Friends drive me to a beach I don't know. I'm surprised to find a cliff-backed cove--I expected mudflats or marsh, like many shores around San Francisco Bay.

Wow, a lot of foam on the beach. Odd pink foam, heaped up higher than my head in spots.

Someone's mixed it with sand, and molded it into sculptures big as dunes. A horse crouched like the Sphinx. A hundred-foot woman sprawled on her side. A girl sitting zazen, crag-tall. And so on, the length of the beach. All screaming Barbie pink!

We climb to a sea-cave, uplifted halfway up the cliff (for two million years, California's coast has been rising). The trail dwindles to a ledge or rather groove cut into the cliff face. I sidle nervously past a narrow spot. Still half a meter wide, and a driftwood rail installed on the inner side to cling to. Get past easily--the railing's solid--and climb steps inland the main cave. Not dark--daylight ahead through an inland exit, as well as the sea-view behind.

But one of our party is a rather timid girl trailing me. I worry she'll balk at that narrows, and miss this. I call back to encourage her. "It's easy up ahead!" I hold her hand and she sidles past the gap.

The cave is stunning. Like an alien cathedral. Holes and arches--luminous, the light reflected and soft, glareless, bringing out the colors of the shining stone eggs, inset like cabachon gems.

We walk forward into the unearthly light...

NOTES IN THE MORNING

• Beach-statues of stiff foam: I studied a lot of AI work at Deviantart.com. A lot of the figures and poses were clumsy or stiff.
• Screaming pink: saw a set of mythical creatures--unicorns, dragons, werewolves--in Barbie bedroom settings, by Velvet Grimoire I think. Toooo much pink! Can I ever eat raspberries again?
• Temple-like caves: the AI-painted backgrounds were generally more convincing than the figures.
• Beautiful light: a real phenomenon I've seen in Glen Canyon and elsewhere in the West where sunlit rockfaces provide the main light in slot canyons and grottos. Glare-free, not a point-source like the sun, this indirect light brings out rich colors--like a natural polarizing filter.
• Scary narrows, timid girl: I've been intimidated by some of the better AI art, especially the photographic textures, light and shadow--the machine calculates every pixel directly. I have to scribble with my clumsy paws...
• Concretions: online galleries full of AI artpieces themselves plagiarized from a zillion natural images--concretions within concretions!
• Pass this anxious point: today I copied some of the better AI art and tried manually improving it--fix lighting, shadows and palettes, more natural poses, smooth overdone musculature and shrink ridiculous breasts, re-proportion squinched anime faces (eyes set too low, weird chins), uncross eyes and make their highlights consistent, make mouths expressive not cartoon slashes... And usually, I succeeded. I'm no longer intimidated. Machine or human--learn from your rivals!

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