iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

O'Neill @brianoneill.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

I didn't think anything could be more valuable than "Diamond Status," but that was before I learned about "Golden Diamond status."

An email from Trump reading "Do you have two minutes?

There’s something I’ve been waiting to tell you.

I’m ready to upgrade your Diamond Status to Golden Diamond status, but your opportunity to accept expires at 11:59 PM tonight."

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O'Neill @brianoneill.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

A leaf, in the swaying middle of its deathfall, is suspended by the grace or cruelty of an invisible thread.

A leaf hung midair as if frozen in its fall

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O'Neill @brianoneill.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

I'm so excited to read this I can barely breathe.

A picture showing "Acid Green Velvet," the new novel by Grace Krilanovich.

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O'Neill @brianoneill.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

My girlfriend was asking me if "Ronin" is good and I said this is basically the movie, if this appeals to you, then: yes.

jean Reno and Robert DeNiro in a car, looking like professionals

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O'Neill @brianoneill.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

I scanned this as ENDERVOR and idly thought "oh, this is one of those knock-off imitation cars" before remembering that's not a thing.

A car reading, with questionable font "ENDEAVOR"

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O'Neill @brianoneill.bsky.social · 09/08/2026

Very happy with this review I have for Great Lakes Review, of "Great Lake: An Unnatural History of Lake Michigan."

A boulder, a huge chunk of rock broken down from mountains over millions of years, finds itself pushed south by a massive, continent-warping glacier. It is broken up under the unimaginable weight, dispersed into countless smaller rocks, one of which ends up on the beach of a vast lake carved and filled by the same glacial forces. One hot summer day in 1919 one of those rocks was picked up by the hands of a man and hurled at a young Black boy who drifted into a whites-only section of Lake Michigan. The boy drowns, sparking a blistering burst of racial violence, killing dozens.

There is nothing teleological about history, much less geology. The rock wasn’t fated to be a dull tool of white supremacy. It just happened to litter a Chicago beach during a time of segregation, economic unrest, and simmering reactionary hatred toward the Great Migration. It was just there on a summer day.

But why it was there — why that beach was rocky, why that beach existed at all, why Chicago and other Lake Michigan cities were formed the way they were — is part of the story of Theodore J. Karamanski’s Great Lake: An Unnatural History of Lake Michigan. Karamanski explores the interaction between people and the lake, and how we shape and distort this vast and uniquely American sea.

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O'Neill @brianoneill.bsky.social · 16/07/2026

I wrote about Miguel Vargas, the story of the first half, for @southsidesox.bsky.social, and how he symbolizes the turnaround, and also how ballplayers are real people, and what it must have felt like to have your professional life thrown into a volcano www.southsidesox.com/chicago-whit...

Miguel Vargas, looking shellshocked after being traded to the White Sox in 2024

Miguel Vargas, looking happy as a member of the White Sox in 2026

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O'Neill @brianoneill.bsky.social · 15/07/2026

Jesus fucking christ. I knew this guy was shit but didn't know the depth of it.

“If they had any f**king whispers” of sexual assault, declared leftist podcaster Kyle Kulinski in June, “they would have had them b****es front and center.” He accused the New York Times, which broke an earlier story about Platner’s alleged behavior, of being “desperate” to take down his campaign.

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O'Neill @brianoneill.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

The whole thing is stupid and funny and enraging, but this bit really caught my eye. I don't know how you engage with people who think the country underwent a "precipitous decline" under Biden, or that the heartland now swells with pride.

For half a century, I have been a Goldwater Republican and later became a Reaganite. Peace through strength was the motto. I do want to “Make America Great Again” after its precipitous decline during the Biden presidency. I like much of what Trump 45 & 47 has done, dislike a few and scratch my head at others. He has brought pride back to America, especially in the heartland, but dismay and disdain among the coastal elite.

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O'Neill @brianoneill.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

Jacki. This is the guy. Yeah, politics are why you women aren't beating down your door, Romeo.

A guy looking like he'd be rejected for a part in a community theater production of Clue.

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O'Neill @brianoneill.bsky.social · 01/07/2026

Got this email from the President, he cancelled his hamburger to let me know the Deep State wants to stop me from giving him money.

A picture of The President of These United States sitting in front of a hamburger, letting me know that:

This is Donald J. Trump – and I'm reaching out personally because time is running out.

I skipped my lunch to warn you.

Locked myself in the war room, so the radical left wouldn’t catch eye.

