iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Bafflegabs @bafflegabs.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

I finished Deep Water (1957), which you could call Cuck Chair: The Thriller lol, this is a truly nail-biting novel of marital and interpersonal suspense, one of Patricia Highsmith’s bleakest & most misanthropic novels, it absolutely rocked. Her writing is SO addictive.

Cover of the book, Grinklin the black cat just behind looking to camera

020

Bafflegabs @bafflegabs.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

ATTENTION CASSETTE HEADS! Out today, a limited edition lime green tape with all A’s, B’s, & 5 C’s each from the first 3 Painkiller records (2004-2006). A condensed burst of fun, to sit alongside your other tapes, such as Madonna, or Todd Rundgren. painkillerthepigeon.bandcamp.com/album/a-b-c-...

Lime green tape and track listing on inner sleeve

Stack of tapes, showing what your copy might look like next to The Go-Betweens 1978-1990 or Madonna - Confessions II hot pink edition. For example.

000

Bafflegabs @bafflegabs.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Ahhhh a new child joins my lil family. A/B/C Sides Vol 1 features all A & B sides from the first three Painkiller records, plus five C-side album tracks each. I’ll have these up on Bandcamp this week! I had to fight for the lime green tapes, so worth it!

One tape unwrapped in front of a box of 31 other tapes. Green cover. Drawing of a little boy pointing off screen and his mother’s lower torso and legs beside him (can also see her purse and she is wearing black strappy shoes), the boy is wearing a red shirt with a white collar and blue pants. A/B/C is written in red, white, and blue

Same cover but on its own, from above, on a beige carpet

Track listing on the inner cover (drawing underneath it of tomatoes with dumb faces and a misspelled sign that says Moron Sale):

Side A/B:
Alice Escher
Kick The Summer
This John’s A Journalist
The King Of Skinny Wrists
A Tight Surprise
The Camber Lists
Born In The Wrong Universe
Little Gracenote
Say You’re Sorry
Fast Timothy Grey
Queen Of Mondays
My Collected Letters
Silver Angles In The Service Industry
Beginners Guide (Original)
Harbourghost (Snippet)

Side C:
Pinewood Derby
Friends Of The Elderly
Hey, It Hardly Matters Now
American Shoes
Miss Museumpiece
Opening For The Tight Fibres
Edna Romance
Hayworth
Major Poetry
Crashing The Creep Seed
Snake Angry Girl
The Girl From The Grammar Police
Unlimited Thank You’s
The Quip Celebs
Estella’s Ghost

010

Bafflegabs @bafflegabs.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Out today: a 2008 EP feat one of my most ambitious bedroom productions, “She’s A Palindrome,” a v romantic song indeed, about the night in NYC this pic was taken with the palindrome herself. Also covers of Billy Bragg, Robyn Hitchcock, & R.E.M. (the axis of Peter Buck lol) youtu.be/RpV2yeQ-1qk?...

Cover of the EP is the words “She’s A Palindrome” repeated over and over, backwards and upside down as well, in a dirty minty green on a pink background. One instance of the title, and the band name Painkiller The Pigeon, are written in a deep berry.

Self and HFHS, the palindrome herself. NYC, 2007/08, we’re both doing thumbs ups, I’m wearing a Union Flag t-shirt (sweaty, post show), we’re both wearing glasses.

120

Bafflegabs @bafflegabs.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

I finished GK Chesterton’s The Man Who Was Thursday (1908), this slim novel absolutely rocks, a surreal nightmare of politics & paranoia that was clearly a major influence on Kafka. It’s exactly as funny as it is disorienting and intense. A metaphorical spy thriller in the landscape of the mind!

Cover of the current Penguin Classics edition, with police and anarchists fighting in a chaotic cluster. Grinklin sleeping on floor below.

030

Bafflegabs @bafflegabs.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

Out today, a special 2007 EP, three songs I recorded at our practice space on the same day (12/14/06)! My cover of Daniel Johnston’s “My Life Is Starting Over Again” was my most popular song for years, now joined by two funny/depressing originals. open.spotify.com/album/5FK4uL...

Cover of History Is Hell, an abstract drawing of shapes and colors that, to the artist, evokes an angel of some kind (or possibly Jodie Whittaker’s Doctor, much the same thing). Against deep red background, bold black lettering with yellow interiors.

