I used to say that I wouldn't be impressed by AI until it could come up with band names that aren't cringe. Now I have a new pelican test: asking AI to generate cryptic crossword clues that don't suck ass. Like many folks who needed a harder drug than Wordle, I become a daily Minute Cryptic solver a while ago and I think they're really fun. If you're not familiar with cryptic clues, Minute Cryptic has a pretty good crash course, which probably explains the idea better than I could here. It occurred to me that cryptics, being highly wordplay and letterplay dependent, might be a sort of Achilles' heel for AI. To test my theory, I switched to my work account, fired up Fable 5.1, and asked it to come up with three clever, high-quality cryptic...

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One day, I was curious who the saxophonist on Vulfpeck’s “Eddie Buzzsaw” was and came across this album. Instant joy.

A few months later, I was listening to “Dança da Fauna” while riding my bike. It wasn’t a great bike, but it had this beautiful, old wooden crate mounted on the back that predated the previous owner. As I pulled up to my apartment building, I brought my right leg over to the left side so I could perform a smooth dismount.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have my balance quite right and the bike slipped from under me, resulting in perhaps the most embarrassing bike crash of my life. Gathering my bearings, I determined that I wasn’t hurt, but the wooden crate had practically snapped in half.

I wanted to be sad. But “Dança da Fauna” was playing in my ears, and so instead I was joyful. In that moment, I could see that life is full of so many accidents and misfortunes, all you can do sometimes is laugh at the capriciousness of it all.

I’m usually pretty biased against alto saxophone. It’s not that it’s bad, but more that I rarely hear an alto saxophone solo that I wouldn’t rather hear on a tenor. Cannonball Adderley is an obvious exception, and it looks like I have to make another exception for this album. Eddie Barbash makes such great use of the upper range of his instrument, and his lines are so melodic they easily get stuck in my head.

Give it a listen!