iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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Jesse Locker @jessemlocker.bsky.social · 20h

Adolph Menzel, Death as an Unwelcome Guest, 1844/1845. Watercolor and gouache. 5.1 x 3.6 in. (Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin). Death politely recognizes that this is a shoe-free house.

Death, dressed in a top hat and overcoat, rings the doorbell as he removes his shoes. Inscribed: "1844: Plusquamperfectum" ("more than finished")

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Caleb Crain @calebcrain.bsky.social · 15h

The matriarch dies intestate and the art in her possession has to be sorted, and each of the three adult children seems to represent (imo) the geographic stages of manufacturing’s progress westward

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Caleb Crain @calebcrain.bsky.social · 18h

I remember thinking that “Summer Hours” by Olivier Assayas was “really” about the passing of manufacturing from Europe to America and then to China

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Caleb Crain @calebcrain.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

“To read an individual, or a milieu, through photographs can be, at its best, to see deep and to know how fragile the chance of such a revelation was; the caught moment endures to reveal, to typify, and to invite interpretation.” www.nybooks.com/articles/202...

nybooks.com

The Elusive Glamour of Peter and Paul | Alan Hollinghurst

A dual biography of Peter Hujar and Paul Thek is a tantalizing portrait of the artists and their epoch, just before the catastrophe of AIDS.

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Caleb Crain @calebcrain.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

“Build a life around the novel and you can’t help but feel the ground swell and pitch under your feet.” @njdames.bsky.social on Philip Hensher’s new history of the novel:

literaryreview.co.uk

Nicholas Dames - All the Write Stuff

Nicholas Dames: All the Write Stuff - A History of the Novel in Britain by Philip Hensher

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Caleb Crain @calebcrain.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

This seemed like the behavior of an addict—of someone who has no control over his use. www.nytimes.com/2026/09/29/u...

Dr. Schnell told The Dartmouth in a statement that he used A.I. “for language refinement, copyediting, improving clarity and organization and making writing processes more efficient.” The newspaper then ran Dr. Schnell’s statement on his A.I. use through an A.I. detector, which flagged the statement itself as apparently written by A.I.

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THAWK! @thawk79.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

September 30th October 1st

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geoffrey @parsnip.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

there are moral arguments against the death penalty in its ideal form but in real life you never need to get there. the prior question is "can the state be trusted to end the life only of the rightly convicted without torture?" and the answer is no

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Caleb Crain @calebcrain.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

They’re all so mad that someone somewhere is doing “being a writer” wrong.

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Caleb Crain @calebcrain.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

It’s so weird! Everyone there speaks in a tone of high authority, which I think is an error on principle, but on top of that, I’ve never heard of any of them!

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Caleb Crain @calebcrain.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

I’m sorry, this is infantile of me, but it looks like they’re going to be seated around a large poop.

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Caleb Crain @calebcrain.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Jack Smith for attorney general 🏀

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Justin Wolfers @justinwolfers.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

The bond yield story just keeps getting starker.

Line chart titled "10-Year Treasury Note" showing the yield on the 10-year Treasury note from late 2025 through September 2026. Treasury yields surged dramatically to 5.29 percent on September 29, 2026, the highest level in the period shown. This represents a sharp 130 basis point increase from the October 2025 low of 3.96 percent and a particularly rapid 45 basis point climb over just the final month. After trading mostly between 4.00 and 4.75 percent for nearly a year, yields broke decisively above 5.00 percent in September 2026, signaling a fundamental shift in borrowing costs and market conditions.

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Marisa Kabas @marisakabas.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

oh my fucking god, you have to watch this. eric schmitt just made himself the main character.

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Will Davies @will-davies.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Dada perfection

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Alejandra Caraballo @esqueer.net · 27/09/2026

The before and after it's even more haunting.

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Tim Marchman @timmarchman.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

People say our best days are behind us, but I say America is at the beginning of a new golden age.

Liquid Death/Mr Beast peanut butter cup-flavored seltzer collab

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Caleb Crain @calebcrain.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Chimney swifts are roosting in the decommissioned chimney of a former courthouse in Sunset Park, which now houses an NYPD human resources department.

ryangoldberg1.substack.com

Swifts

Searching for the right chimney

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Wayne @wayneb.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

me, an Eggleston stan, looking at The Row website for the first time 😮 💸

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🦇🎃💀 Riana-mator 💀🎃🦇 @riana.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

wishing a good evening to whoever drives the car I just spotted with the Catullus 85 vanity plate

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Rafe Meager (they/them) @economeager.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

I found it. The only good post on the covid queer bar thing. substack.com/@sproutstack...