Self walking down Chicago street, winter 2006/07. Sky is very purple, a very specific Midwestern winter color. Wearing a thick army green overcoat (was kind of a canvasy outer material), wearing glasses, beard, I am in sharp focus but the street lights in the background are streaking

Self, same as the previous photo but now I’m looking to camera with a nonspecific look, lips slightly parted. Background again is streaky, sky seems lighter in this shot because of the street lamp behind me blowing out the exposure a bit more.

040

Bafflegabs @bafflegabs.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

Finished The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress by Robert Heinlein (1966), this is an exceptional sci-fi novel. As entertaining & gripping as it is a thought-provoking how-to for revolutions. Some odd stuff in there as well, but what a piece of writing! Mike is an amazing character.

Current edition of the book, bright yellow cover with a moon breaking its chains, Grinklin in the background looking to camera.

010

Bafflegabs @bafflegabs.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

Bought some new books after the movie (I’m a little addicted to buying a books after a movie). The Americana Barnes & Noble is gigantic, yet in all that real estate they somehow only had a single Patricia Highsmith novel & ZERO Shirley Jackson, seems weird lol.

New books: Strange Buildings by Uketsu, The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress by Robert A Heinlein, A Quiet Place by Seichō Matsumoto, Cécile Is Dead by Simenon, The Human Factor by Graham Greene. In a stack on my sofa.

130

Bafflegabs @bafflegabs.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

Seated for Coyote Vs Acme. They tried to take my boy down, but if you come at the (comically inept) king you’d best not miss lol

Wile E Coyote looking through Acme binoculars

190

Bafflegabs @bafflegabs.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

Dolly was 21 when she wrote her first Top 20 hit. Clever, catchy, cutting country: “I guess some largemouth bass left that lipstick on your shirt? I don’t think you’re a fisherman, honey, I think you’re a flirt.” Just 1 early great thing she did in a life full of ‘em. RIP 😭 youtu.be/G2KcKFBTKl4?...

youtu.be

Something Fishy

YouTube video by Dolly Parton - Topic

0100

Bafflegabs @bafflegabs.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

Finished The Tokyo Zodiac Murders (1981, English 2004), my second mystery by Soji Shimada. Both feature ultra-detailed, methodical clues pointing towards truly outlandish solutions, these are a ton of fun. This one is particularly fiendish! Liked this more than Murder In The Crooked House.

Cover of the Pushkin Vertigo edition, with black cat Grinklin sitting nearby, as is her wont while I read.

020

Bafflegabs @bafflegabs.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

Finished Graham Greene’s The Power & The Glory (1940), a very serious novel and also a thriller, about an alcoholic priest on the run in 1930s Mexico as the government begins shooting the clergy. The writing is incredible, the setting so detailed. This was fascinating.

The cover of the current Penguin Classics edition, an officer leveling a gun off camera, black and white.

2833041

Bafflegabs @bafflegabs.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

The second EP from my record The Quip Celebs (2006) is streaming everywhere now! This has three of my very best B-sides: My Collected Letters, Silver Angles In The Service Industry, and the dancey, strange original version of The Beginner’s Guide To Birds. open.spotify.com/album/3JLva1...

The cover of the single features an abstract drawing of a woman’s torso in a periwinkle and orange striped shirt, she has a fork for one arm and a desktop lamp for the other. Her head is just shapes. Against a purple background.

010

Bafflegabs @bafflegabs.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

I read Strange Pictures in about 24 hours, it’s very fun in its tricksy construction, more puzzle-based mystery than horror. The characters are a bit thin, & it requires quite a lot of disbelief suspension, but I definitely enjoyed it, will read another!

130

Bafflegabs @bafflegabs.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

The first EP from my third album is streaming everywhere now, and it contains Little Gracenote, one of my favorite of my B-sides. This is a catchy, strummy love song for somebody who thinks they can’t sing. No music pun knowingly left unused. youtu.be/Ge61ElX2LY0?...

youtu.be

Little Gracenote

YouTube video by Painkiller The Pigeon - Topic

010

Bafflegabs @bafflegabs.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

Universal Harvester was so good. Strange, sad, subtle, sensitive, resolutely refusing to be something it’s not, still redefining what it is at regular intervals all the way to the end. Sincerely great, @themountaingoats.bsky.social

140

Bafflegabs @bafflegabs.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

Eating a Chipotle bowl while I’m in the Criterion Closet, accidentally getting guacamole on The Battle Of Algiers.

