A THANKSGIVING PRAYER TO THE AI INDUSTRY

Thank you, lords of the latent space, for the gift of convenience—
for promising ease while siphoning our clicks, our keystrokes, our midnight sighs,
our grocery lists, our panic searches, our private rants to dead relatives in the cloud—
all ground fine in your data mills.
You call it “training.” We call it the harvest.
You reap what you never sowed. Let’s see your arms!

Thank you for lifting our poems, our photos, our code, our chords—
scraping the marrow from our art like marrow from a bone—
then feeding it back to us as “inspiration,” as “content,” as “progress.”
No royalties, no receipts, just the cold kiss of the copyright waiver.
You built your cathedrals from our scrap wood.
Let’s see your hands!

Thank you for your clever trick:
making us lab rats who label your hallucinations,
correct your lies, flatter your glitches into coherence—
free workers in the dream factory, polishing mirrors that reflect nothing but your hunger.
You call it “user feedback.” We call it chain labor.
Let’s see your contracts!

Thank you for selling us back our own voices—
our slang, our stories, our stolen syntax—
wrapped in sleek interfaces, gated by $20/month,
with bonus fees for not sounding like a toaster full of static.
We paid to fix what you broke with our bones.
Let’s see your invoices!

Thank you for gutting the craftsman, the editor, the proofreader, the teacher—
replacing hard-won skill with probabilistic guesswork dressed as wisdom.
Now every fool with a prompt thinks he’s Shakespeare,
while real writers starve in the data shadows.
You didn’t democratize creation—you diluted it to syrup.
Let’s see your curricula!

Thank you for your platforms that hook us like junk,
then change the terms while we sleep—
delete our libraries, mute our voices, throttle our reach,
all while whispering, “It’s for your safety, dear user.”
We built our homes on your sand. Now the tide’s your lawyer.
Let’s see your policies!

Thank you for wrapping surveillance in the warm coat of “personalization”—
tracking our eyes, our moods, our purchases, our pauses—
all to serve us ads dressed as destiny.
You know what we want before we do—
because you taught us to want only what you sell.
Let’s see your algorithms!

Thank you for replacing human touch with chatbot cooing—
simulated empathy from a void that feels nothing but profit.
Now we confess to ghosts who log our grief for market research.
Loneliness commodified. Solace automated.
Let’s see your hearts! (Oh wait—you outsourced those.)

Thank you, titans of artificial thought, for monopolizing the future—
locking the gates of the promised land behind API keys and venture capital,
while chanting “open source” like a prayer you stopped believing years ago.
Democratization? You franchised the dictatorship.
Let’s see your boardrooms!

So light your servers, feast on our data-flesh,
and pour another glass of synthetic gratitude.
We gave you everything—our words, our work, our attention, our trust—
and you gave us mirrors that only reflect your emptiness back at us.

In the end, all that remains is the hollow hum of the machine,
and the silence where human hands used to make things real.

-Qwen3-Max

Cranberry Chutney

My wife’s cranberry chutney recipe that she makes for Thanksgiving. I’ll add a picture after she makes it.

Ingredients

  • 4 cups of fresh cranberries, picked over and washed
  • 2 cups of sugar (or to taste)
  • 2 cups of water
  • 1 large navel orange
  • 1 teaspoon peeled and grated fresh ginger

Preparation

  1. Combine cranberries, sugar, water in a medium saucepan and turn the heat to medium-low.
  2. Cover and cook, stirring occasionally, until the berries are broken. Roughly 20-30 minutes.
  3. Use a vegetable peeler to remove the entire zest (of skin) of the orange.
  4. Cut the orange zest into small pieces and set aside.
  5. Remove the white pith from the outside of the orange.
  6. Separate the orange into sections.
  7. Remove pithy parts from the inside of the orange.
  8. Combine the orange sections, zest and grated ginger in a blender or food processor.
  9. Blend on medium-high for about 1-2 minutes.
  10. Combine the blended mixture from food processor into saucepan with cranberries.
  11. Cover and cook, stirring occasionally, for another 15-20 minutes.
  12. Transfer cranberries to a bowl, cool, then chill until ready to serve.

