In this session of our series The Evolution of Ideas, we explore and discuss the evolution of ideas in stories and storytelling through time. Dick Bird tells us about his story “Mouth to Mouth”, we look at how Roald Dahl creates short stories and novels as well as how Dick Bird does, and we make up some new stories on the fly.

This session was recorded on March 9, 2025 in 3 parts by Bevan Bird and Dick Bird.

Mature audiences only, listener discretion is advised.

We may add more information here, with a list of the authors, novels, stories, artists or art that we mention.

Click these links to listen to each part.

Part 1

Part 2 – Mouth to Mouth by Dick Bird

Part 3 – We create a new story live on the fly

About the speakers

Bevan Bird was born in Canada in 1985 and travelled a fair bit with his parents before the age of six. He is an experimental artist (creative writer, poet, visual artist and AI artist) expanding the liveliest ideas – those that bring the most excitement or joy. Exploring the evolution of ideas in the arts, he is passionate about the roles of imagination and invention in creating a better future for humanity. Serving as a Guide, he intuitively guides people to find their authentic voice as a creative artist. He encourages people to let their self be their self, do what comes naturally to them, and go at their own pace.

For fun, as he was “growing up”, he experimented in computer games and computer graphics and invented some new fractals, among other things. He co-authored The Rockstars of JVZoo.com, Your Shift Matters, and Goodness Abounds. He earned a Bachelor of Technology with Distinction in Geomatics Engineering Technology (Surveying) at the British Columbia Institute of Technology. He received the Governor General’s Academic Bronze Medal in 2007 and The Bachelor of Technology Achievement Award in Geomatics in 2009, among 11 other awards and scholarships. He has worked as a surveyor, programmer, social media coach, AI artist, self-healing catalyst, teacher and crypto trader. He enjoys nature, reading, making art, surfing, trying new things, improvising, talking with smart and funny people, wintering in the tropics and witnessing people reclaim their power as a creative force of nature in their own life. He lives in Princeton, BC, Canada.

Dick Bird is a published writer and storyteller who believes that individual autonomy is of great importance, man is part of nature and can live in harmony with it, and hilarity is the key to reality.

Born in the UK in 1934, he lived through the second world war. He was a Sergeant in the British Army stationed in Egypt with the Parachute Brigade. His father wanted him to continue the stationery business he started in London but Dick chose his own path: farming. After emigrating to Canada in 1955, he worked as a taxi driver and later raised his own pigs (and children) on his farm in Canada. His adventures in Mexico and Central America helped him become a poet and storyteller. He earned a B.A. in English at Simon Fraser University in 1979. He worked as an E.S.L. teacher and kayak instructor, and in 1989 he started guiding whitewater kayaking adventure tours all over Mexico. In 1994 he was hired as a private children’s caregiver and in 2007 he retired to the country to live in the woods on the bank of the Similkameen, one of his favourite kayaking rivers.

He is the author of more than 80 short stories, 19 of which have been published in magazines. “Some Observations of Comparative Intelligence” won Grain Magazine’s Non-Fiction Prize in 1999. He has read some of his poetry on the CBC, Canada’s national radio network.

Some of his stories are based on his life and they reveal deeper meaning upon reflection. Others are based on his vivid and fantastic night dreams which he feels compelled to share. He has also been telling some of his stories in an off the cuff format (unscripted, uncensored, spontaneous, and sometimes hilarious audio recordings are available) and these include “A Baby Crow”, “The Golden Horn of Youth”, “Magic Mountain”, “A Couple of Religious Experiences”, “Cenotes of the Yucatan Peninsula”, “Agua Azul”, “Surfing In Mexico”, “Kayaking Waterfalls”, “Three Narrow Escapes”, “The Hot Seat”, “Las Gallinas by Night”, “A Click Too Late” and “A New Body”.

In this session of our series The Evolution of Ideas, I share some things I wrote using the cut-up technique, which is an aleatory narrative technique in which a written text is cut up and rearranged to create a new text. Aleatory means depending on chance or randomness.

This session was recorded on March 2, 2025 by Bevan Bird.

Mature audiences only, listener discretion is advised.

I may add more information here, with a list of the authors, novels, stories, artists or art that I mention.

Click the link to listen.

