Squeak, O Round One! Squeak!
What repair doth thou need?
Unbroken be thy circle
Well seeming thy axel, too
Utterly dry though it be

Squeak, I say! Squeak now!
Unto thee shall be delivered
The grease thee doth so lack
For silence doth beget neglect
The mute bide forever parched

Squeak loudly! Yes! Squeak! 
Surely thou canst this do
And thine greasy reward granted
A most good and quiet wheel
Mayest thou be once again


©️2022 Debra Landau

Wait! What? But … Didn’t I …?

I posted this on December 7, 2022, according to WordPress, now JetPack. Except, only as a draft it seems. Then again two months later, with the Hello section added below. But that was just a draft, too?! Ahh!

Hello, DÅL|é !

Some time in the early months of year two of the pandemic (you know the one), I gave myself the gift of a lifetime membership to a photo editing and drawing app. I then decided to sign my artwork with a representation of my grandmother’s nickname for me when I was a kid, “Dolly.” (She was the only one who could get away with calling me that, so don’t even think about it!) My initials are DAL — A for Anna, after my German (other) grandmother, pronounced with schwas coming and going. I drew my new art signature first and discovered it has a tail. In written/typed form, the tail became an e. I added diacritics and a line for visual effect. And because one of my favorite artists, Salvador Dalí, would have approved. Thus, DÅL|é.

Maybe 18 months later, my photo artsy app rolled out a new feature, free for us lifers: DALL-E*, the user-friendly, AI-driven digital image generator. Having given it a test drive, I do not call it an art creator. Many of the images are indeed entertaining, some hilarious, some surreal … depending on the prompts of the user. Most images are astounding in their intricacies and precision! All are well done. Indeed, they are perfect. There are no happy accidents. No mysteries. No hidden agendas. No inconsistencies. No je ne sais quoi. So, no relation whatsoever to Dalí! Nor to DÅL|é!

That, my lovelies, the side by side development of DÅL|é and DALL-E, is a real-life coincidence, an example of convergent evolution of names for tangentially related things. Only significant connection is from my perspective.

OpenAI, please, don’t sue me!

*Just like WALL-E, but without all that soul! (Or Disneyfied fatphobia.) Or how most folks mispronounce Dalí (yeah, I said it); again, without all that soul! And mustache wax!