iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

joy-o-lantern meads @capnjoy.bsky.social · 14/10/2026

(Not a big dancer but working on a play where a bunch of students process some intense experience through a collective dance moment and thought “hey is there a book out there about dance as a way of working through trauma”? YUP.

The Libby screen for “Dancing is the best medicine: The Science of How Moving to a Beat is Good for Body, Brain and Soul” by Julia F Christiansen and Dong-Seon Chang

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joy-o-lantern meads @capnjoy.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

@safeway.bsky.social hey you need to better staff your store on Pleasant Valley in Oakland

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joy-o-lantern meads @capnjoy.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Jon won a t-shirt design contest for the Valkyries and so we got fancy ass tickets for last Saturday’s game and a few other perks. The experience of being in Balhalla was incredible—I would have a very different relationship to sports today if I had experienced that kind of culture as a kid.

Jon and I sitting courtside in the pregame shootaround. Were both beaming like goons and jon is holding a sign he made that says a “drink water. mind ya business. Work hard. Win” (a quote from tip hayes—it was her birthday that night!)

Jon holding up the cool ass tshirt he designed while tip hayes makes a shot in the background (pre-game)

Me and jon sitting courtside and smiling like maniacs

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joy-o-lantern meads @capnjoy.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

support your local theater and help explode gender prisons.

image from A.C.T.'s production of THE WIZARD OF OZ, directed by Sam Pinkleton. (Sets and costumes by David Zinn).

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joy-o-lantern meads @capnjoy.bsky.social · 05/08/2026

Totally taking credit for this win.

Me and elizabeth and Jadyn and Xavier from work with scrappy the possum at a baller’s game

Andy and tebo from work with scrappy the possum at a ballers game

Me and my coworkers at the ballers game tonight

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joy-o-lantern meads @capnjoy.bsky.social · 11/07/2026

Cicadas!! (I know this not because I lived around cicadas but because I worked on a production of APPROPRIATE by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, which begins with this stage direction.)

PROLOGUE
Light abandons us and a darkness replaces it.
Instantly, a billion cicadas begin trilling in the dense, velvety void- loudly insistently, without pause- before hopefully, at some point, becoming the void.
The insect song fills and sweeps the theatre in pulsing pitch-black waves, over and beyond the stage- washing itself over the walls and the floors, baptizing the aisles and the seats, forcing itself into every inch of space, every nook, every pocket, hiding place and pore until this incessant chatter is touching you.
It is touching you.
This goes on and on and on and on and on until the same thought occurs in every head:
"Is this it?"
"Is this the whole show?

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joy-o-lantern meads @capnjoy.bsky.social · 20/05/2026

My 2001 NYU commencement address was less depressing, and it was by an expert in global affairs who told us to live it up while we could bc the sheer abundance of loose nukes in the former USSR rendered nuclear catastrophe more or less inevitable. At least that dude knew he was delivering bad news.

Eric Schmidt, in commencement regalia, addresses university of Arizona graduates on AI and is booed. The subtitle for this moment in his speech says, ominously, “it will touch every profession, every classroom”

Eric Schmidt, in commencement regalia, addresses university of Arizona graduates on the supposed promise of AI and is booed. The subtitle for this moment in his speech continues the ominous promise of the image before with “every person and every relationship you have.” **shudder**

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joy-o-lantern meads @capnjoy.bsky.social · 19/05/2026

Y’all if we cannot defeat a man who seems to devote 90% of his mental energy to building ballrooms and gilding random shit in the mansion we the people provide for him to live in for free, while he says things like this? I despair.

still from news video of trump speaking to a press gaggle with the caption “Trump on skyrocketing gas prices: "This is peanuts... I don't even think about it."

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joy-o-lantern meads @capnjoy.bsky.social · 17/04/2026

There is! In Japanese! (This is a section of a play in progress that I’m dramaturging)

(Turns to Yuko who says neutrally to the audience.)
YUKO
Arigata-meiwaku.
IRIS
She says it neutrally, as though she were naming a species of a migrating bird.
YUKO
It's the feeling you have when someone does you a favor you didn't want them to do, which has caused you trouble, but you have to act grateful anyway. Unwelcome kindness.
IRIS

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joy-o-lantern meads @capnjoy.bsky.social · 27/03/2026

Yay! Welcome back! Here’s Sally luxuriating on her ferry ride with the dignity of an aristocrat.

A little black and white puppy luxuriates with her eyes closed and her nose in the air.