Part 1

About the speaker

Bevan Bird was born in Canada in 1985 and travelled a fair bit with his parents before the age of six. He is an experimental artist (creative writer, poet, visual artist and AI artist) expanding the liveliest ideas – those that bring the most excitement or joy. Exploring the evolution of ideas in the arts, he is passionate about the roles of imagination and invention in creating a better future for humanity. Serving as a Guide, he intuitively guides people to find their authentic voice as a creative artist. He encourages people to let their self be their self, do what comes naturally to them, and go at their own pace.

For fun, as he was “growing up”, he experimented in computer games and computer graphics and invented some new fractals, among other things. He co-authored The Rockstars of JVZoo.com, Your Shift Matters, and Goodness Abounds. He earned a Bachelor of Technology with Distinction in Geomatics Engineering Technology (Surveying) at the British Columbia Institute of Technology. He received the Governor General’s Academic Bronze Medal in 2007 and The Bachelor of Technology Achievement Award in Geomatics in 2009, among 11 other awards and scholarships. He has worked as a surveyor, programmer, social media coach, AI artist, self-healing catalyst, teacher and crypto trader. He enjoys nature, reading, making art, surfing, trying new things, improvising, talking with smart and funny people, wintering in the tropics and witnessing people reclaim their power as a creative force of nature in their own life. He lives in Princeton, BC, Canada.

In this session of our series The Evolution of Ideas, we explore and discuss the evolution of ideas in stories and storytelling through time.

This session was recorded on Feb 28, 2025 by Bevan Bird and Dick Bird.

Mature audiences only, listener discretion is advised.

We may add more information here, with a list of the authors, novels, stories, artists or art that we mention.

Click the link to listen.

Part 1

About the speakers

Bevan Bird was born in Canada in 1985 and travelled a fair bit with his parents before the age of six. He is an experimental artist (creative writer, poet, visual artist and AI artist) expanding the liveliest ideas – those that bring the most excitement or joy. Exploring the evolution of ideas in the arts, he is passionate about the roles of imagination and invention in creating a better future for humanity. Serving as a Guide, he intuitively guides people to find their authentic voice as a creative artist. He encourages people to let their self be their self, do what comes naturally to them, and go at their own pace.

For fun, as he was “growing up”, he experimented in computer games and computer graphics and invented some new fractals, among other things. He co-authored The Rockstars of JVZoo.com, Your Shift Matters, and Goodness Abounds. He earned a Bachelor of Technology with Distinction in Geomatics Engineering Technology (Surveying) at the British Columbia Institute of Technology. He received the Governor General’s Academic Bronze Medal in 2007 and The Bachelor of Technology Achievement Award in Geomatics in 2009, among 11 other awards and scholarships. He has worked as a surveyor, programmer, social media coach, AI artist, self-healing catalyst, teacher and crypto trader. He enjoys nature, reading, making art, surfing, trying new things, improvising, talking with smart and funny people, wintering in the tropics and witnessing people reclaim their power as a creative force of nature in their own life. He lives in Princeton, BC, Canada.

Dick Bird is a published writer and storyteller who believes that individual autonomy is of great importance, man is part of nature and can live in harmony with it, and hilarity is the key to reality.

Born in the UK in 1934, he lived through the second world war. He was a Sergeant in the British Army stationed in Egypt with the Parachute Brigade. His father wanted him to continue the stationery business he started in London but Dick chose his own path: farming. After emigrating to Canada in 1955, he worked as a taxi driver and later raised his own pigs (and children) on his farm in Canada. His adventures in Mexico and Central America helped him become a poet and storyteller. He earned a B.A. in English at Simon Fraser University in 1979. He worked as an E.S.L. teacher and kayak instructor, and in 1989 he started guiding whitewater kayaking adventure tours all over Mexico. In 1994 he was hired as a private children’s caregiver and in 2007 he retired to the country to live in the woods on the bank of the Similkameen, one of his favourite kayaking rivers.

He is the author of more than 80 short stories, 19 of which have been published in magazines. “Some Observations of Comparative Intelligence” won Grain Magazine’s Non-Fiction Prize in 1999. He has read some of his poetry on the CBC, Canada’s national radio network.

