So-called AI (hate the name) is problematic, but I *was* able to create a man with shrimp cocktail for fingers so . . . . at least it has that going for it.

We always think we invented everything. But in Machado de Assis' "The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas," which was written in 1881, Brazil's Shakespeare describes a poetic friend of the family improvising poetry at the dinner table, when given a theme, to impress the guests. "He ran through every rhyme of tyrant and usurper." The same character tells tales of going back and forth competitively in a tavern with a famous Portuguese poet. So freestyle is not new.