Tech Tuesday: Mark Cuban Predicts AI Entrepreneur Trillionaires

Would it be fun to be a trillionaire? I don't know. I have enough stuff on my plate. And besides, what can you do with a trillion dollars that you can't do with a billion?

This article at CNBC.com makes the sensational claim that one day there will be people who are trillionaires. Is that really possible? The only time I hear the word Trillion thrown around is when journalists and politicos remind us that the U.S. National Debt is getting out of hand.

How much is a trillion dollars? This visualization will help put it into perspective.

The article, though, begs a follow up question. Does Mark Cuban really believe there will be trillionaires someday? Or is he simply building his own personal brand by getting another sound byte?

Another question. Is this first trillionaire making his or her money by actually generating wealth? Or will it simply be generated by skimming foam off all the world's financial markets, exploiting market inefficiencies?

Will this massive wealth accumulation result in improving the standard of living for the world's poor and disadvantaged?

There's another way we can end up with a trillionaire in our lifetimes. That would be for a massive hurricane-force hyper-inflation to set in. Suppose that the government were to start printing hundred dollar bills and everyone received a Ben Franklin for every penny they turned in. Whoever had the most billions at that point would be the first to become a trillionaire. Minimum wage would be raised to 7000 dollars an hour. Would everyone be happy?

Not really. Multiply everything by 10,000 and see what things will cost then and what will be different? A one dollar Reese's Buttercup would suddenly cost ten thousand dollars. One thing that would be changed is our tax brackets. We'd all be paying more taxes until our legislators resolved that matter satisfactorily.

It would also be the end of foreign trade because other countries would not be able to afford our products. They would be quite expensive to produce.

It's hard to wrap my head around the idea of a trillionaire. How bad do we really need fifty car garages?

Maybe Mr. Cuban was simply inviting us to consider that if AI machines can beat the best minds at chess, poker, Go and Jeopardy, that it's only inevitable that they will find ways to "beat the market." I had the same thought last month. How do I get me an AI machine that can do that?

The Markets don't take a shine to being beaten, though. Back in the late 70's the Hunt brothers found a way to corner the silver market. Unfortunately, the Commodities Exchange changed the rules of the game and the boys lost their shorts.

Fortunately, at this point in time, AI machines are not emotional and vindictive when they lose.

In re-reading Cuban's comments I get the feeling he's just trying to wake people up. The power of AI is already being demonstrated, and it's going to make an impact on our world.

So, what if instead of making a few people into trillionaires we instead use its power to create wealth for everyone?

If this topic interests you, check out my interview last year with Calum Chace, author of The Economic Singularity.

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Meantime, life goes on all around you. Get into it. 

Talkin' Warhol With Tweed Docent Bill Shipley

Friday morning I took advantage of an invitation to visit with Bill Shipley, Tweed Museum docent who spent much of his adult life in New York art scene, ultimately returning to Duluth in 2004 after the passing of his partner Leslie Bohnenkamp.  Last weekend Mr. Shipley gave a gallery talk on Andy Warhol and the current Pop Art show now on display there, an event I was sorry to have missed. "I consider last week's lecture the best I ever did."

Mr. Shipley spent two months preparing, extracting stories from a range of sources including Death and Disaster: The Rise of the Warhol Empire and the Race for Andy's Millions. I'll share his "big three" insights in a minute.

The reason I'd come to visit was actually to see some of the art I'd heard he's collected over the years. Naturally one is first struck by the tidiness of his Park Point residence, something akin to a art gallery space. Next one immediately observes these sculptures by Bohnenkamp that look a bit like a cross between a cone and the horn of a longhorn steer. There are several of these and each gives the appearance of being substantial as if formed in bronze. Instead they are quite lightweight, hollow and made of paper.

Two Shipley paintings flanked by Bohnenkamp sculptures.

In addition to giving tours of the Tweed, Bill Shipley is himself a painter. Like many artists he go through seasons where a single theme maintains primacy over his subject matter. At this time he has been painting Mondrian's Amarylis flowers. Whereas most people are only familiar with Mondrian's colorful abstract squares, such as Broadway Boogie Woogie, that it may come as a surprise how fixated Mondrian on flowers.