Some of his stories are based on his life and they reveal deeper meaning upon reflection. Others are based on his vivid and fantastic night dreams which he feels compelled to share. He has also been telling some of his stories in an off the cuff format (unscripted, uncensored, spontaneous, and sometimes hilarious audio recordings are available) and these include “A Baby Crow”, “The Golden Horn of Youth”, “Magic Mountain”, “A Couple of Religious Experiences”, “Cenotes of the Yucatan Peninsula”, “Agua Azul”, “Surfing In Mexico”, “Kayaking Waterfalls”, “Three Narrow Escapes”, “The Hot Seat”, “Las Gallinas by Night”, “A Click Too Late” and “A New Body”.

In this session of our series The Evolution of Ideas, we explore and discuss the evolution of ideas in stories and storytelling through time. One book we mention is The Glass Bead Game by Herman Hesse, which brings together all “fields” of human knowledge.

This session was recorded on Feb 26, 2025 in 5 parts by Bevan Bird and Dick Bird.

Mature audiences only, listener discretion is advised.

We may add more information here, with a list of the authors, novels, stories, artists, or art that we mention.

Click these links to listen to each part.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

About the speakers

Bevan Bird was born in Canada in 1985 and travelled a fair bit with his parents before the age of six. He is an experimental artist (creative writer, poet, visual artist and AI artist) expanding the liveliest ideas – those that bring the most excitement or joy. Exploring the evolution of ideas in the arts, he is passionate about the roles of imagination and invention in creating a better future for humanity. Serving as a Guide, he intuitively guides people to find their authentic voice as a creative artist. He encourages people to let their self be their self, do what comes naturally to them, and go at their own pace.

For fun, as he was “growing up”, he experimented in computer games and computer graphics and invented some new fractals, among other things. He co-authored The Rockstars of JVZoo.com, Your Shift Matters, and Goodness Abounds. He earned a Bachelor of Technology with Distinction in Geomatics Engineering Technology (Surveying) at the British Columbia Institute of Technology. He received the Governor General’s Academic Bronze Medal in 2007 and The Bachelor of Technology Achievement Award in Geomatics in 2009, among 11 other awards and scholarships. He has worked as a surveyor, programmer, social media coach, AI artist, self-healing catalyst, teacher and crypto trader. He enjoys nature, reading, making art, surfing, trying new things, improvising, talking with smart and funny people, wintering in the tropics and witnessing people reclaim their power as a creative force of nature in their own life. He lives in Princeton, BC, Canada.

Dick Bird is a published writer and storyteller who believes that individual autonomy is of great importance, man is part of nature and can live in harmony with it, and hilarity is the key to reality.

Born in the UK in 1934, he lived through the second world war. He was a Sergeant in the British Army stationed in Egypt with the Parachute Brigade. His father wanted him to continue the stationery business he started in London but Dick chose his own path: farming. After emigrating to Canada in 1955, he worked as a taxi driver and later raised his own pigs (and children) on his farm in Canada. His adventures in Mexico and Central America helped him become a poet and storyteller. He earned a B.A. in English at Simon Fraser University in 1979. He worked as an E.S.L. teacher and kayak instructor, and in 1989 he started guiding whitewater kayaking adventure tours all over Mexico. In 1994 he was hired as a private children’s caregiver and in 2007 he retired to the country to live in the woods on the bank of the Similkameen, one of his favourite kayaking rivers.

He is the author of more than 80 short stories, 19 of which have been published in magazines. “Some Observations of Comparative Intelligence” won Grain Magazine’s Non-Fiction Prize in 1999. He has read some of his poetry on the CBC, Canada’s national radio network.

Some of his stories are based on his life and they reveal deeper meaning upon reflection. Others are based on his vivid and fantastic night dreams which he feels compelled to share. He has also been telling some of his stories in an off the cuff format (unscripted, uncensored, spontaneous, and sometimes hilarious audio recordings are available) and these include “A Baby Crow”, “The Golden Horn of Youth”, “Magic Mountain”, “A Couple of Religious Experiences”, “Cenotes of the Yucatan Peninsula”, “Agua Azul”, “Surfing In Mexico”, “Kayaking Waterfalls”, “Three Narrow Escapes”, “The Hot Seat”, “Las Gallinas by Night”, “A Click Too Late” and “A New Body”.

In this first session of our new series The Evolution of Ideas, we explore and discuss the evolution of ideas in stories and storytelling through time. We talk about myths, fantasy, magical realism, science fiction, and speculative fiction.