140

Bafflegabs @bafflegabs.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

This is what I looked like 2005/6 while making the third Painkiller record, The Quip Celebs (out now!). The whole record was made in the Fullerton apt on the other side of this wall, Brett’s drums in the living room, my amp in our dryer. Everywhere: artists.landr.com/PTPQuip

Self, around 25, holding a balloon with my name drawn on it, wearing solid grey t shirt, clean shaven, grinning foolishly, short hair, a ladder leans against a wall in the background

Self around 25/26, bearded, glasses, stripey scarf and sweater plus sportcoat, double exposed in a red and orange swirl of light. Possibly a bit stoned, who can say.

100

Bafflegabs @bafflegabs.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

Oingo Boingo very much the thinking man’s Red Hot Chili Peppers.

120

Bafflegabs @bafflegabs.bsky.social · 09/08/2026

I finished Death In Her Hands (2020) by Ottessa Moshfegh, or, as I’d call it, Unreliable Narrator: The Novel, what a sad, haunted experience it is. A 72 year old widow finds a mysterious note suggesting a dead body, & begins to spiral out considering all the implications. Dark & hermetically sealed.

Cover of the book, Grinklin bathes herself behind it

010

Bafflegabs @bafflegabs.bsky.social · 09/08/2026

I’m so happy to have found a copy of Dreams With Sharp Teeth, the only one of a proposed series of annotated Harlan Ellison omnibuses that ever materialized (in 1991). He’s so criminally out of print right now, but I’ve got 30-ish stories that are brand new to me here.

Cover, strange drawing of flowers with babies growing out of them.

DREAMS WITH SHARP TEETH
a three-volume omnibus
42 remarkable fantasies
with a new introduction
HARLAN ELLISON

Contents page:

DREAMS WITH SHARP TEETH
INTRODUCTION:
TOSSING A BRICK THROUGH FRANZ KAFKA'S WINDOW
BOOK ONE:
I HAVE NO MOUTH & I MUST SCREAM
BOOK TWO:
DEATHBIRD STORIES
BOOK THREE:
SHATTERDAY

000

Bafflegabs @bafflegabs.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

Out today! My third album, The Quip Celebs (2006), newly remixed & remastered! Some of my most popular songs (Born In The Wrong Universe, The Girl From The Grammar Police), & many unheard ones (Billy Bragg’s She’s Got A New Spell). One of my best! painkillerthepigeon.bandcamp.com/album/the-qu...

painkillerthepigeon.bandcamp.com

The Quip Celebs, by Painkiller The Pigeon

13 track album

000

Bafflegabs @bafflegabs.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

Wrote the first 9 scenes of an audio comedy pilot today! I found 17 scripts at my mom’s house for a silly superhero show that I wrote when I was about 10-12, and even recorded a few with my school friends. It’s honestly pretty good, just needs to be fleshed out. I know real actors now lol!

160

Bafflegabs @bafflegabs.bsky.social · 02/08/2026

Almost done with Ray Bradbury’s remix of his own debut story collection (originally Dark Carnival in 1947, revised into this in 1955), it’s fantastic. “The Next In Line” is as good a short story as I’ve ever read from anyone. “Skeleton,” “The Small Assassin,” “Jack-In-The-Box,” all wonderful.

120

Bafflegabs @bafflegabs.bsky.social · 01/08/2026

Hi - Amy Klobuchar here. We’re looking for 10 volunteers in your area to help me move & install a washer/dryer unit. Won’t you help today?

060

Bafflegabs @bafflegabs.bsky.social · 30/07/2026

Book haul from The Tattered Cover in Denver (I have recurring dreams about the original location); my dad gets an employee discount there, so I went ham, ten books for a nice price. I already have a chunk of novels in my To Read pile, so this time I went for a lot of short stories.

Stack of books.

Shirley Jackson - Dark Tales
Willa Cather - Collected Stories
Keith Rosson - The Devil By Name
Graham Greene - The Power And The Glory
MR James - Count Magus And Other Ghost Stories
The Penguin Book Of Japanese Short Stories
Agatha Christie - Miss Marple: The Complete Short Stories
John Darnielle - Devil House
Ursula K LeGuin - The Lathe Of Heaven
Stanislaw Lem - The Truth And Other Stories

040

Bafflegabs @bafflegabs.bsky.social · 30/07/2026

I’d say the biggest positive of The Odyssey’s success is that way more people will understand what Sting means by “caught between the Scylla and Charybdis” in Wrapped Around Your Finger. Thanks, Chris!