$Russell Sprout 1d Sproutstack Hey you heard about this story coming out of Massachusetts? Apparently this group of self-selected individuals, who largely feel out of place in a world of great sorrow and despair - like, they're in this world, but not of it - formed a very intentional community as an example to the rest of the world, like a beacon that shines on a hill. And now they're tearing each other apart over seemingly inscrutable moral infractions! All this, in Massachusetts! Can you believe it?$

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Brooklyn Book Festival @bkbookfest.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Unfortunately, the Brooklyn Book Festival Children’s Day Book Market on September 26th and Festival Day Literary Marketplace on September 27th are cancelled.

brooklynbookfestival.org

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Martyn @martynpedler.com · 26/09/2026

JULIUS CAESAR JULIUS CAESAR: ET 2 BRUTE JULIUS 3SAR

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Caleb Crain @calebcrain.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

The rainbow in the sky tonight is what made me think of this.

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Caleb Crain @calebcrain.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

I am so looking forward to the op-ed that will run in the NYT a few days after it happens, scolding everyone for relishing it so much and so publicly.

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darth™️ @darthbluesky.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

can u even imagine how angry trump would be watching this lol

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Caleb Crain @calebcrain.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Historically the American people do not like to be told to rise above their venal concern for the price of gas.

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Caleb Crain @calebcrain.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

I was thinking the other day that for the most part, we live in the world the Abolitionists strove for, which at the time not even they probably thought was really possible. More change is possible than seems possible, in other words.

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Doctor Charlton Cussans PhD @charltoncussans.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

"We went to bed one night old-fashioned, conservative, Compromise Union Whigs and waked up stark mad Abolitionists" Amos Adams Lawrence, June 1st, 1854, Boston.

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Mike Masnick @masnick.com · 22/09/2026

I'm sorry, but this pin is amazing and I desperately want one. Or maybe 10. To hand out to people.

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Sam Sacks @ssacks.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Out today is Laura Kolbe's 'The Decadent Movement,' a poetry cycle about pregnancy, birth and motherhood organized in reverse chronology. It's beautiful, intimate and destabilizing, somehow strange and familiar all at once. I strongly recommend it. bookshop.org/p/books/the-...

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Henry Farrell @himself.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

From a note to a friend a couple of weeks ago "imo the reason text elemental is so good is because it captures the notion of something that is animate, but not conscious so much as an expression of the fundamental nature of the substance of which it is composed."

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Caleb Crain @calebcrain.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Patrick Carroll's "End of Life," forthcoming in March 2027, is amazing. Finely observed, delicate sensibility. About a gay textile artist caring for his father, who has been struck with dementia. www.harpercollins.com/products/end...

harpercollins.com

End of Life

A heartbreaking, sexy debut following a tumultuous year in the life of a late-twenties gay textile artist who must help his father die as his own life trans...

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Caleb Crain @calebcrain.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Be the writer your AI spam thinks you are

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Benjamin Park @benjaminepark.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

I hope that someday I write a book worthy of the praise provided by the AI-written spam emails that offer to advertise them for a fee.

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Caleb Crain @calebcrain.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

"It's very likely that the scary 'paper clip maximizer' would spend all of its time writing poems about paper clips, or getting into flame wars on reddit/r/paperclip, rather than trying to destroy the universe."

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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 22/09/2026

huh, this piece nailed the AI bros like a decade ago

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Smooth Dunk @smoothdunk2.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

when ai leaves u behind

7 panel comic.

Panel 1:
A Red Guy with AI across his chest looks like he’s about to run away. A Yellow Guy stands next to him. Red Guy says “I’m the future, buddy. You comin’?”
Yellow Guy replies “Nah”

Panel 2:
Red Guy is almost out of the panel. He leans in and says “Enjoy getting left behind, pal”
Yellow Guy replies “ok”

Panel 3:
Yellow Guy stands alone.

Panel 4:
Close up on Yellow Guy, there is a quiet “huff-huff-huff” noise coming from behind him

Panel 5:
Yellow Guy turns to look behind him

Panel 6:
Close up on Yellow Guy’s face as if from the point of view of an attacker.
Yellow Guy yells “Jesus Christ”

Panel 7:
AI Red Guy is now chasing the Yellow Guy.
Red Guy: “Use me”
Yellow Guy “No”
Red Guy “USE ME”

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Michelle Goldberg @michellegoldberg.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

www.nytimes.com/2026/09/18/o...

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Anne Trubek @atrubek.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

if AI is so sci-fi universe-altering why the fuck is *The King of England* involved. Kings of England are very 18th century

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Jason Kint @kint.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Eye popping. Court just unsealed Summary Judgment motions in New York Times v OpenAI / Microsoft. Easy to see why the AI companies had so many redactions (pink). Their own people wrote the lede for NYT, the "largest theft of labor in human history"... "more and more substitutive..." /1

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WOR$T GIRL IN ACADEMIA @medievaliste.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Once again, the median pay for an adjunct professor in the United States of America is $3,500 per course. Not per month, per course.

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