iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

BTBaum @btbaum.bsky.social · 27/04/2026

Either is great! You get to explore the village more that way. But I did love our loop trip spending time meeting cows, goats, dogs, and farmers. We had a company transport our luggage so that made it easy. Enjoy!!

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BTBaum @btbaum.bsky.social · 03/03/2026

Okay, full video from the critter cam. Wait for it…

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BTBaum @btbaum.bsky.social · 03/03/2026

Full Moon Coyote be reading headlines like

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BTBaum @btbaum.bsky.social · 23/02/2026

And now, I’m going to dive back into one of most gorgeous novels I’ve ever read about lesbians returning to historic visibility in the 1800s—“After Sappho.” Stunning.

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BTBaum @btbaum.bsky.social · 23/02/2026

Just finished reading a thoughtful essay about Pee Wee Herman — “I Know You Are But What Am I?” Even if you’ve seen last year’s doc abt him, this has even more surprising insights about the Playhouse, our ‘90s relationship to technology, and what survived the moral panic/backlash against him. /1

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BTBaum @btbaum.bsky.social · 20/02/2026

Rabbit holes are fun but here’s a great book on the subject: “Fabulosa! The Story of Polari and Britain’s Secret Gay Language.” I mean, the cover alone is fabulosa!

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BTBaum @btbaum.bsky.social · 26/12/2025

We saw “Desk Set” today—surprisingly a Xmas movie!—from 1957 with Katherine Hepburn & Spencer Tracy. The fun part is the ancient yet cutting-edge technology. It’s abt Hepburn keeping her job as head researcher or being replaced by “EMERAC” computer (ie: UNIVAC). Same concerns as today’s AI issues.

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BTBaum @btbaum.bsky.social · 29/11/2025

And from your Substack in email, I just learned of the master’s passing. A formative theater experience was going w/ my 11th grade English class (1975!) to LA’s Mark Taper Forum to see Stoppard’s “Travesties”—playing in rotation w/ The Importance of Being Ernest.” Holds a special place in my heart.

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BTBaum @btbaum.bsky.social · 12/10/2025

Proud to make my first appearance in the pages of the Santa Monica Review. My essay, “Days of Future Past: Catching Up with Author Norman M. Klein,” explores the work of one of the great urban historians of our time. Norman has many unusual insights on how, why, & when our Great Unraveling began.

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BTBaum @btbaum.bsky.social · 23/06/2025

Strange time to be traveling. In Bologna for the annual #CinemaRitrovato film festival of restored gems of world cinema. So, we are time-traveling as well. Thinking abt what has been lost, deliberately left behind, or worth saving. Plus, #KatherineHeburn gems curated by author/critic #MollyHaskell!

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BTBaum @btbaum.bsky.social · 24/05/2025

Norman Klein is a visionary whose work starts in Los Angeles then expands beyond traditional boundaries. He's our very own Fernando Pessoa writing books of disquiet about recent history and the elements pulling us towards collective amnesia. A little clip of books mentioned in above article.

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BTBaum @btbaum.bsky.social · 18/05/2025

Chumley’s you say — Chumley’s?! Well, I can’t put my hands on the photo of their mascot bulldog but I’d like to share this ephemera of my visit there in the mid-90s. See what I did there? Jumping ahead by four or so numbers?

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BTBaum @btbaum.bsky.social · 07/05/2025

What are you wearing to the Bluesky gala?

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BTBaum @btbaum.bsky.social · 03/05/2025

If you see this post your getaway vehicle

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BTBaum @btbaum.bsky.social · 26/03/2025

Darth! This is Hatchi, our friend’s new Siberian Husky. I hope you agree she looks great from any angle!

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BTBaum @btbaum.bsky.social · 24/03/2025

I already bought more books than I can carry home and #AWP25 hasn’t even officially started. On the other hand, my friend took me to North Figueroa Bookstore - what was I supposed to do? Wait till we went to Skylight Books? The Last Bookstore? AWP’s mammoth Bookfair? C’mon. Be real. #booksky

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BTBaum @btbaum.bsky.social · 24/03/2025

Heading to Los Angeles for #AWP25 and listening to the audio version of Didion & Babitz about women, literature, and the storied LA scene of the 60s and 70s. It’s narrated by the author Lili Anolik, who voices this memoir/deeply researched hybrid. An era this hometown girl always finds fascinating.