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joy-o-lantern meads @capnjoy.bsky.social · 27/02/2026

Little dog riding the ferry home tonight like she’s an aristocrat on a yacht.

A little black and white puppy wearing a blue sweater with yellow bananas on it. She has her eyes closed and her nose lifted, like an aristocrat of old.

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joy-o-lantern meads @capnjoy.bsky.social · 20/02/2026

The reversal of these props was the climax of the play, according to Sally.

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joy-o-lantern meads @capnjoy.bsky.social · 20/02/2026

My dog Sally is in rehearsal with me for a new play. There is a stick as a prop in this scene. Sally is paying very close attention to that storyline

Me and Sally, a little black and white puppy. Sally is laser staring at a stick on stage.

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joy-o-lantern meads @capnjoy.bsky.social · 16/01/2026

I am embarrassed at how much I’ve normalized the consistent violation of the constitution. I mean, this is the sign we made for our dog during one of the protests during trump 1. I didn’t even notice this as an example until I read Darin’s skeet below.

The sweetest little tan and white staffie (RIP Eleanor Butterball Meads-Hirata) at a protest, smiling, wearing a homemade sign that says “woof woof emoluments!”

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joy-o-lantern meads @capnjoy.bsky.social · 14/01/2026

Here are photos I personally took that day

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joy-o-lantern meads @capnjoy.bsky.social · 08/01/2026

Usually my dog sits next to me and leans, but last Saturday and today I guess she could feel my civic distress and she decided she needed to sit right on my lap. Grateful for this puppy today.

Me hugging a little black and white puppy, who is sitting in my lap and trying to soothe my civic distress

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joy-o-lantern meads @capnjoy.bsky.social · 07/01/2026

Yes! Me and my chic home painted nails it’s my hobby now—like a coloring book for adults but on my hands. Very calming

My short nails painted with a (glow in the dark!) Sparkly white color with a light blue sweater pattern stamped on top. Looking terribly chic!

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joy-o-lantern meads @capnjoy.bsky.social · 03/01/2026

My algo after seeing my internet interest in heated rivalry.

Sponsored post from some kind of Canadian immigration recruitment bureau. Friendly looking silver haired white dude in front of a Canadian flag, text reads “Canada is looking for you”

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joy-o-lantern meads @capnjoy.bsky.social · 03/01/2026

This is all wholly predictable based on how they govern. But still, the images of these villains making their decisions of where to drop their murder bombs informed only by the larger than life screens of that Nazi bot wasteland still made me cry.

The actual defense secretary sitting in what seems to be a hastily assembled SCIF making decisions about the fate of nations with a large screen behind him filled with a twitter feed. The dominant image on the feed is this emoji 🥺

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joy-o-lantern meads @capnjoy.bsky.social · 25/12/2025

Sally weighs 16 pounds and has resting “try me, asshole” face. My previous dogs, Eleanor and Rosetta Cheese, were chunky muscular pit bulls and total cream puffs.

Tiny black and white dog trying to look tough

Eleanor, a white and tan pit bull with a huge goofy smile on my face.

Rosetta Cheese, a 50 lb brindle pit bull, smiling and wearing pearls, like the friendly gentlewoman she was.

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joy-o-lantern meads @capnjoy.bsky.social · 07/11/2025

So many examples but my favorite is how, as MINORITY leader, she got trump to pass a budget that only reflected liberal priorities. Biggest increase to the NEA in my lifetime, passed under a president who loathes it.

Pelosi at a long table filled with old white men sitting. She is standing and pointing a finger at trump, who looks defensive and upset.

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joy-o-lantern meads @capnjoy.bsky.social · 07/11/2025

(This was from this morning. Comparatively mild to some of the sh*t folks have said to me. I don’t argue with bots or MAGAs, all these comments were from the left.)

Y joy meads l@capnjoy.bsky.... • 2h
Have a little grace, man.
刀企
• •
Follow
BGrib3
@bgrib3.bsky.social
What? I said thank you, but we need these old bitches ruining everything out like a decade ago!

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joy-o-lantern meads @capnjoy.bsky.social · 05/11/2025

Sally’s feeling good about tonight!

A little dog with a black face and a white body with black spots smiling a big excited smile

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joy-o-lantern meads @capnjoy.bsky.social · 05/11/2025

Do they make black and white croissants?

A little black and white puppy all curled up in a ball, looking at the camera with a bit of a sassy expression on her face.