Now, I'm sounding the alarm:

The Deep State is launching a full-scale assault RIGHT NOW to strip you of your hard-earned Platinum Club membership!

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O'Neill @brianoneill.bsky.social · 30/06/2026

Finally, a broom and dustpan set that matches my politics!

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O'Neill @brianoneill.bsky.social · 24/05/2026

Not being embarrassed by this is grounds for impeachment.

The app includes official statements and policy announcements from the administration, as well as a feed of social media posts from White House accounts and the president.

A button gives the option to “text President Trump,” which, when clicked, opens a text message to a pre-selected number with the default text “Greatest President Ever!” Sending the text signs the user up for alerts, which individuals can also do through the app itself.

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O'Neill @brianoneill.bsky.social · 02/05/2026

LeBron genuinely looks like a guy doing sideline work eight years after he retired, not putting up an easy 28 to clinch a series.

LeBron, doing an interview, looking like he should be retired, not still being great.

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O'Neill @brianoneill.bsky.social · 27/04/2026

This beagle really really wanted Aldo to pay attention to him.

A beagle howling plaintively at an unconcerned larger dog

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O'Neill @brianoneill.bsky.social · 19/04/2026

The thing with this Palantir shit is that "Western culture" or whatever was unceasing continental warfare culminating in WWII and the Holocaust, until the institutions that these idiots despise were created and a tentative peace has been maintained.

Palantir fash bullshit about how some cultures are good and others are bad, and how pluralism is destroying the West.

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O'Neill @brianoneill.bsky.social · 17/04/2026

The clouds look like the delta of a vast river.

Weird rolling dark clouds with thin streaks of lighter clouds

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O'Neill @brianoneill.bsky.social · 03/04/2026

I wrote about "On an Inland Sea," a collection of Great Lakes writing by @beltpublishing.bsky.social, edited by @mbwwelch.bsky.social. It's really a wonderful anthology, and deserves a place in the growing body of writing about the Lakes. greatlakesreview.org/shaped-by-th...

Intimacy is another theme that shapes the anthology. The Lakes as a living metaphor, or a guidepost as people struggle through their lives. In “The Bound Body,” Martha Lundin uses the terrible winter of 2014, when Lake Superior froze over, to think about her relationship with her body and identity. While it is a struggle, there is grace. She writes, “After all, I haven’t figured out yet how people become themselves. It is because I am still becoming myself. Lake Superior and her basin had one and a half billion years to get to where she is, and she is still becoming.”

My father died in January of 2014, the morning the same record cold freeze Lundin describes hit Chicago. I remember walking with my oldest friend in a brutal blinding snowstorm to get another bottle of whiskey, and thinking not in metaphorical terms, but with the awareness that the lake and the weather and the cold had no concern for my little drama.

It is with this awareness that I am grateful none of the pieces in On an Inland Sea stretch metaphors too far. No, the pieces Welch chose are more interesting than that. The personal stories position the Lakes as a part of life, a childhood memory, an unchanging and ceaselessly beating force that anchors even as everything in our lives changes and becomes more confusing or harder. The uncaringness of the water can become a comfort.

The cover of "On an Inland Sea: Writing the Great Lakes" an anthology edited by Michael Welch

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O'Neill @brianoneill.bsky.social · 28/03/2026

After a busy day of protesting and playing, this is how Aldo cooled down.

A dog, ecstatic, in a big mud puddle, covered in dirt

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O'Neill @brianoneill.bsky.social · 02/03/2026

This also makes him telling the Iranian people to rise up and take control even more monstrous. It's regime change but the people who were going to take over were right at the top of the regime.

A Jonathan Karl tweet where Trump says that they killed all the top "candidates" to become the Supreme Leader, due to how successful the bombing was.

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O'Neill @brianoneill.bsky.social · 20/02/2026

Points for accidental honesty, I guess.

Email from Trump reading "TREASONOUS LIES INCOMING"

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O'Neill @brianoneill.bsky.social · 11/02/2026

You ride in this bad boy you're gonna get puns for five hours. That's a goddamn guarantee

A GMC Sierra with a license plate reading PUN5HR

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O'Neill @brianoneill.bsky.social · 22/01/2026

I know that Democratic fundraising emails are annoying and often, in the face of unmitigated fascism, absolutely insulting, but if you aren't getting official Trump emails you have no idea how fucking unhinged they are. It was titled "Goodnight" and above the picture reads "THIS IS MY MAGA CRY"

A picture of forlorn Trump with the text reading "Trump: Brian, our anniversary was yesterday & you still haven't unlocked your MAGA membership?