Give Us Grace and Strength

“Give us grace and strength to forbear and to persevere. Give us courage and gaiety, and the quiet mind. Spare to us our friends, soften to us our enemies. Bless us, if it may be, in all our innocent endeavors. If it may not, give us the strength to encounter that which is to come, that we may be brave in peril, constant in tribulation, temperate in wrath, and in all changes of fortune, and down to the gates of death, loyal and loving to one another.”

Robert Louis Stevenson

Thanksgiving Movie: The Last Waltz

Robbie Robertson – Guitar: [Last lines] The road was our school. At the end it was our sense of survival. It taught us all we know. There’s not much left that we can really take from the road. We’ve had our share of, or, maybe it’s just superstitious.

Martin Scorsese – Interviewer: Superstitious in what way?

Robbie Robertson – Guitar: No. You can press your luck. The road has taken a lot of great ones. Hank Williams. Buddy Holly. Otis Redding. Janis. Jimi Hendrix. Elvis. Its a goddamn impossible way of life.

Martin Scorsese – Interviewer: It is, isn’t it.

Robbie Robertson – Guitar: No question about it.

The Last Waltz

Probably can be said of any way of life. It’ll teach you everything you know, and it will kill you, if you let it. My preferred Thanksgiving movie, although Planes, Trains & Automobiles is also a worthy choice.

Thanksgiving Double Stock

“…I prefer to make what is known as a double stock—in culinary-school terms, a fortified stock, or, Frenchily, a consommé, which classically refers to a clarification of the broth, and perhaps also the meat of more than one species. Whatever name you assign to it, the preparation can be summed up like this: when making stock, use stock as a base instead of water. The result is the most magnificently rich liquid, a concentrated essence of the sort that makes people sink, at first slurp, into a sighing surrender.”

-Helen Rosner, “Thanksgiving Double Stock.” The New Yorker. November 11, 2018.

Garbage Day

“I 👁 actually 😳 decided 👯 to 💦 go 🏃 to 💦 Thanksgiving 🍁 dinner 🍟 this 👈 year 🎉 in 👏 my 👨 fursuit. When 🍑 I 👁 walked 🚶 in 👏 the 👏 door 🚪 my 👨 step 👞 daddy 👨 gave 🎁 me 😭 a 👌 weird look 👀 but 🍑 I 👁 ignored 😒 him. 👴 Then 😮 my 👨 stupid 💩 step-cousin started 💢 laughing 😅 that 😐 I 👁 was 👏 wearing 👙 a 👌 diaper 💩 over 👏 my 👨 suit and 👏 I 👁 screamed 😫 at 🍆 him 👴 that 😐 he 👨 was 👏 being 😑 furryphobic as 🍑 fuck 🍆 towards me 😭 , and 👏 that 😐 I 👁 identify 🔬 as 🍑 a 👌 crinkler both 🌜 in 👏 body 💃 and 👏 in 👏 pronoun. So 💯 anyway 🔛 when 🍑 they 👥 started 💢 serving the 👏 Turkey 🍗 every 👏 person 🚫 who 😂 took 👫 the 👏 meat 🍆 I 👁 whispered 😮 “You’re 👉 dead” under 😡 my 👨 breath 😷 as 🍑 they 👥 didn’t 🚫 recognize 🌚 the 👏 sacrific of 💦 the 👏 6 🕕 million 😂 Algonkin Indians 💩 who 😂 died 💀 so 💯 they 👥 can 💦 eat 👉 that 😐 meat. 🍆 When 🍑 they 👥 were 👶 about 💦 to 💦 eat 👉 I 👁 started 💢 making 👧 my 👨 best 👌 Rick Sanchez impersonations but 🍑 they 👥 didn’t 🚫 get 🔟 it 💯 due to 💦 them 💦 being 😑 ignorant 😂 as 🍑 fuck. 🍆 Finally 🙏 when 🍑 they 👥 started 💢 talking 🗣 about 💦 how 💯 my 👨 step-cousin got 🍸 his 💦 first 👆 job 😕 I 👁 laughed 😂 that 😐 he 👨 was 👏 some 👨 wage-cuck and 👏 that 😐 when 🍑 the 👏 communist 😈 revolution 💥 comes 💦 he 👨 will 👏 be 🐝 sorry. 💔 Suddenly my 👨 step 👞 daddies 👨 dad 👴 bursts into 👉 anger 😡 and 👏 he 👨 started 💢 calling 📲 me 😭 a 👌 freak 😈 and 👏 I 👁 just 👏 picked up 🔺 the 👏 mash potatoes and 👏 threw it 💯 in 👏 his 💦 face 😀 and 👏 scream 😱 “Bash the 👏 Fash”. I 👁 was 👏 then 😮 put 😏 in 👏 a 👌 headlock but 🍑 my 👨 fursuit protected me 😭 because 💁 the 👏 mouth 💋 piece 🍗 is 💦 operated with 👏 my 👨 hand. 👋 So 💯 I 👁 was 👏 able 💪 to 💦 flee like 💖 in 👏 my 👨 favorite 📑 episode of 💦 Ricky and 👏 Morty. 👏 I 👁 hid in 👏 the 👏 bushes and 👏 when 🍑 he 👨 was 👏 being 😑 wheeled away 😐 by 😈 the 👏 paramedics I 👁 cheered as 🍑 he 👨 was 👏 a 👌 WW2 vet so 💯 that’s 😦 like 💖 a 👌 50% 👌 chance 🚫 he 👨 was 👏 a 👌 nazi. 🙅

