iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Allen Garvin @allengarvin.bsky.social · 18/07/2026

Found the perfect use of a 1 inch cube of copper.

On my bookshelf, a reproduction of one of the Sumerian male worshipers of the Tell Asmar hoard, with long beard and crossed arms, and in front of him, a 1-inch cube of copper with its atomic element number, Cu chemical symbol, density and melting point. Meant to reference a certain famous copper salesman.

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Allen Garvin @allengarvin.bsky.social · 07/03/2026

This class description... is a little embarrassing.

2nd period class at Conclave this summer taught by Wendy Gillespie, where she says of Robert Dow's partbooks (late 1570s, (Christ Church, Mus. MSS 984–988): "The Dow Part Books are a curated collection of beautifully copied polyphony from the hand of Robert Dow, the Allen Garvin of his day."

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Allen Garvin @allengarvin.bsky.social · 05/03/2026

I misread "wheel" as "weasel" and I'm 99% certain this would be vastly better ad copy.

Pringles container, with ad copy above it: "ONCE YOU POP A GREAT AND TERRIBLE WHEEL IS SET IN MOTION, WHICH MEN'S VERY SOULS MAY BE CRUSHED"

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Allen Garvin @allengarvin.bsky.social · 19/12/2025

GO HOME WORDLE YOU'RE DRUNK. Maybe I'd have gotten it on the epiphany.

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Allen Garvin @allengarvin.bsky.social · 11/12/2025

I just completed "Reactor" - Day 11 - Advent of Code 2025 #AdventOfCode adventofcode.com/2025/day/11 Took 4 hours, the longest yet this year. And I have work in the morning.

adventofcode.com

Day 11 - Advent of Code 2025

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Allen Garvin @allengarvin.bsky.social · 26/11/2025

Una mattina, mi son' svegliato O bella miao bella miao bella miao miao miao Una mattina mi son' svegliato e ho sentito un gatto HORK. On the bed. This little beast:

My polydactyl cat Tom Thumbs, who vomits in bad places.

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Allen Garvin @allengarvin.bsky.social · 11/08/2025

This is EXACTLY the kind of legal drama I live for.

A book by Carlo Ginzburg I didn't know about, about a livonian peasant who claimed he was a righteous, good werewolf!

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Allen Garvin @allengarvin.bsky.social · 01/08/2025

Catalogued entirely in a one book!!!

early 20c book, "What a Girl can Make and Do" which one girl pointing a wand and another girl making a water fountain spray with a ... kazoo??? But Google books has the whole content at: https://books.google.com/books?id=FRIUCW-GcXsC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false

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Allen Garvin @allengarvin.bsky.social · 20/07/2025

Got my nails done at VdGSA conclave and they're fab!

Late last night playing. My nails in Buxtehude Blue by Lindsey Machiarelli!

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Allen Garvin @allengarvin.bsky.social · 01/06/2025

Found a feral cat at the Summer Toot, brought him home (I've been home less than 2 hours). He's perfect.

Within 30 minutes of arriving at home, he ate two entire cans of cat food and climbed onto my chest to sleep.

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Allen Garvin @allengarvin.bsky.social · 30/05/2025

My car's built-in rain gauge show we got over an inch of rain! Great feature on Acuras but inconvenient: you have to leave the moonroof open for it to work.

I am an idiot. My car's cupholder, full of water, after I left the moonroof open during a huge thunderstorm.

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Allen Garvin @allengarvin.bsky.social · 23/05/2025

Two types of frightening girls, from 1892.

List of types of girls that frighten men. They are:
1) girls who sneer
2) girls who know how things like plesiosaur anatomy and are willing to share it.

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Allen Garvin @allengarvin.bsky.social · 22/04/2025

Spring polishing time. Figured I'd start small and work myself up to the tea service I never use.

Hand hammered silver hollowware, last polished during pandemic.

About halfway there. Lovely Dallas spring day.

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Allen Garvin @allengarvin.bsky.social · 22/04/2025

There's no comparison, though, personality-wise. Hoover is a Greek-tragedy level historical figure, full of every virtue except one.

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Allen Garvin @allengarvin.bsky.social · 22/04/2025

Please, Trump, beat Hoover, who was a fatally flawed president but a genuinely good guy, scrupulously honest, who nearly worked himself to death trying to fix things.

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Allen Garvin @allengarvin.bsky.social · 18/04/2025

In the magical world known as Calabria:

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Allen Garvin @allengarvin.bsky.social · 14/04/2025

Mr. Squeak, purebred trash goblin. 2005-2025.