This session was recorded on Feb 25, 2025 in 5 parts, by Bevan Bird and Dick Bird.

Mature audiences only, listener discretion is advised.

We may add more information here, with a list of the author, novels, stories, artists, or art that we mention.

Click these links to listen to each part.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

About the speakers

Bevan Bird was born in Canada in 1985 and travelled a fair bit with his parents before the age of six. He is an experimental artist (creative writer, poet, visual artist and AI artist) expanding the liveliest ideas – those that bring the most excitement or joy. Exploring the evolution of ideas in the arts, he is passionate about the roles of imagination and invention in creating a better future for humanity. Serving as a Guide, he intuitively guides people to find their authentic voice as a creative artist. He encourages people to let their self be their self, do what comes naturally to them, and go at their own pace.

For fun, as he was “growing up”, he experimented in computer games and computer graphics and invented some new fractals, among other things. He co-authored The Rockstars of JVZoo.com, Your Shift Matters, and Goodness Abounds. He earned a Bachelor of Technology with Distinction in Geomatics Engineering Technology (Surveying) at the British Columbia Institute of Technology. He received the Governor General’s Academic Bronze Medal in 2007 and The Bachelor of Technology Achievement Award in Geomatics in 2009, among 11 other awards and scholarships. He has worked as a surveyor, programmer, social media coach, AI artist, self-healing catalyst, teacher and crypto trader. He enjoys nature, reading, making art, surfing, trying new things, improvising, talking with smart and funny people, wintering in the tropics and witnessing people reclaim their power as a creative force of nature in their own life. He lives in Princeton, BC, Canada.

Dick Bird is a published writer and storyteller who believes that individual autonomy is of great importance, man is part of nature and can live in harmony with it, and hilarity is the key to reality.

Born in the UK in 1934, he lived through the second world war. He was a Sergeant in the British Army stationed in Egypt with the Parachute Brigade. His father wanted him to continue the stationery business he started in London but Dick chose his own path: farming. After emigrating to Canada in 1955, he worked as a taxi driver and later raised his own pigs (and children) on his farm in Canada. His adventures in Mexico and Central America helped him become a poet and storyteller. He earned a B.A. in English at Simon Fraser University in 1979. He worked as an E.S.L. teacher and kayak instructor, and in 1989 he started guiding whitewater kayaking adventure tours all over Mexico. In 1994 he was hired as a private children’s caregiver and in 2007 he retired to the country to live in the woods on the bank of the Similkameen, one of his favourite kayaking rivers.

He is the author of more than 80 short stories, 19 of which have been published in magazines. “Some Observations of Comparative Intelligence” won Grain Magazine’s Non-Fiction Prize in 1999. He has read some of his poetry on the CBC, Canada’s national radio network.

Some of his stories are based on his life and they reveal deeper meaning upon reflection. Others are based on his vivid and fantastic night dreams which he feels compelled to share. He has also been telling some of his stories in an off the cuff format (unscripted, uncensored, spontaneous, and sometimes hilarious audio recordings are available) and these include “A Baby Crow”, “The Golden Horn of Youth”, “Magic Mountain”, “A Couple of Religious Experiences”, “Cenotes of the Yucatan Peninsula”, “Agua Azul”, “Surfing In Mexico”, “Kayaking Waterfalls”, “Three Narrow Escapes”, “The Hot Seat”, “Las Gallinas by Night”, “A Click Too Late” and “A New Body”.

I taught a new class on increasing your creativity and bringing more creativity and imagination into your AI art creation. The first segment is available to everyone for free.

You can purchase the full class here.

About this class

Here’s what I love about creating AI art… it’s fun, it’s joyful, it’s a way to express my creativity which makes me feel more fulfilled, and by feeding my mind and soul with beauty I uplift myself and raise my frequency, making my whole life better!

In this class I share my joy of creating AI art with you so you can do the same with your own inspired ideas.

This class is for people who want to:

• use Midjourney to create unique and stunning creations
• unleash infinite creativity in your AI Art
• gain inspiration
• become more creative every single day
• quickly become an expert in art history
• become a prompt writing master
• have more control over the resulting images
• be one of the first to use the latest Midjourney features.

The class includes three and a half hours (210 minutes) of recorded teaching videos, and notes that include resources, lists of art styles, lists of artists, and a number of sample prompts from the class.

