A very special (if somewhat fishy) holiday episode of ‘The Context Maker’.
Dec 15, 2025
This week, I’m writing more of a bouillabaisse than a blog post. I’ve taken inspiration from the The Feast of the Seven Fishes (Festa dei Sette Pesci), the Italian-American Christmas Eve tradition popularised in the TV series, ‘The Bear’. Here are seven fish related digital treats for you to enjoy. Hopefully, there’s something for everyone, even the family cat.
- Let’s start with a clip from the episode of ‘The Bear’ that featured the seven fish feast. For those that don’t know the show, it follows the travails of Carmy Berzatto, an award-winning chef who returns to his hometown of Chicago to manage the chaotic kitchen at his deceased brother’s Italian beef sandwich shop. ‘Fishes’ is one of the most nerve-wracking tv episodes ever made. Watch the full episode, and whatever stressful family drama takes place at your holiday festivity will feel insignificant in comparison. You’re welcome.
- In seethingly restrained Britain, the main spark around the Christmas table generally comes from Christmas Crackers. Along with a tiny explosive charge, these always contain cheesy ‘dad jokes’, though I’m not sure what we dads did to deserve this reputation for crap comedy. Anyway, in these strange times, here’s a topical one for you.
- If you’ve ever wondered what AI should really be used for, I am now going to give you the answer. Its real purpose is to see if you can draw a fish. Here are two screenshots from my recent attempt to do so – as you’ll notice, according to the AI, the more Christmas cheer colour I added to my fish, the less fish-like it became. Try for yourself at drawafish.app.
- Ever heard of Hamilton Fish? He was both a senator and governor of the state of New York in the mid 19th Century. He is probably best remembered as President Grant’s Secretary of State, negotiating a settlement of the Alabama claims for payment of reparations by Great Britain to the United States. You see, the notorious Confederate rogue raider that attacked Union shipping throughout the war was built in the Liverpool dockyards. I’m researching the stories around this for a project I’ll share more about next year. But as part of my exploration of the topic, I made a GPT of Hamilton Fish. I’ve found this to be a great way of leveraging Gen AI to do narrative research – if you try this, remember you still need to fact check any outputs to rely on their accuracy, but it’s a great way to quickly bring the past alive. If you want to chat with Hamilton, you can find him here. Ask him what kind of fish he is if you like. Or if he’s that Hamilton.
- One of the best AI videos I’ve seen in December was posted by Martin Gent and is called ‘Neon Fish Parade’. Martin used Midjourney, Kling 2.5, Suno, ChatGPT, Elevenlabs and more to make this surreal pop art collage. I find the transitions particularly playful – Martin generously shares details of his process in his LinkedIn post. But here’s the transition prompt he used for any reading AI filmmakers:
👉 Kling 2.5 first and last frame transition prompt example:
“A stop-motion style transition between the first scene and the second scene, as if both images were constructed from layered printed paper cutouts. Begin on the first image as a still illustration, then gradually separate the visual elements into individual paper layers. Buildings, objects, characters and background components should peel apart, slide and shift like collage pieces being rearranged by hand. Pieces should float, rotate, flip or fold. As the transition progresses, these cutout fragments should drift, reassemble and snap into formation, gradually creating the composition of the second image.”
- This is a Christmas card from the Context Maker to you. It contains a secret message.
To reveal the secret message, you will need to download the original PNG file from my drive (compression of the image for a post like this can corrupt the data within) and then upload it to a web app I made with Google Gemini called ‘A Thousand Words’. The app uses steganography to hide encoded text messages in images. I was inspired to make it while attending a terrific workshop co-hosted by my friend and former Meta colleague Georgia Lewis Anderson at the Lighthouse, a Brighton based arts centre. Georgia and her partners use these workshops to encourage novices to explore AI tools, but I was equally inspired by the session. Kudos to her team!
The PNG can be accessed here: Christmas Fish
The Thousand Words web app is here: Thousand Words
If doing the download and decoding it is just too much faff for you, you can find your secret message at the bottom of the post.
- Our cat Leeloo loves her pink fishies. These catnip infused toys litter our home in various stages of disembowelment. If you want to get some for your kittie as a holiday treat, here is a link to buy them: https://amzn.eu/d/1JdFgow. You can see Leeloo and her pink fishies below.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this Seven Fish feast. I had fun assembling it. Normal essays will resume with the next post.
Polarity Reversal 