iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Andrew Varnon @andrew-varnon.bsky.social · 13h

Mayor Mamdani is talking lighted tennis courts. 🎾

Reposted by Andrew Varnon

Dr. Laura M. Furlan @laurafurlan.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

It’s not hard to love your trans kid. What is hard is protecting them from hatred and violence and exclusion and intentions to legislate them out of existence. They need our love and acceptance. That’s the easy part. 🏳️‍⚧️

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Andrew Varnon @andrew-varnon.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

andrewvarnon.substack.com/p/retreating...

Ray is a romantic, and he weaves a mythology around him, tying together his own story, the story of baseball, the 1919 Black Sox, and the writer J.D. Salinger. It is a very American story, but it is also a narrow, nostalgic one. It is not the big, messy, inclusive American dream of Walt Whitman. It is a more dangerous romanticism, one that closes us off from curiosity, and allows us to cuddle up in our already comfortable conception of a nervous, but self-certain postwar America.

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Andrew Varnon @andrew-varnon.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Op-Ed column in @greenfieldrecorder.bsky.social yesterday, which hits for me. I think of it as the “sucker economy.” #SuckerEconomy #BeerBaseballAndTheBible

Headline of Opinion piece in The Recorder: “Trump thinks everyone cheats … because he does”

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Andrew Varnon @andrew-varnon.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Good writing ought to be life-affirming.

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Andrew Varnon @andrew-varnon.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Elite universities, as we know them, were molded into their current form by Cold War spending.

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Andrew Varnon @andrew-varnon.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

To travel, in one sentence, from utter loneliness to transcendent community.

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Andrew Varnon @andrew-varnon.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Fifty-three years later, relevant again.

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Andrew Varnon @andrew-varnon.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

After listening to a Robert Rogers book, I'm now on to listening to Joseph Ellis's "The Cause." One of the things I'm interested in is the notion of the Americans as amateurs, especially considering the Continental Army vs. the British Army. wwnorton.com/books/978132...

wwnorton.com

The Cause

New York Times Book Review — Editors’ Choice • Chicago Tribune — "60 Best Reads for Right Now" • St. Louis Post-Dispatch — "50 Fall Books You Should Consider Reading" Challenging conventional wisdom, ...

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Andrew Varnon @andrew-varnon.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

For #Varticles, this is my essay #RetreatingIntoTheCorn, which is an effort to write something about the novel Shoeless Joe, the history of baseball, and my father, who has dementia. andrewvarnon.substack.com/p/retreating...

andrewvarnon.substack.com

Retreating into the Corn

Reading W.P. Kinsella’s novel Shoeless Joe while my father’s memories fade

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Andrew Varnon @andrew-varnon.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

This Thomas Cole painting was the subject of a warmup prompt on the Fall of Rome in a 9th grade World History Course that I sit in on. It led me to find a Libertarian take on Cole and the interesting "loco foco" movement in the early 1800s America. www.libertarianism.org/columns/art-...

Thomas Cole's "The Destruction of Empire" often read as Rome falling to the vandals. It is part of a series of didactic paintings Cole did as a skeptic of empire-building in America.

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Andrew Varnon @andrew-varnon.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

"Is the Age of Individualism Coming to an End?" came up when I searched for when individualism becomes anti-social. It's a question I've been asking about. philosophynow.org/issues/120/I...

philosophynow.org

Is The Age Of Individualism Coming To An End? | Issue 120 | Philosophy Now

Michael Foley says that perhaps we are all becoming more sociable.

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Andrew Varnon @andrew-varnon.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

I have heard that there's a place in Northampton, a video rental co-op, that's like an old-school video rental store. This is a very Valley idea. I love it. #WesternMass www.visionsvideo.org

visionsvideo.org

Visions Video – Non-Profit Video Store in Western Massachuset

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Andrew Varnon @andrew-varnon.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Tom Gilbert's new book on Jim Creighton, who died at age 21 after bursting his innards with a mighty swing of his bat: John Henry of the baseball diamond. Creighton is credited for pioneering the adversarial pitcher/hitter dynamic now key to the game. godine.com/products/dea...

godine.com

Death in the Strike Zone

“A fascinating must-read for baseball history buffs.”—Publishers Weekly He threw the first fastball. The first curveball. He was baseball’s first star—and its first tragedy.In Death in the Strike Zone...

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Andrew Varnon @andrew-varnon.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

I remember reading this essay on National Defense by Wendell Berry when I was in college and it made a lot of sense to me. archive.aperture.org/article/1988...

archive.aperture.org

Property, Patriotism And National Defense | Aperture | Spring 1988

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Andrew Varnon @andrew-varnon.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

If Donald Trump is teaching us something, it is that we, as Americans, are — and have been — far too willing to assume that riches pass for wisdom, and money is credibility.

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Andrew Varnon @andrew-varnon.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Given the essay that I've been parceling out, #RetreatingIntoTheCorn, I should perhaps have found the podcast #TheMidnightLibraryOfBaseball sooner. But I didn't. This morning, I actually listened to an episode, and it featured the historian Tom Gilbert. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/m...

podcasts.apple.com

Midnight Library of Baseball

Baseball Podcast · Updated Daily · Midnight Library of Baseball is a documentary-style baseball history podcast for listeners who want something deeper, quieter, and more reflective than the typical s...