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BTBaum @btbaum.bsky.social · 20/03/2025

Took my first class from "Five Things I Learned" w/ poet Matthew Zapruder. Channeling imagination --> production is always a stretch. But now? Much harder. Grateful that M.Z. shared ways to "touch your novel (poem, etc) every day & keep our creative lights on." myfivethings.com/class/metthe...

Poet and author Matthew Zapruder on Zoom as he led a two-hour discussion on "Maintaining a Creative Practice in the Chaos" via the website "Five Things I Learned" Link in post.

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BTBaum @btbaum.bsky.social · 20/03/2025

Thanks, @tomandlorenzo.bsky.social! I've much to say about dogs, music, theater, books, history. I'll start with this pandemic-era photo of YOUR BOOK. It was a Xmas present to fellow board members of Rainbow Honor Walk. We all loved your seriously rich scholarship wrapped in a package of fabulous.

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BTBaum @btbaum.bsky.social · 09/03/2025

I heard an interview with this author (Yanis Varoufakas, Greece’s former minister of finance during the austerity crisis) and this updated version of feudalism should be part of the discussion! TLDR: how l/why the tech oligarchs took Project 2025 and bent it towards their own bloated vision.

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BTBaum @btbaum.bsky.social · 06/03/2025

Only now do I realize you wrote “pear” tree and not “peach.” Even so, here are some pink blossoms from the top of our peach tree. The promise of stone fruit in July and August arises on a sunny morning across the bay!

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BTBaum @btbaum.bsky.social · 18/02/2025

@golikehellmachine.com - seriously, and depending on what rabbit hole one explores, if tabulations were altered in 2024 at the level of local voting precincts (quote the Muskrat: “they’ll never know”) how can we trust election integrity going forward?

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BTBaum @btbaum.bsky.social · 14/02/2025

Saw @hughryan.bsky.social's photos of today's demo at Stonewall/NPS Historic Site in NYC. I was there June '24 for Pride Month. Thought I'd re-up some photos. Don't mess with historians. This material, like us L-G-B-T-Q people, is EVERYWHERE. No one can erase our history. More details in alt text.

That me in June, 2024, next to a photo of Stormé DeLarverie who historians cite as one of the key figures igniting the rebellion at what is now the NPS/Stonewall National Monument. The pocket park used to be covered in historic photos of the June 1969 event. I'm not mad at any Park Service employee or federal worker. Many of them lost their jobs this week. But we remember our history.

A photographic reminder from June 2024 of the gay-lesbian-bi-and-TRANS history that adorned the NPS/Stonewall National Monument site. A much-loved and hard-earned history that the current Administration is trying to bury. They won't succeed.

A photographic reminder from June 2024 of the gay-lesbian-bi-and-TRANS history that adorned the NPS/Stonewall National Monument site. This photo includes a close-up of trans activist Marsha P. Johnson, who is loved and remembered at sites including SF's #RainbowHonorWalk, #NationalWomen'sHistoryMuseum and in the hearts and memories of countless generations.

Some of our history is written in bronze—and really hard for the NPS to erase! Including this bronze plaque in front of the privately owned Stonewall Inn, now operated by the Pride Live nonprofit commemorating the original site of the historic 1969 rebellion. Say it loud, say it proud: L-G-B-T-Q

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BTBaum @btbaum.bsky.social · 31/01/2025

Appreciate your posts! For me, it was Isabel Wilkerson’s book “Caste: The Origins of our Discontents” that revealed the connection between Jim Crow and Hitler’s racist/fascist drive to create and destroy “the other.”

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BTBaum @btbaum.bsky.social · 21/01/2025

Everything he filmed in this place. Every frame he put on celluloid.

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BTBaum @btbaum.bsky.social · 02/01/2025

He was also a very well-read dog. Always knew which independent bookstore had treats and where to find them.

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BTBaum @btbaum.bsky.social · 02/01/2025

#InMemorium Tripper, the handsomest dog in the world; our well-traveled protector, and beloved boy. People literally gasped at his beauty. Even at 13 and 1/2, he was gone too soon.