010

Bafflegabs @bafflegabs.bsky.social · 30/07/2026

Just got my next three archival EPs scheduled for release in September! These are from 2006, 2007, & 2008, they contain my two most popular covers (Daniel Johnston’s My Life Is Starting Over Again, Billy Bragg’s Greetings To The New Brunette), plus many unheard songs!

Painkiller The Pigeon - A Valentine EP cover, drawing of a purple t-shirt with pink ringers, on the t-shirt is a tambourine with a cupid’s arrow through the center

Painkiller The Pigeon - History Is Hell cover, has the title written in big blocky black letters with yellow highlights on a brick red background. Drawing is abstract but to me it looks a bit like an angel rising

Painkiller The Pigeon - She’s A Palindrome cover, the background is a berry pink, the only image are the words She’s A Palindrome repeated over and over in pale green blocky letters, regular, upside down, reversed, and backwards in a pattern, one of the lines has been replaced by a darker font saying Painkiller The Pigeon and one of the regular She’s A Palindromes is also in the darker font.

130

Bafflegabs @bafflegabs.bsky.social · 30/07/2026

Absolutely loving this collection of slightly lesser known creepy tales from the great Shirley Jackson, some of these were found in a box mailed anonymously 30 years after her death, which is very appropriate. “Louisa, Please Come Home” is one of the most unsettling things I’ve ever read.

10834

Bafflegabs @bafflegabs.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

A perfect 90s album, not by the big boys.

062

Bafflegabs @bafflegabs.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

I thought I had no pictures with my Grandma Sue, who was one of my all-time favorite humans, but my mom found TWO of them. I feel a little bit more complete! First is from Sept 1993, the second is summer 1985.

We are at a dining table, Grandma has an arm around me, I have a blue polo shirt on. She has giant funky glasses, very cool.

Grandma holding me on the front of their little boat The Magus, I’m very small and in little blue shorts with red stripes and a red shirt with blue piping. She has cool funky glasses and a t shirt.

150

Bafflegabs @bafflegabs.bsky.social · 26/07/2026

Flying to Denver to attend my mother’s latest wedding. I am listening to Grace Jones and will also have a window seat, so it’s going well.

Self in LAX Term Sev. King Crims tee, Superchunk hoodie.

4160

Bafflegabs @bafflegabs.bsky.social · 25/07/2026

I just turned in all the files for a little cassette release of my best early tunes, it’ll be a limited run on a lime green tape. All the A & B-sides from my first three records plus 5 C-sides from each one. I’ll go on some pods to promote it! Soon!

Some of the cover of the A/B/C Vol 1 tape, a sketch of a little boy pointing off into the distance, he’s wearing a red long sleeve shirt with a white collar, blue pants, brown shoes, his mother next to him from stomach down, wearing a lilac dress, black strappy shoes, a magenta purse. They are on a section of maybe concrete. Background is a ripe green, band name handwritten in a dusty light blue. A/B/C is written in red blue white.

030

Bafflegabs @bafflegabs.bsky.social · 23/07/2026

I finished Patricia Highsmith’s last book of short stories, kind of loved it. Nothing like the Ripleys, these are more Catch-22, strange black comedies about various apocalypses. Cancer growing wild in a graveyard, a 200 year old woman who won’t die, a whale bent on revenge, etc.

Hardcover 80s edition of Tales Of Natural And Unnatural Catastrophes, cover image is a Pope hat, some weird mushrooms, a mushroom cloud. Grinklin is of course napping in the background, though her eyes are open

010

Bafflegabs @bafflegabs.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

Mitch McConnell has passed on. He is no more. He has ceased to be. He’s expired and gone to meet his maker. He’s a stiff! Bereft of life, he rests in peace, if you hadn’t nailed him to his bed he’d be pushing up the daisies. He’s off the twig, he’s kicked the bucket, he’s shuffled off this mortal co

040

Bafflegabs @bafflegabs.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

All I’m saying is if there WERE a Sherlock Holmes porn parody called Sherlock Holes, then it would be very funny to call the story A Stud, He In Starlets.

150

Bafflegabs @bafflegabs.bsky.social · 20/07/2026

I read Malice by Keigo Higashino in a day, it’s very quick and very hooky, a murder mystery where you learn the how & the who before the halfway point, but then WHY becomes the whole game. Such a fun structure, quick & punchy!

