include in the book, both illustrating a panel discussion on memories of the Second Vatican Council, did as well.

For the month of December 2023, paid subscriptions to my Substack cost $15 — for that, I will ship you a copy of Impossible Dreams for less than Amazon’s $20+ shipping. On January 1, 2024, the monthly subscription price goes back down to the usual $5, and the monthly paid subscriber goodie will be an AI art calendar. Creating that is going to be fun for me, but when it comes time to put together my next essay anthology later in 2024, I think I’ll be ready for submissions from actual human artists.

I’m still hoping to hire a freelance graphic designer for the new edition of Booby Prize: An Astrological Novel as well as subsequent essay anthologies. I need someone who can make astrological charts that look good in both print and digital formats at 300 dpi. I also want assistance with book covers. Please email my new business address if you are interested: astrologybooks@proton.me