Pic of Squeak from early 2006, in my mom's back yard, where I found him. He's a tuxedo cat with a fluffy white ruff below his chin, and a distinctive white stripe down his nose that always made him look pensive.

Squeak from about 5 years ago, in my grandfather chair.

Squeak in the book nook, alongside some facsimile editions.

Photo from yesterday, when he climbed on me while I was taking a sunday nap.

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Allen Garvin @allengarvin.bsky.social · 04/04/2025

This is the ideal male body. You may not like it, but this is what peak performance looks like.

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Allen Garvin @allengarvin.bsky.social · 26/03/2025

Generating this likely exceeded the annual carbon emissions of a couple Baltic republics, but, no, I am not immune to stupid Internet trends.

New chatgpt image generating thing in "Studio Ghibli" style of me at the 2023 Conclave in RI, latenight playing in our dorm room on the penultimate night. Annoyingly, it took 2 strings from my viol, removed the frets, gave it an end-pin and me an overhand bow grip.

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Allen Garvin @allengarvin.bsky.social · 13/03/2025

6 days of work, 850 breves of music. A 1549 mass on Verdelot's "Italia Mia". I was going to start a series of masses based on madrigals, but that was a slog of work. Maybe I'll just do some imitative magnificats. dfwviols.com/typeset/gasp...

dfwviols.com

Il primo libro delle messe (Gasparo Alberti)

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Allen Garvin @allengarvin.bsky.social · 07/02/2025

Grumpy guy at my hotel is also a duck with antlers from behind!

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Allen Garvin @allengarvin.bsky.social · 24/01/2025

Started: Nov 2012. Finished: tonight. All surviving printed madrigals of Luca Marenzio transcribed from original notation in modern parts and scores, except for an imperfect 1577 madrigal, and a 1593 in an anthology I have no scan of. Last I did: a 10-voice polychoral: dfwviols.com/typeset/di_d...

dfwviols.com

Quel lauro, che fu in me già a10 by Luca Marenzio (c.1553-1599)

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Allen Garvin @allengarvin.bsky.social · 16/01/2025

The "skibidi" of the late 17th century: "galant".

From "Beyond Bach: Music and Everyday Life in the 18th Century", on the bizarre uses of "galant" to describe everything, from fashion to patronage of prostitutes, dogs,cats, pears... everything.

Thanks to Robert Bolyard for pointing out this wonderful passage!

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Allen Garvin @allengarvin.bsky.social · 15/01/2025

Remembering a classic @kenwhite.bsky.social twitter thread that needs an addition, "If you're trying to purchase a ray gun to kill minorities en masse, and some friends from the KKK offer to help you out, they're Feds."

doj.gov indictment message: Crawford, with help from co-conspirator Eric J. Feight, took steps to design, acquire parts for, build and test a remote-control unit that would activate a radiation dispersal device from a distance. Evidence presented at trial showed that Crawford sought and eventually received a radiation dispersal device from people he believed were businessmen affiliated with the Ku Klux Klan, but were, actually, FBI Special Agents acting in an undercover capacity.

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Allen Garvin @allengarvin.bsky.social · 11/01/2025

3 broken strings on my tenor! It must have been the cold snap and maybe low humidity from heat. The day before a workshop I'm playing tenor on. By some miracle I have one 10-year-old F4. Gut strings can be a bother.

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Allen Garvin @allengarvin.bsky.social · 02/01/2025

The old pig now away has fled, the new pig it is enterèd... w/ 1907 20 francs coin (2024 pig w/ 1899 "Indian head" cent) #lemonpig #lemonpig2025

2025 lemon pig, with last year's 2024. 2025 has a 1907 3rd republic 20 frand coin, last year's has an 1899 Indian head cent.

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Allen Garvin @allengarvin.bsky.social · 27/12/2024

I have finally made it in the world. This is such an honor! I have been asked to submit a paper to the prestigious academic journal ........ Cattle Practice.

Bizarre academic spam journal, "Cattle Practice", which seems to not just be limited to the bovine sciences, but in fact covers all sciences, human and natural. They have an impact factor of 0.214!

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Allen Garvin @allengarvin.bsky.social · 21/12/2024

Has anyone ever noticed Vecchi's "So ben mi ch'ha bon tempo" ends each section with only a kinda medieval cadence in 5ths alone? The 3rd is only supplied by the lute part, almost always omitted by most choirs! Not a single version on CPDL makes note of this.

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Allen Garvin @allengarvin.bsky.social · 21/12/2024

Slightly tough text, from a 1565 publication. The text source is unknown, but I think it's either much earlier, or just heavy on the Tuscanisms. Figuring out the appropriate punctuation (typically there is none in madrigal publications) and meaning is part of the fun.