Tripper walks the red carpet with me at the first CIRCA Queer Histories Festival in Los Angeles- 2023.

Tripper hiking with us on one of Marin county’s many mountain trails. Thanksgiving weekend, 2014.

Tripper at the living room window during his first winter rainstorm, 2012. He’s got an orange “spaceship” toy ball in his mouth.

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BTBaum @btbaum.bsky.social · 29/12/2024

Jimmy Carter’s lost second term in 1980 put us firmly on the bad road leading to the recent election — and so many other awful policy decisions made by the Reagan and Bush I and II administrations. See also: www.foreignaffairs.com/reviews/caps...

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BTBaum @btbaum.bsky.social · 25/12/2024

It is confusing! I was confused, too, and required clarification from my sister. Please enjoy this photo of homemade Bouche de Noel cookies from a NYT recipe that took far too long to prepare and, tbh, look like Rugalah (an ecumenical plus) but tastes like…meh.

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BTBaum @btbaum.bsky.social · 10/12/2024

As John Lennon sang, life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans. This week we’ve been in Ventura/Ojai to support a family member in the hospital. Good news is that he is moving onwards to rehab tomorrow! Nighttime is ours for exploring. It’s an interesting town.

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BTBaum @btbaum.bsky.social · 07/12/2024

Great!! May I recommend the perfect double bill? Cue up 2002’s perfect remake-cum-update “Far From Heaven” with the same color palette, melodrama quality, gorgeous movie stars. But! Updated with interracial romance (much more obvious problem than working class hunk) and other issues that make sense.

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BTBaum @btbaum.bsky.social · 02/12/2024

See you next time, Colorado! Always great to visit family and friends here.

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BTBaum @btbaum.bsky.social · 30/11/2024

Yes, I’m religious, I believe in the holy trinity.

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BTBaum @btbaum.bsky.social · 27/11/2024

Snow! Perfect setting for cooking pies and other Thanksgiving treats. Later on, binging S2’s “Bad Sisters” with my good sister and, best of all, my wife.

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BTBaum @btbaum.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

Also: In the dream logic of storytelling, I imagine when the movie ends, the characters in “The Piano Lesson” hitch a ride from their setting in 1936 Pittsburgh to visit friends on Chicken Hill in Pottstown, about the same year McBridge describes on the page in “The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store.”

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BTBaum @btbaum.bsky.social · 25/11/2024

Lovely! My beloved uncle introduced L. Frank Baum’s stories to my cousins and me, passing down the well-thumbed hardbacks along with an enduring love of used bookstores. So glad your family is getting introduced to these treasures!

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BTBaum @btbaum.bsky.social · 23/11/2024

GBBS: I’m sorry Gill was sent home but I’m so glad they broke the fourth wall and showed her running off with that lilac baking bowl. That’s a form of winning, innit?

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BTBaum @btbaum.bsky.social · 22/11/2024

I’ve even recited the opening, scrolled origin story of Stanley Beamish on the stage of the Harlem’s Apollo Theater. (Talent show portion of their lovely theater tour.) What is learned in youth stays in the brain forever!

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BTBaum @btbaum.bsky.social · 21/11/2024

Returning to arts and cultural writing (my sweet spot), a personal highlight was 2023’s essay “Josephine Baker Through a Queer Lens” for the #Bundeskunstehalle #Museum and #Catamaran #LitMag (nominated for a #Pushcart Prize) — and getting invited to Bonn for the public talk on their Baker exhibit!

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BTBaum @btbaum.bsky.social · 20/11/2024

Here’s some street art and neon signage, as seen in Oakland’s Grand Lake District. #neon #urban #streetscapes

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BTBaum @btbaum.bsky.social · 16/11/2024

A joyful congruity in watching British comedian Suzy Eddie Izzard perform last night in Oakland’s 1931 art deco stunner, the Paramount Theater. Insane level of brilliance & beauty (verbal & architectural) that rose up/still rise as things fall apart. #endurance

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BTBaum @btbaum.bsky.social · 18/09/2024

Bluesky user #1,326,288 out of 10 million! Just coming in here to read what the other 9 million are posting.

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BTBaum @btbaum.bsky.social · 17/06/2024

If you see this this, post a picture you took at sunset. (Flying back to SFO from NYC on the evening flight.)

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