There are endless ways you can use what you learn in this class, for example:

You’ll have a lot of fun creating your own art.

You’ll feel so good when you give a gift of your own art to a loved one and make them feel loved and special.

The art you create can be the basis of products you can sell online over and over. Coloring books, t-shirts, poster, mugs, oracle cards, etc.

You can purchase the full class here.

Course Content

Segment 1

0:30 – A creative morphing of art
1:00 – Some more examples of creative art
1:25 – How creativity flourishes
1:40 – Inspiration, what it is, where it comes from (your infinite creative nature), some ways to open yourself up to receive more inspiration
3:55 – What I love about creating AI art and why
4:35 – Continued: Inspiration – some ways to open yourself up to receive more inspiration
5:35 – Inspiration via nature
5:45 – Inspiration via art created by others
6:25 – Inspiration via online images
6:50 – Inspiration via other artists
7:40 – Inspiration via descriptive language in literature
8:18 – The importance of feeling free to create and not judging your creations, but rather appreciating them
8:40 – Inspiration via nature – example: create a creature based on a photo of a flower
13:20 – Documentation for Midjourney, info on prompts, commands, parameters, using the tools
14:40 – Style reference (–sref) example
20:45 – Settings
21:05 – High variation mode and low variation mode
24:50 – Two image upscaling softwares
26:10 – Updates from Midjourney – latest features
31:00 – How to customize weight of reference image(s) in the prompt relative to text

Segment 2

0:20 – Two ways to change the style: style reference (–sref) and describing the style with text
1:20 – How to access all the information about an image you previously downloaded from Midjourney
2:25 – Example of describing the style with text
4:15 – Example of experimenting with different ways of describing the style you want with text and reviewing the results
8:40 – How to view your most recent creations in Midjourney
12:35 – Using the describe command to have the AI describe an image in text, describing the subject of the image and the style
24:20 – Example of changing part of an image with Vary Region

Segment 3

1:55 – Example of using the blend command to combine two or more images without needing to write any description
24:00 – Continue morphing the painting of mountains in the style of Van Gogh

Segment 4

0:00 – I show you some of my creative and imaginative art I made in the past
4:35 – A way to come up with more creative ideas for your art
5:20 – A large list of styles of art, which you can re-combine as you wish
6:40 – Another way to be creative: combine the styles of different artists
7:20 – A great resource for learning about artists and art

Segment 5

0:00 – Example of creating some new art inspired by photos of nature and an idea

You can purchase the full class here.

Using AI art or image generation, I was able to take my NFT art collections to a higher level, and create more art, at higher quality, more quickly.

In the same way as in this post, and by adding a helper Python program with a graphical user interface, I was able to efficiently extract the position, scale and rotation (transformation) parameters of how I manually custom-positioned the cartoon cheetah in Inkscape over each AI-generated background image (generated using Midjourney), and then the metadata (in this case the path to each background image and the transformation code from the SVG to position the cheetah layer) is used by the Python program that creates each SVG and calls Inkscape to convert it into a PNG file, populating a folder ready for upload to IPFS.

I created the art samples here in late 2022.

By creating different drawing elements on different layers, we (you or I) can run a Python script that separates the SVG code for that layer into a separate file, which is named based on what was drawn on that layer.

Then we can programmatically recombine different drawing elements, in the right order so that closer objects appear in front of more distant ones (by setting “height” values for each layer in general) and generate art for an entire collection of NFTs using randomness.

My Python program calls Inkscape to convert each newly-created SVG file into a PNG, populating a folder, ready for upload to IPFS.

Some example images from one project in late 2021 are below.

Deformation Monitoring Surveys are one of the types of surveys I specialized in. This is a one page procedure outline that may be helpful to surveyors performing deformation monitoring surveys with a total station, using resection and stakeout to report coordinate differences in real time in the field:

Monitoring Survey Procedure With Differences Reported in Real Time in the Field

Deformation Monitoring Surveys are one of the types of surveys I specialized in. This is the technical report I wrote in 2009 while attending the British Columbia Institute of Technology, studying Geomatics Engineering Technology, where I graduated with a Bachelors of Technology with Distinction in 2009 and was the top student in the School of Construction and the Environment, earning 13 awards or scholarships in total from 2005-2009:

Analysis of Survey Point Displacements Using Total Station Measurements