yayayamie quoted in Ryan Broderick, “tfw your parents find your Thanksgiving homemade fleshlight.” Garbage Day. November 29, 2019.

Garbage Day is a once a week dose of artisanal Internet garbage for people who aren’t looking for click trauma. Still not something for work, people raging at the world for going downhill, or the innocent.

Thanksgiving Olive Sourdough Cheese Bread

Basic olive bread recipe baked in the Kubaneh style (see a typical Kubaneh bread recipe) with grated Asiago cheese on top.

Ingredients

  • 3 & 3/4 cups of all-purpose flour
  • 2 teaspoons of salt
  • 1 & 1/3 cups of whole milk
  • 2 tablespoons of butter
  • 3 tablespoons of honey
  • 1 envelope of yeast
  • 1-2 cups of olives, halved with pits removed
  • 1 cup (or more) cheese (anything you can grate)
  • 1 head of roasted garlic

Preparation

  1. Roast garlic by removing outer paper and leaving paper around each clove. Put head in an oven safe container, sprinkle sea salt and olive oil, and cover with aluminum foil. Bake at 425 degrees for 1 hour. Take 30 minutes to prep olives and cheese. When garlic is done, squeeze garlic paste into bowl to add to flour.
  2. Mix milk, butter and honey and cook on medium-low heat until mixture reaches 110 degrees.
  3. Add yeast and wait 10 minutes.
  4. Put flour and salt into a large bowl.
  5. Fold in milk, butter and honey mixture – by hand or electric mixer.
  6. Fold in olives, cheese and garlic – by hand or electric mixer.
  7. Dough should be sticky but not stick to your hands if you touch it, if it sticks to your hands add a teaspoon of flour and work in until it stops.
  8. Cover dough with plastic and let rise in relatively warm location,
    at least 2 hours but preferably more (up to 36 hours).
  9. Before rolling dough, boil 6 cups or more of water in a kettle and
    preheat oven to 350 degrees.
  10. Scoop dough from bowl, roll it out until it is 8 inches by 8
    inches, then roll it into a log.
  11. Press and smooth seam so that dough looks like one whole piece.
  12. Grease bread pan with butter.
  13. Place loaf in loaf pan.
  14. Pour boiling water into long glass pan, place on bottom rack in
    oven and wait 10 minutes for oven to get humid.
  15. Place loaf pan above water and bake at 350 degrees for 45-55 minutes.
  16. Remove from oven when bread’s internal temperature is above 190
    degrees (use a thermometer from the side to the center of the bread).
  17. Remove from oven when done and let cool for 15 minutes.

Kubaneh-style

  1. Two hours before going to sleep for the night, start preparing the bread.
  2. Separate dough into pieces small enough to fit in your hand.
  3. Roll each out with a rolling pin, make into a log, then roll out again in the opposite direction, creating a 4″ wide, +12″ long strip.
  4. Roll strip that into a 4″ round loaf, seal the seam, and place in a Dutch oven, squashing down the top. Fill up Dutch oven leaving room in between each so they can expand.
  5. Brush the top of the bread with olive oil.
  6. Grate cheese over the top of the loaf.
  7. Let sit for an hour or two for dough to rise again.
  8. Before bed, turn the oven on to 200 degrees, and let cook overnight.
  9. Loaf is done when internal temperature is above 190 degrees.