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joy-o-lantern meads @capnjoy.bsky.social · 22/10/2025

I guess I can imagine that he didn’t know it was a Nazi tattoo when he got it but it’s impossible he never figured it out in the 20 years since, mainly due to the fact that every single person who has used the internet has seen this sketch

A still from the “are we the baddies” Mitchell & webb sketch, with the Nazi insignia very clearly displayed on the hat of the guy asking if they’re the baddies.

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joy-o-lantern meads @capnjoy.bsky.social · 16/09/2025

A book that helped get me through a particularly dark few days in American life: WHEN THE TIDES HELD THE MOON by @venessakelley.bsky.social. Rich prose, vivid detail, grounded in the actual world we live in but with a tidal pull of solidarity and hope. Oh, also it’s a boricua merman romance.

An illustration from the book, featuring a 1911 Coney Island skyline in the background and an expanse of ocean in the foreground. It’s night. The left side of the illustration is sepia toned, the right is full color, mostly the blues of night with the electric glitter of the rides in the background. In the left corner, it’s just possible to perceive the head and upper torso of two men in the water, embracing. And a the end of a merman tail just surfacing to their left

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joy-o-lantern meads @capnjoy.bsky.social · 11/09/2025

I mean, this post alone isn’t about continuing his work.

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joy-o-lantern meads @capnjoy.bsky.social · 17/08/2025

Whenever you think of Gavin Newsome, you should picture this photograph of him with his then wife KIMBERLY GILFOYLE. (Yes the same one.)

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joy-o-lantern meads @capnjoy.bsky.social · 13/08/2025

Challenge: post your last photo taken in DC to show what a hellhole it is.

A line of dramaturgs in chairs against a huge window with the sun setting behind it. Taken during a convening at Arena Stage

This one feels eerily relevant. White text carved on dark marble; from the Lincoln monument
“A house divided against itself cannot stand
I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free
I do not expect the union to be dissolved.
I do not expect the house to fall
But I do expect it will cease to be divided.

It will become
All one thing
Or all the other.

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joy-o-lantern meads @capnjoy.bsky.social · 11/08/2025

@stephenking.bsky.social just a little objective proof that NEVER FLINCH has real power. Got a cardio workout from the climax. Thank you, as always, for your writing. Holly’s at that bench now, about to have some fish tacos. Let me go see how the rest of it turns out.

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joy-o-lantern meads @capnjoy.bsky.social · 03/08/2025

Yes! From the great book “The AI Con” by @alexhanna.bsky.social and @emilymbender.bsky.social. (Seriously this book is so smart, and also unexpectedly funny for such an important non-fiction book. You should get it and read it!)

We call this type of con Al hype". Hype is not particularly new, and in fact we've been through Al hype cycles before. A characteristic of our current hype cycle is that the con men are taking a series of tropes from science fiction-of artificial minds hell-bent on turning us into paper clips or Terminators waging wars for their right to exist (and to look cool on motorcycles) —and injecting them into discussions at the highest echelons of business and government. This framing is useful to those creating the technology because it makes them appear powerful-if not godlikein their technical creation. But this belies what these technologies are doing to the rest of us: threatening stable careers and replacing them with gig work, slashing personnel in government, cheapening our social services, and degrading creativity.

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joy-o-lantern meads @capnjoy.bsky.social · 30/05/2025

Still lots of work to do, but this is the kind of thing you want to see in the show report from your first preview. #CoFounders #AmericanConservatoryTheater

2. Angel shared an audience quote she heard while heading out of the theater: "My love for the arts is reborn."

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joy-o-lantern meads @capnjoy.bsky.social · 23/05/2025

Wish I had a video of Travis dancing that tornado dance!

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joy-o-lantern meads @capnjoy.bsky.social · 23/05/2025

At my theater did a gorgeous genderfxky version of wizard of oz and our tornado was embodied by an actor whose costume def pulled from across the gender spectrum. (Directed by Sam Pinkleton designed by david Zinn) This is my crappy photo I took during tech. Only hints at the glory that was Travis.

An actor playing a tornado in a gorgeous gown with football player shoulder padding and fluorescent rainbow streamers

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joy-o-lantern meads @capnjoy.bsky.social · 14/05/2025

After months of being stonewalled on her questions about continued refusal to investigate a serial rapist, this is how the police department thought it was appropriate to discuss a prosecutor trying to do her job.

Her focus on the Williams case became a running joke in the department. Once, Dahl recalls, a colleague jokingly suggested that she serve as bait, telling her, "If you're so obsessed with this case, why don't you go have a drink at Label"—a bar where Williams was rumored to prey upon women-"and let him take you up to his apartment, then give us a call?"

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