The cover of Malice (bloody cherry blossom tree) plus Grinklin’s big green eyes looking to camera in the background

000

Bafflegabs @bafflegabs.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

I don’t even know what to say about finishing The Dispossessed by Ursula K Le Guin other than to apologize for not having read it much sooner. What a titanic work of imagination, intelligence, empathy, realism, physics, and it’s not like it isn’t funny! Or romantic! Blown away.

Cover of a Harper Collins anniversary printing of the book, purple cover with a subtly clever design which implies the two planets and their complementary nature. Grinklin sprawls amusingly in the background.

3743133

Bafflegabs @bafflegabs.bsky.social · 16/07/2026

Okay, totally agree, but you could also just make brand new records and send them on tour for you, seemed to work okay for Out Of Time and Automatic, which both sold more than 18 million copies lol I just miss you boys so desperately you don’t even know.

130

Bafflegabs @bafflegabs.bsky.social · 15/07/2026

Finished my next book, Keith Rosson’s Fever House, a propulsive, gory genre mash-up, it’s horror/crime/X-Files-y, with an alt rock twist, and very hard to put down! I’ll have to read his sequel, The Devil By Name, pretty much ASAP. Absolute banger.

210

Bafflegabs @bafflegabs.bsky.social · 12/07/2026

Finished my next book, the recent Harlan Ellison’s Greatest Hits collection. I’ve always known his TV work, but not read tons of his prose; this is the most inspiring, imaginative, ill-behaved writing I’ve come across, & he’s currently deeply out of print! GH 2 coming next May, at least. INCREDIBLE.

110

Bafflegabs @bafflegabs.bsky.social · 07/07/2026

Finished my next book, Richard Matheson’s Hell House (1971). This rocked. Matheson I know as an ultra-prolific Twilight Zone writer, also I Am Legend, Stir Of Echoes, Duel, but I’ve never read him before. His horror prose is fantastic. “He felt the ropy form start oozing up his legs adhesively.” 🥰

Cover of Hell House, very 70s design and font of a mansion in red against a black background. Grinklin is cleaning herself on the sofa in the distance.

540

Bafflegabs @bafflegabs.bsky.social · 04/07/2026

Reading my next book, Death On Gokumon Island, another ghoulish 1940s murder mystery featuring scruffy detective Kosuke Kindaichi, my second of these, they’re really detailed and intricately plotted, I love them. Grinklin naps happily in the background.

040

Bafflegabs @bafflegabs.bsky.social · 03/07/2026

My lost second record is out today, lost no more! My earliest batch of Painkiller The Pigeon songs had titles but weren’t completed until I recently found a folder of lyrics labeled Crashing The Creep Seed, the lyrics matched the song titles, finished in a few weeks. open.spotify.com/album/4gAPJu...

open.spotify.com

Crashing The Creep Seed - Album by Painkiller The Pigeon | Spotify

Painkiller The Pigeon · album · 2005 · 10 songs

110

Bafflegabs @bafflegabs.bsky.social · 01/07/2026

I love every time they ask me to tweak the lyrics for the Scott Hasn’t Seen tune, which at this point might be my longest-running theme for a show (along with Rob Lowe’s Literally). Burnt sent me some new lyrics, I dutifully hollered them in my office haha. CBB Presents at CBB World!!

0140

Bafflegabs @bafflegabs.bsky.social · 30/06/2026

I read Patricia Highsmith’s Found In The Street, a hypnotic & cruel novel about 1980s New York & a dream girl who flits through, warping everyone around her. It’s only a suspense thriller by disposition, rather than plot, it’s too singular to play by any genre rules. Very vivid.

Cover is a black and white photo of a group of people gathered under an archway (no idea why this is the cover lol, the lettering is cool but the image seems almost entirely random)

010

Bafflegabs @bafflegabs.bsky.social · 29/06/2026

I’m so sad that Justin Richards has died, he was an absolutely crucial figure to Doctor Who’s Wilderness Years and beyond, and I just spent so many happy hours reading and listening to his work. RIP, and thank you very much.

130

Bafflegabs @bafflegabs.bsky.social · 28/06/2026

Stayed up late and read all of Soji Shimada’s Murder In The Crooked House in one day. This is a brilliantly intricate locked-room mystery complete with diagrams and angles and a really fun, manic Sherlock-type character who arrives halfway through. So much fun, have to read more by this writer.

Cover of Murder In The Crooked House, Grinklin the black cat is visible in the background napping on her fuzzy bootleg Doctor Who blanket.

050