I’ve come to the conclusion that the deep state must’ve been blocking my emails or something wicked like that because I added INCREDIBLE new perks to celebrate our one year together.

I know you would cherish them - it’s actually depressing that you haven’t gotten to see them.

TRUMP’S MAGA CRY: I’m praying that this email is passed over to you soon because we’re down to our final few spots and I need you"

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O'Neill @brianoneill.bsky.social · 14/01/2026

This is one of the laziest emails yet. The anti-communist club? And even his AI picture looks like shit.

A "memo from Trump" email asking if I am still part of his anti-communist club. The President is pictured looking sweaty in front of what I guess is a fire. He looks like he might be asking for water. Either way the answer is no.

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O'Neill @brianoneill.bsky.social · 13/01/2026

This sounds like Stafford is a caveman scientist discussing the benefits of evolution

Headline reading "'Hand is good' Stafford says"

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O'Neill @brianoneill.bsky.social · 25/12/2025

I don't know if any dog has enjoyed a toy as much as Aldo loves this big red ball.

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O'Neill @brianoneill.bsky.social · 25/12/2025

"We're No Angels" is one of my favorite movies and I named my dog after Aldo Ray, who is incredibly handsome.

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O'Neill @brianoneill.bsky.social · 24/12/2025

Spending Christmas Eve with the good boy Aldo, @sgj.bsky.social, and a lot of other talented authors.

A dog laying his head on the legs of a man reading a Christmas horror anthology

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O'Neill @brianoneill.bsky.social · 06/12/2025

Excited to have written about Patrick Wensink's "The Great Black Swamp" (@beltpublishing.bsky.social), a charming look at the unintended consequences reshaping the land, for Great Lakes Review. greatlakesreview.org/the-price-of...

What can be even more unsettling to think about are turbulent changes happening in shallow time. That the land we know and are comfortable with, and think of as permanent, has undergone near-geologic upheavals in the span of a few paltry human generations. That our framework for “unchanging” — essentially, because something looks more or less the same as when we were kids — obscures revolutions underfoot. When we think about the rapidity of changes, and the potential for damage that humans have done, shallow time feels more of a drowning terror than deep time.

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O'Neill @brianoneill.bsky.social · 06/12/2025

I wrote about a nonfiction book and collection of short stories to explore the Great Lakes, time, compression, erosion, and the way our lives are shaped by things we can't control for Great Lakes Review. greatlakesreview.org/defining-for...

Time is the main character of these books, both in its vastness and in its minute agonies. Time can seem endless when we’re walking the edge of a cliff face, over rocks laid down hundreds of millions of years ago. Time can seem so short when we start to slip, and realize, suddenly and terribly, that we’re all out of it.

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O'Neill @brianoneill.bsky.social · 30/11/2025

Earlier, the thinnest layer of ice creeping across the lake.

A thin uneven skin of ice moves across a snowy lake

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O'Neill @brianoneill.bsky.social · 13/11/2025

OK so Big Aurora isn't a total hoax, I guess.

A faint coloring of clouds over a dark lake.

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O'Neill @brianoneill.bsky.social · 08/11/2025

It is incredible that we take it for granted that the President will abuse his power if people don't agree to satisfy his ego.

The source with knowledge of the stadium deal said that if Trump insists on the stadium bearing his name, "he has plenty of leverage" to make it happen, no matter which government body will ultimately decide.

"He has cards to play. He can make it very difficult, through government environmental approvals and other things, to make sure everyone who wants this stadium to be built will join to put his name on it," the source said. "Trump has plenty of cards to play to get his way."

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O'Neill @brianoneill.bsky.social · 24/10/2025

This feels bandwaggony but Aldo is very earnest and goofy so I am going to say Toronto

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O'Neill @brianoneill.bsky.social · 19/10/2025

Enjoying this beautiful and mournful collection right now with a fire, wine, a storm over the lake, and a good dog.

The Ghost Sequences, by A.C. Wise, a gorgeous and mournful collection

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O'Neill @brianoneill.bsky.social · 12/10/2025

Haunted Ecologies, by @coreyfarrenkopf.bsky.social, is so incredibly good so far. I try to take comfort in the supernatural but it never lets you forget the horrors that are coming. I've also been moved to tears like three times in the first five stories.

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O'Neill @brianoneill.bsky.social · 10/10/2025

I love when rain in the distance seems like melting clouds, which is kind of what it is.

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