iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Ben Blench @benblench.bsky.social · 20h

If I ever publish a book of my work, this will be the brief for the cover design.

Cover art for Simple Headphone Mind by Stereolab / Nurse With Wound

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Ben Blench @benblench.bsky.social · 21h

Same energy 🤘🏻😝🤘🏻

Cover art of Loveless by My Bloody Valentine

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Ben Blench @benblench.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

“Tante Miele” looks like she’s about to drop this year’s most hotly anticipated analogue rhythms

A totally sick 1920s print advert for Miele washing machines

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Ben Blench @benblench.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

I treated this little swan family to some oats earlier today on an Amsterdam canal 🦢🦢🦢🦢

Photo of four swans eating oats on an Amsterdam canal

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Reposted by Ben Blench

Dr. Han VanderHart @hanvanderhart.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

Love, cast all thought aside. I cast aside all thought. Wendell Berry

A POEM OF THANKS

I have been spared another day
to come into this night
as though there is a mercy in things
mindful of me. Love, cast all
thought aside. I cast aside
all thought. Our bodies enter
their brief precedence,
surrounded by their sleep.
Through you I rise, and you
through me, into the joy
we make, but may not keep.

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Reposted by Ben Blench

Daniel Sugarman @danielsugarman.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

The world's most notorious custard-pie thrower is dead. What an obituary. He got Bernard-Henri Lévy seven times.

Known to his army of fans as L’Entarteur or Georges le Gloupier, Godin launched his career as a serial deflator of egos in 1969, when he planted a tarte à la crème on the face of the French novelist Marguerite Duras (“She has a kind of intelligence and cleverness that serves only her own vanity,” he complained), and he went on to “pie” a cast list of celebrities for sins ranging from pomposity to “choosing to function in the service of the capitalist status quo”.

The same could not be said of Bernard-Henri Lévy, one of France’s “new philosophers,” whose provocative views on sex, frequent appearances on television and penchant for white silk shirts unbuttoned practically to the navel, had made him a cult figure – and one of Godin’s most satisfying victims.

Levy once declared: “I am the most gifted writer of my generation,” and often boasted of his reasonableness and tolerance, but he was forced to endure footage being repeatedly shown on French television of himself, covered in cream, during a visit to the Belgian city of Liège, trying to strangle Godin and shouting: “Get up, or I’ll kick your head in.”

Noël Godin was born on September 13 1945 and came to pie-throwing after a rebellious youth in which he scandalised the priests in the confessional by speaking of his “horrible sexual life”, and was thrown out of Liège University after emptying a pot of glue over the head of a law lecturer who had helped write the constitution for the Portuguese dictator António de Oliveira Salazar.

He found work at Friends of Film, an obscure magazine published by the Belgian Catholic League. It had a tiny readership, which was just as well, as Godin made up most of his articles. In one he claimed that Louis Armstrong had once been a cannibal and had invested in a film called The Vegetables of Good Will in which Claudia Cardinale played a giant endive.

In another he conjured up a fictional blind Thai filmmaker named Vivian Pei, describing her film, The Lotus Flower Will Never Again Grow on the Edge of Your Island, in such convincing terms that an Asian film specialist travelled to Thailand in an effort to track her down.

“We’re very careful not to hurt people,’’ he explained. “Well, they are hurt, but always in their amour-propre.”

In 1995 Godin published an autobiography, Cream and Punishment. His other targets over the years included the New Wave director Jean-Luc Godard (who charmed his assailant by hailing the attack as a homage to silent film), the French politician Nicolas Sarkozy, the choreographer Maurice Béjart and the Ryanair chairman Michael O’Leary. He tended not to pick Belgian victims, he explained, because few would notice if he did.

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Ben Blench @benblench.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

I am Jack’s exhausted context window

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Reposted by Ben Blench

Mia You @miayou.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

Deadline moved to 7 September!

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Ben Blench @benblench.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

New #micropoem by me inspired by... something.