When people speak of modern art they frequently have images like Duchamp's cubist Nude Descending A Staircase, and some of Picasso's later works. Perhaps Jackson Pollock comes to mind, and are thus confronted with the question of what really qualifies as art.

The irony is that just as the modernists proclaimed their freedom from rules that bind you as regards what is acceptable as art, the fine art power brokers made sure that their own rules got enforced. The purists considered what many craftspeople were doing to be craft and not art. The role Leslie Bohnenkamp played was to bridge the gulf between fiber arts and fine art. His sculptures are made of coiled, woven and spiraled fiber. When you look at photos of the 2004 Bohnenkamp show, you immediately notice the endless variety of shapes and forms.

After a brief tour we settled down to talk a bit about Warhol. I asked what the Big 3 takeaways were from his presentation. He identified the following.

Shipley's flowers.

1. My biggest discovery: how Warhol based almost all he did on photography.
Shipley noted an experience Warhol had with Richard Avedon, the celebrated fashion designer. He had been making a living as a commercial artist, but when he switched into "fine arts" he became a Brand.

2. The idea of portraiture.
Art historians can point to an abundance of portraits of the rich and famous through the centuries. In the 20th century this tradition seemed to have fallen out of favor. That is, until Andy Warhol brought value back to portraiture. Warhol did 50-100 portraits a year and was paid $25K apiece for them. The waiting list was long, but those with the cash recognized an investment that would produce returns...

3. Warhol's enduring influence.
Andy Warhol is considered by many to have been the most important artist of the second half of the 20th century. His importance can be measured by the market value of his works. His witty pronouncement about 15 minutes of fame is so ubiquitous it has become cliche.

Bill told me an anecdote about Andy Warhol's visit to the Tweed in 1970. He was doing a campus tour, giving lectures and keeping his celebrity status alive. (His films were doing the same thing, being shown on campuses around the country. I remember going to see a portion of his eight-hour film of the Empire State Building.) As it turns out,  people learned later that Warhol had sent an impersonator to do the campus tour lectures.

Much more was shared about his life, his near death experience when he was shot, and the 100,000 photos he left behind when he did finally pass.

Since I'd also come to see the art, here are a couple more photos I snapped.

Eric Dubnicka piece was Best in Show at DAI five years back. 

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Reminders:
Tuesday 4:00-6:00 p.m. is the opening reception for Nevada Littlewolf's Senior Art Exhibition at the Tweed Museum of Art on the campus of UMD. The title of the show is, THIS IS WHAT DEMOCRACY LOOKS LIKE. It promises to be most insightful.
Thursday 5:30 p.m. gallery talk at the DAI Morrison Gallery, 4th floor of the Depot. Ms. Kuth will talk about her show Rooted Expression.

Meantime, art goes on all around you. Engage it.

Robby Vee Set to Kick Off the 2017 North Country Dylan Fest

The Armory Arts and Music Center has announced the headliner for this year's annual benefit concert to get things in motion for this year's Duluth Dylan Fest, and it sounds exciting. Here's the news I read today:

Join us for an evening of electricity and music hosted by Second Generation Rocker & Rockabilly Hall of Famer Robby Vee and His Rock-N-Roll Caravan featuring Vee Sings Vee - classic rock-n-roll! Robby Vee "The Prince Of Twang” was born Robert Velline named after his father Bobby Vee. He is recognized by both the American and Canadian Rockabilly Hall of Fames and has been performing his unique style of Rock-n- Roll music for years on stages across the globe. Having been on tour with the legends and architects of rock-n-roll, Robby has learned from, and shared credits and stages with the best, from James Burton to Carl Perkins, Albert Lee, Little Richard, the Everly Brothers, Sir Paul McCartney, Eric Clapton, Dion, The Righteous Brothers, Buddy Holly’s Crickets, Dick Clark and his ‘Caravan of Stars Rock ‘N’ Roll Show’, his father, 60’s pop rocker Bobby Vee and many more.

Robby is known for combining elements of his vast repertoire telling stories that bridge the generation gap from “the roots of Rock n Roll to the new sounds of Americana music of today”. As an Entertainer with many studio records to his name, countless guest artist credits, and a history of extensive touring, Vee has captured the attention of audiences and respected industry professionals both Nationally and Internationally.