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Reposted by Andrew Varnon

Hoodlum 🇺🇸 @nothoodlum.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

For 33 years, McConnell has voted against family and medical leave for working Americans. Then he disappears from the Senate for 92 days and keeps collecting his full paycheck. Apparently, paid leave is only a problem when someone else gets it.

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Andrew Varnon @andrew-varnon.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Ted Lasso is the antithesis of “stick to sports.”

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Andrew Varnon @andrew-varnon.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

Trump's foolish trade war with Canada is based on ignorance. It's easy enough for Americans to talk about our president's ignorance, but it's really the tip of the spear of our country's ignorance. I think I'm better than most, but I didn't know about The Patriot War en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot...

en.wikipedia.org

Patriot War - Wikipedia

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Andrew Varnon @andrew-varnon.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

I was looking for stadiums singing of “You’ll Never Walk Alone” and came upon this film yesterday, which I quite enjoyed. youtu.be/TG8pIPRy7pw?...

youtu.be

Why Liverpool Sing You'll Never Walk Alone - The Untold Story #Liverpool #CelticFC #LFC #Football

YouTube video by Zope Media

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Andrew Varnon @andrew-varnon.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

I’ve been thinking about this, “the least social” of the social media platforms.

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Andrew Varnon @andrew-varnon.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

#Baseball is weird. This part of my essay attempts some rhetorical alchemy of the swirling themes. The novel #ShoelessJoe, the history of baseball, my father’s dementia, the writing of this long essay: they’re all weird. andrewvarnon.substack.com/p/baseball-i...

A photo of Tim Wakefield showing his knuckleball grip. Text: Baseball is weird

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Reposted by Andrew Varnon

Mark Copelovitch @mcopelov.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

An existential threat to the entire budget model of 🇺🇸 research universities, for whom federal $ is the largest (or 2nd/3rd largest) source of funding. You might think university presidents & chancellors would be out loudly protesting this, collectively. Alas, again, you would sadly be wrong.

Mancur Olson, author of "The Logic of Collective Action" (1965), with laser eyes

George Akerlof, author of "The Market for Lemons" (1970), with laser eyes

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Reposted by Andrew Varnon

Arlene Kirsch ❌👑 Love America peacefully @arliek.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

SHARE this. Also, add this to your email signature: Vote Early - www.vote.org #mapoli

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Andrew Varnon @andrew-varnon.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

Who’s out there actually reading these things?

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Andrew Varnon @andrew-varnon.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

“Ray’s problem with religion is not so much that he doesn’t believe, so much as he doesn’t like how the “phonies” around him behave, in the guise of religiosity. Instead, Ray develops a mystical connection to baseball.” substack.com/@andrewvarno...

substack.com

The Word is Baseball

Part 11 of the longer essay, “Retreating Into the Corn,” this the part where the baseball and magical realism and spirituality of the novel Shoeless Joe all swirls together.

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Andrew Varnon @andrew-varnon.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

If you think about it, we idolize predators. Wolves, eagles, lions, tigers. These are all creatures who see other living, breathing animals and see not co-equals, but calories.

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Reposted by Andrew Varnon

Ilya Kaminsky @ilyakaminsky.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

Grateful to Maya C. Popa and Poem-A-Day for publishing this translation Katie Farris and I did of a piece by Lyudmyla Khersonsky, a wonderful poet from Odesa, Ukraine. I met Lyudmyla back in 1993 when I was still a sixteen year old in Odesa. She taught me English alphabet.

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Reposted by Andrew Varnon

Erik Hoffner @erikhoffner.bsky.social · 02/11/2025

“It is easy for me to imagine that the next great division of the world will be between people who wish to live as creatures & people who wish to live as machines.” ― Wendell Berry, "Life is a Miracle"

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Andrew Varnon @andrew-varnon.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

RIP Wendell Berry, spokesperson for what I think of as the rural imagination in America, farmer and poet.

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Andrew Varnon @andrew-varnon.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

This does not reflect well on America.

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Andrew Varnon @andrew-varnon.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

Having more citizens with higher education is a public good. Higher education should be seen as a public good, not an individual ROI that sorts you into the ruling class.

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Andrew Varnon @andrew-varnon.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

Roy Cohn is a character in “Fellow Travelers” and “Angels in America,” and was a mentor to Donald Trump. A scoundrel, says the title of the book, and an American one. www.simonandschuster.com/books/Americ...

simonandschuster.com

American Scoundrel

“A narrative masterwork. Bird vividly creates the sinister web of charm and deceit that Cohn was able to spin through his decades at the very cente...

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Andrew Varnon @andrew-varnon.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

“I’m looking at these fresh-faced Iowans, as imagined by Broadway and Hollywood. Like baseball, the small-town is a figure imagined by the bustling city as an antidote to its (the city’s) own complexity.” andrewvarnon.substack.com/p/theres-no-...

andrewvarnon.substack.com

There’s No Place Like Iowa

Part 10 of my longer essay, “Retreating Into the Corn.” Here, we take a little side trip to The Music Man, the Broadway musical.

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