Text of a micropoem by Ben Blench, it reads:
The sun
The dread sun

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Ben Blench @benblench.bsky.social · 02/08/2026

Thanks for the nod Paul :) I particularly liked your “patch of hard sky” in this piece.

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Ben Blench @benblench.bsky.social · 20/07/2026

Goddamit it’s Wednesday isn’t it? On @noiseboxradio.com at 20:00 UK time, he said, attempting to influence his followers to tune in to the shoooowwwwioooeeeee

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Ben Blench @benblench.bsky.social · 20/07/2026

Hey @daviansometimes.bsky.social, you have such great taste. Thursday night right?

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Ben Blench @benblench.bsky.social · 17/07/2026

Mo’ pages, mo’ ‘rasures.

Photo of a paperback with words and word fragments circled in pencil to create an erasure poem:

All your importance - nothing
Your eyes
Your anxiety
A sense of water
Then breath
You sink into shadow over and over
We're far from the light.

Text of an erasure poem by Ben Blench:

All your importance - nothing
Your eyes
Your anxiety
A sense of water
Then breath
You sink into shadow over and over
We're far from the light.

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Ben Blench @benblench.bsky.social · 17/07/2026

I picked up a paperback from a street library. I didn’t like it, so I turned it into erasure poems. Here’s one! #poem #poetry #erasure

Photo of a page of a book with selected words and word fragments circled in pencil to create an erasure poem:

Everything is terrible
We watch loops
Allow ourselves our certainties
A dour life
The arrival of hell.

Text of a poem by Ben Blench:

Everything is terrible
We watch loops
Allow ourselves our certainties
A dour life
The arrival of hell.

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Ben Blench @benblench.bsky.social · 26/06/2026

Still buzzing from last night’s extraordinary, transcendent gig by Sunn O))) at @paradisoadam.bsky.social Many thanks to the EHBO lady who tweezed the earplug from my left ear afterwards LOL

Photo of the stage in the main room of the Paradiso, Amsterdam l, set up for a performance by Sunn O))) Thirty amplifiers stacked and arranged like an amp-henge. Red stage lights.

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Ben Blench @benblench.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

Idea for a sitcom called "Aloo Aloo", set in a Balti House in Birmingham. Owner Mudit deals with problems from a dishonest Reform UK councillor, local foodies, a stolen Instagram account and a pair of trapped asylum seekers, all while concealing the affairs he's having with his waitresses...

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Ben Blench @benblench.bsky.social · 17/06/2026

Director Michael Cumming's Brass Eye Hidden Secrets Ep. 1, featuring Chris Morris in the guise of a variety of different Davids: David Sanction, David Voffov, David Unesco, David Waving, David Enthusiap, David Compression, David Bovvinge, David Qunt, and David Jatt. youtu.be/ml6AJARRVno?...

youtu.be

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Ben Blench @benblench.bsky.social · 03/06/2026

Fun :) Now do Sometimes, by Sheenagh Pugh LOL

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Ben Blench @benblench.bsky.social · 31/05/2026

Here's Willie Thorne (RIP to a real one) having his lunch with a budgie on his shoulder. Plate of selected biscuits. Bottle of salad cream. Massive bowl of sugar. And what's going on with that tiny, glass fronted cabinet on the wall above the kettle?

Photo of snooker player Willie Thorne having his lunch with a budgie perched on his shoulder.

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Ben Blench @benblench.bsky.social · 29/05/2026

It’s fascinating. I’ve never read her before so I had no idea what to expect. Wasn’t sure at first what was going on! What’s real? What’s fictitious? Then I settled into it and marvelled at the life they had back then. A unique account!

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Ben Blench @benblench.bsky.social · 29/05/2026

I’m reading the Stein / Toklas autobiography right now!

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Ben Blench @benblench.bsky.social · 18/05/2026

“I had never seen poets before, one poet yes but not poets.” From The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein

Photo of a page from the Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein.