Text from pieces 10 & 11 (prima e seconda parte) from Giacopo Corfini's Primo Libro di Madrigali a cinque voci of 1565. It's a great piece! And I came across it almost at random: I was looking for texts with feline words in them!

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Allen Garvin @allengarvin.bsky.social · 17/12/2024

I typo'd a search on youtube and got this result, an absolutely perfect 1-min long korean punk song, and I cannot stop listening to it!! (the kids are alright!) www.youtube.com/watch?v=3k7c...

youtube.com

Drinking Boys and Girls Choir - "National Police Sh!t" [Official Music Video]

YouTube video by Damnably

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Allen Garvin @allengarvin.bsky.social · 14/12/2024

A+++ content from Facebook's "Hiﬅorical Performance Shitpoﬅing"

Post by the Vatican News service quoting Matthew 11:16-19, with one line "we played the flute for you but you did not dance".

The post, by a friend who's a cantor in Charleston , says: "Of all the images the Vatican could have picked, they went for this".

Reply back to the host "This is the recorder of John"

(referencing the famous verse anthem by Orlando Gibbons, "This is the record of John").

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Allen Garvin @allengarvin.bsky.social · 10/12/2024

Cooking up a couple perfect fried eggs, sunny side up.

I lose rosin *all the flicking time*, cakes never last me more than mere weeks. I like Kaplan cause it's cheap!

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Allen Garvin @allengarvin.bsky.social · 22/11/2024

A bought a bunch of French sardines and this is my favorite tin artwork.

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Allen Garvin @allengarvin.bsky.social · 18/11/2024

What in the everloving frick is this?? I hope this is just someone impersonating the Oxford Camerata on Spotify? It's an album of AI-generated garbage masquerading as Gregorian chant.

The Oxford Camerata has ... recorded an album of "gregorian chant" that was AI generated and ... it is terrible.

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Allen Garvin @allengarvin.bsky.social · 16/11/2024

Goal for 2024 reached: I started transcribing Italian madrigals in Dec 2012 from original prints. Today I finished my 1500th madrigal. The vast majority I've done are from 1560-1600, and I've just barely scratched the surface of this amazing repertoire.

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Allen Garvin @allengarvin.bsky.social · 09/11/2024

CAT-LIKE CRIMINAL HIPAA DISCLOSURE DETECTED

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Allen Garvin @allengarvin.bsky.social · 03/11/2024

First good thunderstorm in a couple months, cooling things down and encouraging cat snuggling.

Tom, my tiny tux cat already sleeping on a blanket in a chair by window. Joined by Pook, a younger but larger tabby.

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Allen Garvin @allengarvin.bsky.social · 16/10/2024

Gonna tell my grandkids thus is an Ent.

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Allen Garvin @allengarvin.bsky.social · 30/09/2024

In Carlo Fiamma's 1611 catalog of poetic conceits ("gareggiamento poetico"), this definitely counts as a "bacio involato" (stolen kiss), but unusually, it's the woman who pulls it off! And runs away! (transcribed the piece and made the translation tonight)

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Allen Garvin @allengarvin.bsky.social · 29/09/2024

I admit to really loving his interpretation of Elizabethan and early Jacobean virginal music.

IQ bell chart graph meme, about Glenn Gould. Avg IQ: "modern piano and Gould's approach to tempo is risible even by mid-century performance standards.". Low IQ: "All interpretations are valid". High IQ: "that mfer can shred, and I like the bits where he sings along"

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Allen Garvin @allengarvin.bsky.social · 22/09/2024

Posta um link incrível que não seja em inglês. www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCp_...

youtube.com

Omelette from Madeline Sharafian

YouTube video by Julia Julia

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Allen Garvin @allengarvin.bsky.social · 20/09/2024

Still working on my poetry translation game, but this one I finished tonight went well (attempting to be fairly literal for singers or programs, but not TOO literal). My transcription is here: dfwviols.com/typeset/di_d...

My translation of an anonymous madrigale (the poetic type) from a madrigal (the music type) by Tiburzio Massaino. "La mia sete amorosa", with my translation:
To happily quench my amorous thirst
with his sweet draught,
I placed my lips where Love hides
his finest nectar.
But the breath that escaped from those lovely rubies,
of which Love certainly has none more fine,
the fire that previously in me
used to burn benignly,
increased so that now there is in me not a dram
that is not passionate flame!
Ah! I will trust Love little now
when even with moisture he mixes his fire.

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