Censured
not censored...31 total reviews
Comment from kiwisteveh
A little more than a silly poem, I think. there is a definite political and social comment there disguised by the silliness.
But that's good - it gives the reader something to chew on. For my money, neither of the Bills are worthwhile role models, although there is a distinct difference in levels of sinning when one abused his position of great power to have an extramarital fling and then lie about it and the other used his own position to take advantage of women, including drugging and raping them.
Very clever. I like the monorhyme stanzas which add to the light tone.
And the AI generated pic is great. I've been playing around with some of that myself.
Steve
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reply by the author on 05-Feb-2024
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A little more than a silly poem, I think. there is a definite political and social comment there disguised by the silliness.
But that's good - it gives the reader something to chew on. For my money, neither of the Bills are worthwhile role models, although there is a distinct difference in levels of sinning when one abused his position of great power to have an extramarital fling and then lie about it and the other used his own position to take advantage of women, including drugging and raping them.
Very clever. I like the monorhyme stanzas which add to the light tone.
And the AI generated pic is great. I've been playing around with some of that myself.
Steve
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The highest and the lowest rating are not included in calculations.
Comment Written 05-Feb-2024
reply by the author on 05-Feb-2024
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Thank you Steve! The distinction is well noted. The opportunity to make hay out of the name similarities was too good of a 1am epiphany to waste.
I did take a look after writing this and was surprised to find that Mr. C is actually accused of quite a bit more. However the nonconsensual bits were not when he was in THAT office.
It took me a while to find a good image editing site. Some are free. Some are uncensored. Some are high quality. Finding all three, now, that?s the rub. Send me a personal message after the contest if you'd like details on which one I used : )
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The site I've been using for images for my new YouTube Channel (where I read my poems) is called Night Cafe Studio.
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That looks like a pretty good one. I almost (but not quite) got it to replicated the scenario of the pic on this piece. I used arcanalabs.ai. Bing is pretty good, but heavily censored, as one might expect. You have a channel for reading? Would be interested to see it. I've been doing that live for a couple years now as well (but usually not recorded).
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Thanks for sharing that site. I'll take a peek. There are lots out there and more coming all the time. Night Cafe lets you get started for free and operates on a credits system, not unlike earning FanStory dollars, but I've actually subscribed to take away that drudgery.
I have just started a YouTube channel to showcase some of my work, so creating videos which are essentially stitched together still images with the text of the poems and recording of my reading.
If you have time and interest you can take a look. Three poems up so far and I'm aiming for one per week. Links below - not clickable I fear - you'll have to copy and paste.
Steve
Isabella
https://youtu.be/SvV7b8DTTso?si=_CJ6WJGf4R_WgJ7Y
Something There Is?
https://youtu.be/3p3GeZptt5c?si=e5KDaHzeTKlJ6toY
The Coat-Tail Ghost
https://youtu.be/qcabntFImsQ?si=rtO7VWSyjk6TdXqC
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Hey Steve I thought I replied to this earlier and just making sure I didn't forget. I watched all three of these videos in their entirety and thought they were nicely done, with pretty good AI art too. If you're thinking about upping the ante, you might get the most mileage simply with developing your vocal delivery. This is a major area I am working on improving as well. You could even play around with different accents. It's pretty amazing how much difference it can make to bring out the content, and I also find when I have to speak my stuff that I end up doing a lot of edits to improve the delivery, as what works great in text is sometimes different delivered. Keep up the great work and I look forward to seeing what you come up with next! I subscribed.
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Yep, I think you did reply although I wouldn't have known it was you.
Thanks for taking the time to view and comment on my little YouTube venture. I was actually a little shocked when I first heard my recorded voice, so I appreciate your comment. My wife has been helping me out in this area as well and I think between us we have made some improvement, but I will keep going. Interesting about the accents. I have thought of that but haven't tried it for real as yet. A few poems that will end up on YouTube virtually demand a different accent.
When you mention edits, are you talking about slicing and dicing the audio file? Not sure I have the capability to do that, so when I'm not satisfied I just re-record the whole thing, which brings in the possibility of making new and different errors!
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I was actually talking about changing the words I write to ones which convey better when speaking (generally, using more open vowels; English is a pretty lousy language for that, but it's a very extensive language with a lot of options). But since you mention it, I had a second listen and there are some things you might be able to do to improve the sound. Yes if you're doing a long take, you might do it in bite-size blocks, or just do long takes and mix and match the best parts from each take. There are a lot of free audio programs you can use, like Audacity, which has been around for 20+ years. I use Cubase/Nuendo but that's expensive and unnecessary for you. You can do a lot just with a phone mic but if you get serious about it, you could get an affordable condenser mic.
The biggest marginal returns you might get though might come from applying the following filters to your recording process:
-EQ to bring out more tone in your voice
-a de-esser filter
-a compressor to level out/bring up the quieter, less discernable dips in volume
I'm listening on my laptop right now which might not be giving me an accurate representation of your voice (probably it's taking out the lows and amplifying the highs) but that's what I hear at the moment.
I'm busy working on some projects between now and the 19th but I'd be happy to provide you with a sample of how your voice might sound after applying those filters.
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Hey, thanks for getting back to me and for taking the time to offer sensible advice. I appreciate it.
I'm very much a beginner at this - both sound and pictures. I know there are better video editor options out there and i am sure better ones for the voice recording as well. At the moment I am just using Sound Recorder that comes with Windows and recording on my laptop.
I'll take a look at Audacity, especially if it gives the option to slice up the files to get rid of obvious glitches. On the other hand, I have no intention of trying to grow this into a professional thing. It is mainly for my own amusement and possibly to drive a little traffic to my two poetry books on Amazon.
I've always been one to learn by doing. A long time ago - pre-Windows, pre-Internet, I was writing computer programs by the seat of my pants!
