Hello. I’m going to start you off with a Poke — a cheesy art form I invented many years ago in which I retell a corny old joke as a more sophisticated poem. I just spent a couple of hours writing it, because I want to live up to my promise that I will always try to make each column interesting, whatever the overall subject matter. I had to write the poem to distract you from the rest.
After the poem below comes a poke of a different nature — an elbow-in-the-ribs reminder. It will offer little entertainment, even though it is dramatic. It is about money, and I suck at that. So, first, the joke Poke:
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A middle-aged man of Hebraic descent
Was sunning himself out there on the sand
When a lady walked up to that swimsuit-clad gent
And boldly and gamely extended her hand.
A rare beauty was she — mid-aged, too, and refined.
(Tho dressed she was, too, for a day at the beach.)
But the gentleman shrugged, and he paid her no mind.
He offered no hand, nor a gesture, nor speech.
The lady pressed on, and tried to engage him…
“Do you sometimes like vodka? Do you drink rum or rye?”
Her attention, however, just seemed to enrage him.
His silence was stony. He just stared at the sky.
“Do you like reading books — Mark Twain, Doris Lessing?’’
“I do not,” he replied (rather coldly, I thought).
The more he demurred, the more she kept pressing
‘Twas strangely intense, both fervent and fraught.
“Do you prefer poker or a game of gin rummy?”
“The song of a bird or the coo of a baby?”
“Do you find puppies cute? Do you think Twix are yummy?”
“Or do you like playing with pussycats, maybe?”
At that very moment, the gentleman started
To drown her in kisses most rowdy and rude.
Soon all their swimwear had been doffed and discarded
And intimate sexual congress ensued!
Afterwards, both lay there, happy but tired
Flat to the ground — just like exercise mats.
“How did you know that was what I desired?”
“Well, how did you know that my last name is Katz?”
—
Okay, here it comes. In exactly seven days — next Saturday at noon — I am going to increase the price for new paying subscribers to The Gene Pool. It’s going to rise from $5 a month (or $50 a year) to $7 a month (or $70 a year). I have been holding out on making this move far longer than was fiscally sane, or so I have been assured by industry financial analysts myself. The truth is that for more than two years now, Substack has been recommending that its writers charge $8 a month, and that is now Substack’s default rate, even for unheralded writers whose new newsletters are about, say, collecting stamps from the former Soviet satellite of Tannu Tuva. (Tragically, many big-time, right-swerving newsletters, such as Bari Weiss’s The Free Press, now charge $10 a month.)
THIS CHANGE WILL NOT AFFECT ANYONE WHO IS CURRENTLY A PAYING SUBSCRIBER TO THE GENE POOL. You paying subscribers are grandfathered into your current rate for a lifetime — either yours or mine, whichever ends first.
I debated whether to announce this with any fanfare at all — I could just have tucked the new price into the fine print — but I felt bad about that. Maybe you’re a free subscriber who’s been thinking about cannonballing into The Pool, and would have liked to be forewarned before being blindsided with a higher price. So I’m giving you that window, now. Next Saturday, noon.
Note to people who subscribe for free: You are playing the Substack game fair and square, and all of you are welcome and cherished here. The difference is only that paying subscribers get to Comment, and to participate in the Invitational, along with a few other occasional perks — but mostly it is an opportunity to declare yourself a supporter of this newsletter and an enemy of its enemies and of its enemies’ friends. You know what who I mean.
Whew. Did we all get through that okay? I feel unburdened, and only mildly guilty.
FWIW, I have no intention of ever raising the price again. I doubt if I’ll live long enough to outpace the cost of living. (This is grueling work.)
—
Today’s Gene Pool Gene Poll:
Good.
The other day we established that Artificial Intelligence is no good at spatial (and spacial) perception. It could not competently reproduce a star pattern for a constellation. Well, today, I would like to inform you that Artificial Intelligence is also no good at elbows. It took forever to get it to draw the image at the top of the page because — until elaborately instructed, as to a toddler or a mentally challenged dog. It simply had no idea what an elbow was. What it kept coming up with was quite disturbing. To wit, this was its second effort, an actual improvement over the first:
When I pointed this out, ChatGPT said, “Yes, my bad. I seem to keep drawing a ham hock.”
(So it is developing a sense of humor, at least.)
That’s it for today.
—
And:
OR...and here's a thought we all keep throwing out there...you could stop it with the AI illustrations altogether. We don't need 'em. they add nothing but a little flurry of annoyance when they pop up. They are ugly and uncanny and make my brain shrivel. Thank you.
If people are willing to pay $7 for a cup of coffee I think they should gladly pay your rate …. Xoxo