Robby's dad Bobby Vee got his start in music at the age of 15 with his group The Shadows when they filled in for Buddy Holly in Moorhead, MN in February 1959, the day after the fateful plane crash. Later that year Bobby would hire a young Robert Zimmerman - then going by the name Elston Gunnn - to play piano for a few shows. The rest is history for both of these fine artists. They stayed in close touch over the years. Bobby Vee went on to perform at the Historic Duluth Armory many times over the years. We are thrilled to have his son Robby grace the stage on behalf of our efforts to restore the magnificent Historic Duluth Armory.

Visit Robby Vee's website for more details about the man and his Rock 'N Roll Caravan.

When Dylan performed at the DECC here in Duluth, 1998, the opening act was David Allen and the Guilty Men who performed with such a palpable rock-a-billy energy that a portion of the crowd no doubt temporarily forgot why they had come. They rocked.

Note the connection. Dylan, Vee, rock-a-billy, Duluth Dylan Fest.

The Elston Gunn connection between a very young not-yet-named Bob Dylan and Bobby Vee is a most amusing story of the kid's gumption, a.k.a. chutzpah. And Dylan never forgot that brief moment in time when he got a chance to perform with a big name band that was the real deal. After performing in Duluth's Bayfront Park in 2013, his tour bus made its next stop in St. Paul. Guess who was in the audience that night? Bobby Vee, and the now legendary Dylan paid a tribute to the guy who gave him a chance once.

It's pretty remarkable how things come full circle. The day Buddy Holly's plane crashed in that Iowa cornfield had such finality, it never enters one's mind what happened next. That is, did the tour bus continue on its way? There were people who'd bought tickets for the next show. That Bobby Vee would step in and give that the Moorhead crowd their moneysworth is just another detail that might be worth extra points in a trivia contest some day.

SPECIAL NOTE: The Robby Vee show will held at Karpeles Manuscript Library Museum, located in the former Christian Science church building across the street from St. Luke's Hospital at 902 East 1st Street. In other words, do not show up at Sacred Heart and wonder where everyone is.

This is the kickoff event for Duluth Dylan Fest 2017. There's a great lineup of events taking place as we firm up our traditions. Coming in from out of town? We're only nine weeks away now. Book your flights and your rooms. New faces from out of the way places are always welcome.

Buy your concert tickets HERE at Eventbrite.

A year ago Bob turned 75 and the DDF team pulled out all the stops to make it a stellar week. Even the weather was cooperative. In the backs of our minds many of us, however, thought 76 would be a but of a letdown after that. 75 s a big one. What we didn't know was that Nobel Prize Committee would soon lend a hand to make this year's celebration special yet again. Join us.

Stay current with breaking Dylan Fest news by Following us on Facebook. 

Meantime, life goes on all around you. Don't let it pass you by.

Twin Ports Arts Scene: Happenings and Upcoming Events

Trepanier Hall

This afternoon at 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. there will be an Artist Discussion about Making Art Today at Studio 3 West. The WTF! show created quite a buzz when it opened earlier this month at the PROVE and Studio 3 West. This afternoon you can hop downtown and see what the buzz was all about.

Monday, March 20
As many of you know Esther Piszczek has been on a Sabbatical. Which is to say that if you've been dependent on her eNews to stay current with what happening in the local arts scene, then it been a rough three months.

On Monday she will be making a public appearance at Barnes & Noble from 4-6 p.m. She will be doing a book signing of her coloring book of Zentangle-inspired artwork, Patterned Peace. At the same time she'll also be doing some interactive demonstrations.

Thursday evening there was a Painting Event with Leah Yellowbird

Some of her work is currently on display in the AICHO Gallery along with pieces by Jonathn Thunder and others. The detail in Leah Yellowbird's work continues to impress and amaze. I've been captured by her magic. Her technique is evolving and her fan base is growing. Here (right) is one of her pieces with a pair of detail close-ups at the end of this post.

More AICHO Events

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More Leah Yellowbird

Detail from above.

Another part of the same design.

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To see more, check out Anishinaabe Kwe at the Kruk Gallery, Holden Hall at UWS featuring works by Native artists Leah Yellowbird, Ivy Vainio and Satah Agaton Howes.

Meantime, art goes on all around you. Engage it.

