Kia ora everyone, After a visit to the Emergency Department of the local hospital lates this afternoon to get some help for some pretty brutal depression, anxiety, and fluctating off and on sucidial ideation, I emerged this evening feeling better, definitely better, but still not 100%. On day at a time for now. I'm not going to bore everyone with the details of the situation which caused the mental and emotional difficulties, but it's nothing out of the ordinary for an artist to experience (and it wasn't, thankfully, drug-induced). Hopefully some sort of solution will present itself soon, God willing. Of course, I could have just kept all this private, as it is a private matter, but, I did want to be transparent about how life in the arts is not all fun hijinx and joyful communion with the divine and exciting creative adventures, although it is those things too. So, those of you who want to pray for me, or just send good vibes in my general direction, that would be much appreciated. I think I'll come through it OK in the end, I certainly hope so. This evening I worked on some vocal tracks which may wind up forming the basis of a new composition. One is made by running my sung text through Grimes' AI to create a fusion of our voices, which sounds, not exactly "good" but definitely "new and interesting." I'll continue to work with that and see where it goes, it definitely has potential. I combined the Amlehn/Grimes vocal with another vocal constructed by running a piano composition played by Michael Riesman of the Philip Glass Ensemble, which had been created using what he termed my "quasi-stochastic procedure, through Holly Herndon's AI, and that piano-played vocal sounds very much like a Philip Glass aria, but slightly more pop-tinged, which is not at all surprising. It's interesting harmonically. I do understand why some people might consider an AI to be an abomination of some kind rather than a potentially useful tool, but I think at this juncture it's important to ask "What would John Cage Do?" I definitely think he'd be experimenting with the technology. Having said that, it's important to make up your own mind about such things for yourself. Photos pictured above of Grimes, Holly Herndon, and Michael Riesman. Tomorrow evening, which is Sunday evening in Aotearoa New Zealand, I'll be performing some spoken word at the Commoner's Bar in Lyttleton as part of the Common Ground series. I don't feel at all up to it right now, but I'll psych myself into it I suppose by then. Any time I've been feeling strong or feeling precarious, either way the performances are almost always strong. Tomorrow, who knows? We'll see. That's about it from me. My gratitude goes out to those who have expressed care and kindness to me in the recent days. Love to you all, and take good care Paul