A Delicious Affair

To call American rebellious would be an understatement. The entire founding of their country, and the rights embedded in their constitution were acts of rebellion against the royal orthodoxy of the time. Americans commitment to freedom (in theory and practice) is almost fanatical and has led to some of the greatest social changes including the abolishment of slavery, improved rights for various groups, experimentation with mind-altering botanicals, breakthroughs in automobility and autonomy, inventive musical expression, sexual exploration, movie making, space and personal computer technology development, and much more. They are examples of the American impetus for self determination, self-reliance, and freedom. I know that history and culture are much messier than a few sentences can capture- it doesn’t take long to find some of the tears in the cultural fabric of America. Which is why I’m generalizing here and taking a broad high-level view of the landscape without getting into the dirty gritty details of American cultural laundry.

The founders of the USA were men and women who had different ideas on religion and spirituality from their European counterparts. While the country was founded by Christians, the first amendment of the constitution explicitly states that religious freedom, not just the Christian faith, is to be granted to every citizen of that fair land.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

In 2005, Bobby Henderson sent a satirical letter to protest the Kansas State Board of Education decision to teach intelligent design (the idea that God created everything) alongside Darwin’s theory of evolution. So the cheeky fellow demanded that the school board give equal time to the teaching of “Flying Spaghetti Monsterism”, the idea that an invisible and undetectable flying spaghetti monster created the universe after drinking too much.

At the time, 2005, social media was beginning to pick up steam. The idea of an invisible and undetectable flying spaghetti monster (FSM) was too irresistible, and soon it went viral on a global scale. The "religion" of the FSM is called Pastafarianism (wink wink), and apparently pirates were the original adherents of the religion. The wacky idea has made some inroads in popular culture across the world and persists even in unlikely places. Just take a look at the following news headlines:

Arizona man wears colander in driver's license photo in name of religious freedom

This guy got a Victorian driver's licence with a pasta strainer on his head

Singaporean of ‘Pastafarian’ belief wears a strainer for driving license photo

Australia's only Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster brings visitors to new Pastafarian 'religion'

Pastafarian pastor leads prayer at Alaska government meeting

'Pastafarian' politician wears colander on his head as he's sworn into office

While I’m not a Pastafarian myself, the idea tickles my funny bone. So, I wrote a short story with a few saucy innuendos. As cover for this story, I decided to create a set of AI images to depict the scene of a young woman having a close encounter of the noodley kind.

While the initial idea was to have the FSM hover above her (as shown in the image above), I abandoned the idea as I could not coerce the software to create exactly what I had in mind. I prompted and re-prompted, playing with different styles, settings, and models.

Innocent enough, though not what I was looking for.

I kept probing the mysteries of the AI space.

I finally got the style and thematic narrative I was looking for. I ended up choosing only one from the set that I developed, but a few of them I think are well worth sharing.

The images generated are utterly ridiculous (no offense to the Noodley One). They show the moment that the character transforms because of the interaction with the legendary monster. I like to think that they are examples of that American tradition of rebelling with a smile and a wink, but then I remember it's just spaghetti and meatballs.