The text reads: I can so well remember the first time Gertrude Stein took me to see Guillaume Apollinaire. It was a tiny bachelor’s apartment on the rue des Martyrs. The room was crowded with a great many small young gentlemen. Who, I asked Fernande, are all these little men. They are poets, answered Fernande. I was overcome. I had never seen poets before, one poet yes but not poets.

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Ben Blench @benblench.bsky.social · 09/05/2026

Yep 🤘🏼 Saw them play at All Tomorrow’s Parties in Camber Sands in 2002!

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Ben Blench @benblench.bsky.social · 09/05/2026

I love you means, "I hope you don’t survive the night"

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Ben Blench @benblench.bsky.social · 22/04/2026

Correction! My zombie binge poem is in the Featured Creator section, not the issue itself. Anyway: I got published BOOYAH! www.fullhouseliterary.com/poetry/how-t...

fullhouseliterary.com

How to survive the apocalypse by Ben Blench — Full House Literary

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Ben Blench @benblench.bsky.social · 19/04/2026

Do you hate “poet voice”? The droning cadence. The leaning on meter and emphasis. The dull, lifeless result? Me too! There is another way! Listen to me reading my poem (upthread) and be delighted! #poetrycommunity #poetvoice #notpoetvoice #reading

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Ben Blench @benblench.bsky.social · 19/04/2026

I visited the British Library the other day. Of all the books and all the pages in the place, this one presented itself to me.

Photograph of an art book featuring a quote from Anselm Kiefer. The text reads “Art is longing. You never arrive, but you keep going in the hope that you will.”

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Ben Blench @benblench.bsky.social · 18/04/2026

I'm super happy to be able to share this link to one of my poems, just published in the "Featured Creators" section of the @fullhouselitmag.bsky.social website. Go there! Read it! Or listen to me reading it to you, if that's the kind of thing you're into. www.fullhouseliterary.com/poetry/how-t...

Screenshot of a page on the Full House Literary website featuring a poem by Ben Blench, entitled "How to survive the apocalypse"

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Edward @edwardodell.bsky.social · 14/04/2026

Incredible sequel. Edge of my seat!

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Ben Blench @benblench.bsky.social · 01/04/2026

Florence Pugh has let herself go

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Reposted by Ben Blench

ONLY POEMS @onlypoemsmag.bsky.social · 29/03/2026

the grief the grief the grief the grief

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Ben Blench @benblench.bsky.social · 29/03/2026

Now playing: Johnny Cash - Man in Black open.spotify.com/track/7wL9EV...

open.spotify.com

Spotify – Web Player

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Ben Blench @benblench.bsky.social · 10/03/2026

Having a great time getting stomped into a pulp by the monsters in DEVASTATION SONGS, the @brokensleepbooks.bsky.social anthology of Kaiju writing. Too many good ones to highlight so here's an especially stomach-turning monstrosity by @poetbex.bsky.social

Cover of DEVASTATION SONGS, an Anthology of Kaiju Writing on Broken Sleep Books

Text of a poem by Bex Hainsworth, entitled Globster:

Something has washed up on the shore.
A mass of greying flesh, a lumpy silhouette,

with one string of carcass that could be a tentacle,
or embedded kelp, or a plesiosaur neck.

With the gravity of the uncategorisable,
saltwater is drawn around its chthonic body,

retreats, then returns for cyclical scrutiny.
Barnacle stars scattered across a sky of black skin

lead to a translucent flap, like the bulb of a jellyfish.
It could be an eye, or some other bloated organ,

slumping above a clump of jagged shells,
maybe teeth, maybe swallowed bones.

A curved tool, like a beak or a claw,
jabs two briny points into oozing sand.

The stink of death keeps the gulls wary.
There is a net, orange, obscene, wrapped

around its slender end. Blubber bursts
through tight diamonds of woven chains

stretching back into the sea, like Genesis.
One flabby island bears scars, perhaps a predator,

perhaps a propeller, and another is frothy
with plastic loops, squeezed by canless ripples.

Its dark, sleek hide shines like a mirror.
We should recognise monstrosity.

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