Phil Shapiro ChatGPT Explorations

On winter mornings, Jamal often walked to school with his hood up, his backpack half-zipped, and his little sister's lunch tucked under his arm. He was sixteen, tall for his age, though his shoulders curved forward as if carrying something heavier than books. His older brother was in jail. His mother worked double shifts at a nursing home. Jamal was the placeholder, the one who held the household together. At school, he slipped into Room 312 late, eyes half-closed from nights of babysitting. His math teacher, Leonard "Mr. Lenny" Rivera, noticed the way Jamal avoided the board, staring instead at the floor tiles scuffed by decades of sneakers. To most, Jamal looked like another student fading into absence. To Lenny, he looked like someone whose odds had been stacked too early. So Lenny made a quiet wager. Every lunch break, he sat with Jamal at a side table, the cafeteria noise muffled through the door. Ten minutes a day. Equations scribbled on loose-leaf. Chalk dust linge...

So, I bring dried chives to my public library job and I want to store these in the staff kitchen. These chives are our chives, so I want to figure out how to store our chives. I ask my library co-workers if any of them are an our chivist? When they studied for their masters of library science, did they take any courses in our chives? So far, no one has confessed to being an "our chivist," though one of my co-workers admitted she once minored in parsley. Another claimed expertise in oregano, but then we caught him sprinkling dried oregano into his coffee, so his credibility is questionable. I explained to everyone that chives—especially our chives—require careful cataloging. Dewey Decimal doesn't really help here. Do you put them under 641.3 (food preservation) or do you wedge them into 583.92 (allium botany)? One person suggested creating a whole new call number: 000.00 CHV, but that seemed a little radical. Meanwhile, the staff fridge is divided like medieval kingdoms....

So, I bring dried chives to my public library job and I want to store these in the staff kitchen. These chives are our chives, so I want to figure out how to store our chives. I ask my library co-workers if any of them are an our chivist? When they studied for their masters of library science, did they take any courses in our chives? So far, no one has confessed to being an "our chivist," though one of my co-workers admitted she once minored in parsley. Another claimed expertise in oregano, but then we caught him sprinkling dried oregano into his coffee, so his credibility is questionable. I explained to everyone that chives—especially our chives—require careful cataloging. Dewey Decimal doesn't really help here. Do you put them under 641.3 (food preservation) or do you wedge them into 583.92 (allium botany)? One person suggested creating a whole new call number: 000.00 CHV, but that seemed a little radical. Meanwhile, the staff fridge is divided like medieval kingdoms....

On Saturdays, when the library sat in its hush of weekend quiet, Marianne Pritchard could usually be found somewhere else—under the white tents of the farmers' market, or on a folding chair in a drafty church hall, or leaning against the doorframe of the community theater during intermission. People noticed her presence without quite understanding it. "Don't you ever get a day off?" they teased. Marianne smiled. She did not tell them that, for her, these places were the work—the other half of the library, the half unwritten. She had learned long ago that a reference desk could only reach so far. People brought in questions when they knew they had them. But most of the time, their needs traveled incognito, tucked into stray remarks about a troublesome garden or a restless child. The only way to catch them was to go where people lived their lives, and to listen. At the honey stand, the jars glowed in the low October sun. George, the beekeeper, leaned across his table an...

Listen now, and I'll tell you of a valley — a good valley, with dark soil and soft hills, where three farmers lived as neighbors. They were close enough to see each other's smoke in the morning, close enough to hear each other's dogs at night. The first was Jonas. Jonas planted wheat, Jonas harvested wheat, Jonas sold wheat. Every year the same, every year enough. Folks said of him, "Jonas will never surprise you, but Jonas will never fail you." And it was true. The second was Elias. He worked as hard as Jonas, but his mind was restless. He liked to try things — sometimes clever, sometimes foolish. He once dug a pond that would not hold water, and the children laughed, calling it "Elias's puddle." But Elias only laughed too, for he knew another idea would come to him soon enough. The third farmer was Miriam. Careful Miriam. She kept her rows straight, her ledgers neat, her eyes always watchful. She often told her children, "Farming is half luck,...