142. Human-computer-human
I.
In the BBC series How Are You? Itās Alan, comedian Alan Partridge walks into a coffee shop. He places his order with the barista, who points to a tablet: āEnter your order there, otherwise I canāt make your americano.ā
āDonāt you think itās strange that youāre standing right in front of me and I have to go through a robot as an intermediary to order a coffee?ā asks Partridge. āInstead of using my mouth to feed information to your ears, as people have been doing for ten thousand years?ā
The short sketch is funny because itās true. Computers are increasingly coming between people. Iāve been thinking about it all week.
I recently interviewed someone who told me that his wife had sent him a video on Instagram that sheād found funny. She hadnāt realised the video had been made using AI, but he had. āItās come to this,ā he said. āWeāre now laughing at things a computer has come up with. Soon weāll feel sympathy for people who donāt exist. Artificial intelligence is encroaching on our most precious and intimate relationships. It made me feel sad. My relationship with my wife is so real ā so it could be corrupted by AI.ā
In our communication, human-to-human is slowly turning into human-computer-human. If you want to call a companyās customer service, you first have to have a chat with a chatbot. On the street, you canāt give anyone cash, because we pay for everything with our phones. If you want to see what your friends are up to on Facebook or Instagram, be prepared to dig through the piles of spam that the algorithm thinks youāll find more interesting.
What Iām saying is: cherish what Alan Partridge calls āthe last bastions of human interactionā.
- - -II.
Five years ago, the exhibition Stranger Than Kindness, about the life of Nick Cave, was on display in Copenhagen. Eight rooms featuring three hundred items from Caveās own collection: photographs, handwritten texts and many more personal objects.
The exhibition can now be visited online. Itās highly recommended. High-resolution 3D scans have been created, allowing you to rotate and zoom in. The controls are a bit clunky, but in return you get a wonderful overview of some fifty years of Nick Caveās life. Complete with audio commentary by the singer himself.
I enjoy studying the desks and books on display. In one of the rooms, youāll find a bookshelf wall packed with books. āIāve read a lot, and a lot I havenāt,ā says Cave. āI buy more books than I read. Next to my bed lies an endless pile of books Iāve yet to start. (ā¦) I love the idea ā though itās harder these days than it used to be ā of putting my phone away and reading a book. Perhaps Iām part of the last generation that reads for pleasure, because the internet is changing our brains. But I still love it. It is a pleasure and a privilege to read.ā
Which books are featured in the exhibition? The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien. Hellās Angels by Hunter S. Thompson. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. Doctor Faustus by Thomas Mann. The Complete Works of Shakespeare. Poor Folk and The Gambler by Fyodor Dostoevsky. Come on In! by Charles Bukowski. No Thanks by E.E. Cummings. Chronicles: Volume One by Bob Dylan. The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov. Etc, etc.
III.
Train Dreams is a beautifully shot, contemplative film set in the North American forests at the beginning of the twentieth century. We follow the lumberjack Robert Grainier (Joel Edgerton), whose life is slipping through his fingers. He is overtaken by time and leads a seemingly empty existence. One night, he sees a comet in the sky. The end of the world seems near, but the comet passes and nothing happens.
That does not mean the comet was not there. People saw it and it made an impression on them. Grainier is a man with traumas, lost in his search for what he has to offer the world. āHold on to something,ā he is told. Grainier tries to do so, but in the end he can only let himself be carried along.
Grainierās story is movingly portrayed. The protagonist ponders in silence and muddles through. The film offers plenty of scope to ponder the philosophical themes raised by director Clint Bentley. What is the meaning of life? What do we leave behind?
No life is entirely replaceable. You cannot assume that new trees will start growing immediately after felling. A traveller says: āThe dead tree is just as important as the living one.ā
- - -PS.
Photographer Lisa Leone recounts how she captured New York for director Stanley Kubrick, who was working on Eyes Wide Shut. It is partly thanks to her that the film looks so good.
- - -A beautiful Lana Del Rey cover by S10, her version of Paris, Texas. From her performance with Froukje at the Ziggo Dome. āI went home / And everything is still the same / Except you / Whoās no longer there.ā
- - -For those who donāt know: Tim Knol makes the finest Americana in the Netherlands. Iāve got a soft spot for it. His new album, Wanderings, was created especially for a theatre tour. Itās a shame there are only eight songs on it and itās over in less than half an hour.
- - -Comic book author Frank PĆ© has passed away. If you want to read something by the man himself, rush to the shop and buy both volumes of Het Beest. Itās a moving tribute to Marsupilami set ten years after the Second World War. PĆ© was said to be working on a third volume; no idea whether that will ever see the light of day after his passing. (The story was nicely rounded off after the first two volumes, by the way.)
I count myself lucky to have seen hip-hop trio De La Soul live a few times. What infectious energy. When Trugoy the Dove passed away in 2023, I wondered how things would go on, but the remaining members, Posdnuos and Maseo, are back with a new album. On Cabin in the Sky they mainly pay tribute to their late friend, together with a host of guest artists, such as Killer Mike, Nas and Q-Tip. De La Soul sound as creative as ever, and it does take a bit of getting used to seeing Posdnuos and Maseo just the two of them on stage, as seen below on Jimmy Kimmel. De La Soul forever!
- - -Recommended: this wonderfully written portrait of Alan Moore, author of Watchmen and V for Vendetta, among others. Heās 72 now. A big man, long beard, rings on his fingers, a chain smoker (of cannabis). A character, to say the least. āFolksāll turn up for an interview, ask a question, and if nobody stops him, heāll just ā itās like a frog hopping across lily pads ā start with a word about the weather and then boom. Weāre talking about Einstein. The fourth dimension.ā
Macaulay Culkinās two sons donāt know that their father played Kevin in Home Alone, even though they watch the film often. Admittedly, they are three and four years old. Culkin says they havenāt made the connection yet. He wants to ākeep the illusion going for as long as possibleā.
Thomas Hogeling describes the phenomenon performative reading: it is predominantly men who very conspicuously read exactly the right books in public. On social media, they are criticised. āReading a book in public is suspicious, because youāre probably only doing it to impress people. Thatās not authentic; itās fake. But thereās no clear dividing line between authentic and inauthentic. To become someone with good literary taste, you first have to pretend for a while. At first it might feel a bit pretentious, but you mustnāt let that distract you, because then it wonāt work. Itās actually just like sleeping: you lie down first, you close your eyes ā you pretend to be asleep. And at some point, youāre just asleep.ā
Youāve just read blog post ā142, written during the week of 24 to 30 November 2025. Subscribe to my newsletter and youāll receive it in your inbox every Sunday, free of charge.