The Lou Toad Problem

Ralph Von Francis Reviews the So-Called Philosophy of Lou Toad

There is, regrettably, a Lou Toad philosophy.

I had hoped there wasn’t.

Philosophies generally require systems, principles, schools, terminology, followers, enemies, perhaps a bench beneath a tree where an elderly man may look disappointed in civilization.

Lou Toad has instead assembled his philosophy from streaming subscriptions, obsolete aesthetics, artificial intelligence, cheap consumer electronics, forgotten films, malfunctioning genre categories and an apparently constitutional inability to use anything for its advertised purpose.

The result is irritatingly coherent.

Its first principle appears to be:

A tool becomes interesting precisely when it stops doing what it was sold to do.

Spotify recommends music.

Toad uses it to excavate nonexistent genres.

Artificial intelligence answers questions.

Toad converts it into an editorial department, recording studio, cultural archive, imaginary repertory cinema, research assistant and emergency lightning rod for ideas occurring faster than they can be written down.

Text-to-speech software exists primarily so human beings may hear text read aloud.

Toad apparently submits entire books to a simulated theatrical tribunal in order to determine whether the prose survives pronunciation.

Streaming libraries are designed to encourage passive consumption.

Toad treats them as temporary municipal archives whose impending disappearance necessitates emergency retrospectives.

Consumer goods approach him with straightforward propositions.

He replies by looking for the hidden door in the back.

There is something admirable about this.

There is also something exhausting about it.

No toaster in his vicinity may simply produce toast. Eventually it will become part of a theory concerning industrial alienation, breakfast rituals and the death of American public space.

One imagines his microwave living in terror.

The second principle is even more troubling:

Strike before judgment arrives.

Ideas, in the Toad system, are weather events.

They do not submit applications.

They do not wait for scheduling.

They appear suddenly and demand infrastructure.

The conventional creative person receives an idea, writes it down, considers it, plans it, questions whether it deserves development, loses confidence, revises the premise and eventually purchases groceries instead.

Toad has discovered another method.

He attacks.

The instant an idea appears sufficiently alive, artificial intelligence is deployed as what he calls, in effect, lightning upon hot iron.

Capture first.

Judge later.

This is why his archive contains works he himself later discovers with the expression of a detective entering an unfamiliar basement.

“Did I make this?”

Yes.

Apparently.

There are chapters.

The method has obvious advantages.

Creative momentum is notoriously fragile. There is a particular species of idea that exists with extraordinary clarity for forty-five minutes and becomes incomprehensible three days later.

Toad refuses to allow it to escape.

Voice, rhythm, premise, title, structure and emotional temperature are preserved while still radioactive.

Future Toad may then decide whether the resulting object is a novel, essay, joke, album, historical curiosity or evidence.

This distinction between hot creation and cold judgment may actually be the strongest part of the entire philosophy.

Unfortunately, the man has discovered it.

This means we must endure his satisfaction.

The third principle concerns sincerity.

Here the philosophy becomes unexpectedly human and therefore considerably more embarrassing.

Toad has historically approached sincerity carrying a water balloon.

Something meaningful is said.

A loved one becomes mythic.

A genuine conviction surfaces.

A private truth enters the room.

Then somebody gets hit in the head.

This mechanism is understandable. Irony provides ventilation. Humor prevents reverence from becoming ceremony. The joke ensures nobody has accidentally founded a church.

But the evolved Toad position seems to be that sincerity need not be syrup.

A feeling may simply exist.

The joke may arrive afterward.

This sounds elementary until one remembers how much contemporary culture is terrified of appearing earnest.

The Lou Toad solution is neither sentimental confession nor permanent ironic distance.

It is:

Let the love land. Then throw the balloon.

Annoyingly good.

Which brings us to the central contradiction.

Lou Toad presents himself as somebody using systems incorrectly.

But he is not really using them incorrectly.

He is using them more completely than intended.

Consumer technology generally arrives with its possible behaviors artificially narrowed by commercial purpose.

The company says:

Listen.

Watch.

Generate.

Recommend.

Purchase.

Subscribe.

Toad responds:

Research.

Collage.

Interrogate.

Misclassify.

Archive.

Combine.

Invent.

The machine offers a hallway.

He checks the walls.

This is the portion of the philosophy I find most persuasive and, for that reason, most offensive.

We have spent decades being trained to confuse intended use with possible use.

The phone becomes what its interface permits.

The streaming platform becomes what its categories describe.

Artificial intelligence becomes whatever appears in the demonstration.

The consumer becomes obedient not because they are forced to obey, but because the obvious button is very large.

Toad’s philosophy is essentially the refusal of the large button.

Press something else.

Feed the product material it was not expecting.

Ask the recommendation engine a question it cannot answer cleanly.

Treat the glitch as evidence.

Use personalization against itself.

Convert convenience into friction.

Make passive media active again.

There are problems.

Of course there are problems.

The Lou Toad method generates enormous quantities of material.

Not every lightning strike deserves preservation.

Not every algorithmic error reveals secret cultural truth.

Sometimes Spotify recommends Big Star because Spotify is confused.

Sometimes an AI-generated expansion is simply twelve competent paragraphs standing on each other’s shoulders wearing a trench coat.

Sometimes rediscovered creative work was forgotten because it deserved the courtesy.

The danger of the method is mistaking abundance for revelation.

When everything can become material, nothing automatically becomes significant.

Someone must still choose.

Someone must still cut.

Someone must still say:

No.

This does not belong.

Delete it.

The machine cannot rescue the artist from taste.

Nor should it.

And yet I suspect Toad knows this.

His philosophy is not really “everything I make is worthwhile.”

It is:

Everything alive deserves the chance to become something before I kill it with judgment.

That I can defend.

Reluctantly.

The complete philosophy might therefore be stated as follows:

Use the thing wrong.

Follow the accidental path.

Capture the idea before respectability arrives.

Preserve momentum.

Separate creation from judgment.

Let sincerity stand without immediately apologizing for it.

Then return later with taste, scissors and a functioning sense of shame.

This is not a school of philosophy.

It is barely a method.

It may simply be one man repeatedly discovering that the world contains more entrances than the manufacturer bothered to label.

I remain suspicious.

I remain unconvinced that every toaster needs liberation.

I strongly recommend he leave at least one household appliance alone.

But I cannot deny that the method produces artifacts.

Strange ones.

Occasionally beautiful ones.

Frequently unnecessary ones.

Almost always recognizable ones.

And perhaps that is the most damning fact of all.

Lou Toad has found a way to make standardized consumer machinery produce things that look increasingly unlike anybody else’s output.

I hate that this constitutes evidence in his favor.

Three stars.

Possibly four.

I resent the uncertainty.

— Ralph Von Francis