The Wit and Wisdom of Lee Trevino -- The Hispanic Yogi Berra of Golf

It's March Madness which means that during our lunch hour the restaurant we were in had several monitors displaying NCAA basketball playoff games. During one of the commercial breaks we were reminded that The Masters, one of pro golf's premiere events, is just around the corner. This triggered a debate between two of the men at our table. Topic: What is the greatest single sporting event championship in the world? No one dared suggest Super Bowl, though I was inwardly wondering whether soccer's World Cup might qualify. The golfer at our table declared it to be the Masters. His opponent placed his bet on America's Cup, whereupon this comment was made: "Yacht racing? That's like watching paint dry" along with several follow-up barbs.

While these jokes were being made at the expense of America's Cup, my mind slid back to a handful of golf-themed memories from my youth. Golf had been one of my father's passions, so we were introduced to the game quite early. When we were kids in Cleveland he'd drive us to a certain stretch of forest adjacent to golf course where he'd have us do a scavenger hunt for golf balls. He knew exactly where to have us look, because a few of these may have been his at one time.

I later caddied for a couple years while in high school, and enjoyed the benefit of playing for free on Mondays. Though my skills never advanced beyond being a hack, I enjoyed the game and followed the pro circuit enough (via Sports Illustrated and televised tournament golf) to know who the name were. My dad was part of Arnie's Army, the nickname given to the fans and followers of that golf great whose chief adversary (and respected friend) was the "Golden Bear" Jack Nicklaus. I myself liked the South African Gary Player, in part because he always wore black, like an outlaw of sorts.

And then, there was Lee Trevino.

Lee Trevino

Here's the story about Lee Trevino that most stood out for me. Before turning pro he used to make money by putting money on the game. I believe I read in Sports Illustrated that he had a giant Pepsi bottle that he used to play golf with. He would bet against other golfers that he could beat them using only a Pepsi bottle against their full set of clubs. He purportedly made pretty good that way. If I have my facts right, this may have been what pushed him to compete in the pros.

His achievements were many, and in 1971 he became the first player to win the U.S. Open, British Open and Canadian Open the same year. In fact, he did it in a three-week span.

Trevino also had another unusual threesome. He has been purportedly struck by lightning three times, one of them during the 1975 Western Open. The odds of being struck by lightning during your lifetime, for what it's worth, are 300,000 to one, though I'm guessing your odds might improve considerably if you're routinely out on a fairway when storms roll in.

Lee Trevino grew up very poor. He has no memory of his father who abandoned the family while he was very you. At age five he was helping bring in an income picking cotton. How he emerged from these roots to become an elite golfer is a tale for another place in time.

Baseball fans are well acquainted with the Yogi Berra's Yogi-isms. (Susie and I frequently recite his restaurant quip, "No one eats there anymore because it's too busy.") Lee Trevino's way with words can be equally entertaining. Here are ten Trevino statements to get you started.

1. The older I get, the better I used to be.

2. If you are caught on a golf course during a storm and are afraid of lightning, hold up a 1-iron. Not even God can hit a 1-iron.

3. Pressure is playing for ten dollars when you don't have a dime in your pocket.

4. When you're poor, you know nothing about the future, you know nothing about the world, nothing that goes on outside 300 yards around you.

5. You're Mexican until you make money and then you're Spanish.

6. Golf is a game invented by the same people who think music comes out of a bagpipe.

7. My swing is so bad I look like a caveman killing his lunch.

8. I'm not out there just to be dancing around. I expect to win every time I tee up.

9. I'm not saying my golf game went bad, but if I grew tomatoes, they'd come up sliced.

10. Every golfer should come to the first tee with fourteen clubs, a dozen balls, a handful of tees, and at least one great golf story.

Meantime, life goes on all around you. Give it your best shot.

Photo courtesy Creative Commons.

Throwback Thursday: The Day After Bob Dylan's 69th Birthday + An Announcement from the Hibbing Dylan Project

ORIGINALLY POSTED MAY 25, 2010

So Bob Dylan is 69 plus one day today. I mention this only because, because... because I wanted to.

I missed the party last night. I was busy out in my studio finishing the first of two or three compositions I'm devising for the Bob Dylan Way Manhole Cover Art Contest. I did get a few more details. You can submit more than one design. Also, these will be regular manhole covers, one color, embossed, not mini-murals. These are practical manhole covers, to be cast in iron.

Speaking of Dylan, this morning I remembered the first time I saw one of his albums. Ed Hilliker, whom I rode school bus with in junior high school, had The Freelwheelin' Bob Dylan with that iconic image of young Dylan walking through the streets of New York, head tilted forward against the wind, with a smiling woman in a green coat (Suze Rotolo, I would later learn) tightly clutching his arm. The liner notes were by Nat Hentoff, who followed the music scene and wrote for the Village Voice. Hentoff's fame stemmed from his intimate portraits of obscure jazz greats who were producing incredible sounds during the fertile fifties and sixties, before jazz filtered into the masses.

Hentoff's Liner Notes begin like this...

Of all the precipitously emergent singers of folk songs in the continuing renascence of that self-assertive tradition, none has equaled Bob Dylan singularity of impact. As Harry Jackson, a cowboy singer and a painter, has exclaimed: "He's so goddamned real it's unbelievable!" The irrepressible reality of Bob Dylan is a compound of spontaneity, candor, slicing wit and an uncommonly perceptive eye and ear for the way many of us constrict our capacity for living while a few of us don't.

Not yet twenty-two at the time of this album's release, Dylan is growing at a swift, experience-hungry rate. In these performances, there is already a marked change from his first album ("Bob Dylan," Columbia CL 1779/CS 8579), and there will surely be many further dimensions of Dylan to come. What makes this collection particularly arresting is that it consists in large part of Dylan's own compositions The resurgence of topical folk songs has become a pervasive part of the folk movement among city singers, but few of the young bards so far have demonstrated a knowledge of the difference between well-intentioned pamphleteering and the creation of a valid musical experience. Dylan has. As the highly critical editors of "Little Sandy Review" have noted, "...right now, he is certainly our finest contemporary folk song writer. Nobody else really even comes close."

The highlighted observation above proved to be dead on as far a prescience goes. Who would have thunk it? Dylan has appeared in more forms than a Hindu god.

This memorable album cover actually becomes a scene in the eternally recurring happy dream gone awry of Tom Cruise in the film Vanilla Sky. What's interesting to me is that the song which Cameron Crowe chooses to play while these Dylan-in-love copycat images are being displayed is not from Freewheelin', but rather is the song Fourth Time Around from Blonde On Blonde. Fourth Time Around implies "over and over again." Very interesting, and it's about something good gone bad.

Well, we're taking Dylan back to the streets again here in Duluth with a few new manhole covers for Bob Dylan Way. Deadline is just around the corner.

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FAST FORWARD TO 2017

TWO CALLS FOR ART

1) The Hibbing Dylan Project just announced that they are looking for artists who can create temporary Dylan murals in downtown storefronts. As I read the news today, oh boy, it seemed much like the Phantom Galleries that Superior artists generated for several years. Except this is Hibbing, and the good friends of the Dylan legacy want to celebrate his recent Nobel Prize. Here are the details regarding this current project.

2) The Duluth Dylan Fest is planning a Dylan-themed art exhibition during this year's Dylan Festival here. There will be a reception held on Monday May 22.  Bob Dylan has not only been a literary and performing artist, but he's also been a lifetime visual artist.
Submission Requirements:
1. Artist's statement
2. Brief bio (2-3 sentences)
3. One to three pieces (must send sample PDF or JPG format less than 1 MB each)
4. Description of piece (Title, medium, dimensions, price)
5. Send email to: ennyman (AT) northlc (DOT) com.   SUBJECT LINE: DYLAN ART

Almost Wordless Wednesday: Local Art Seen -- Christie Carter Eliason @ The Red Mug

"Blackbird singing in the dead of night, take these broken wings and learn to fly."

--Lennon/McCartney

Inside A Raven Conspiracy

Blackbirds and ravens are nothing new for Northland painters. In 2015 Ann Klefstad and Bridget Riversmith shared a batch of them last year at the Zeitgeist,  and a few more of Ann's appeared in the Corridor Gallery of the DAI this past fall. Birds are fascinating. DaVinci was captivated by them and I've painted a few blackbirds myself. This month through the end of April Christie Carter Eliason's Inside A Raven Conspiracy will be on display at The Red Mug in Superior. You can learn more about the artist here in our February interview.

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"Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly."

--Langston Hughes

Meantime, art goes on all around you. Engage it.