iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Caustic Cover Critic @causticcovercritic.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Very big "My dad actually works at Nintendo and we have all these games that haven't been officially released" energy in this Dezső Kosztolányi story ('The Liars') from pre-WW2 Hungary

One morning, as I was walking to school with the youngest boy, he said:
"Hey," and here he stopped and stared straight into my eyes, "last night I was up on the moon with my father."
Surprise and jealousy struck me dumb.
"My father has a little electric machine," he continued.
"No bigger than a match-holder. It takes you there in two and a half minutes."

"And do you sleep there as well?"
"Of course, we have two beds on the moon."
"That's impossible," I said, and continued to question him on the means of travelling to the moon, which my friend divulged to me in detail. The words flowed from his mouth in a continuous stream, and not once did he flicker so much as an eyelid to give the game away. I started pleading with him, begging him to admit he was only having me on. But this he refused to do.
Later he informed me that Jókai's novels were in fact written by his uncle Géza.
At that time I already knew who Jókai was. My mother had seen him at the millennium ceremonies, and had often described to me his tall frame, his blue eyes, his grey wig. And then I knew Uncle Géza too. In the autumn he rattles through the city in a farm wagon, wearing a green Tyrolese hat decorated with a tuft of bristles. He hunts rabbits, and sometimes sends us one as well. I did not consider him to be as clever as Jókai, and the whole thing generally seemed quite incredible. But Károly explained that Uncle Géza writes his novels at home, sends them by post to Budapest, and has them published under Jókai's name out of modesty, Jókai being a good friend of the family; he often comes to visit them. At night, when there's no one to see.
He greeted me with news of this kind every day. One time he boasted that he had a real crocodile in the bathtub, another time that he gets a thousand koronas a week pocket-money from his mother, which he spends on keeping horses outside the city. These fibs vexed me. I resolved to tell him straight out that I knew he was lying,

but when he began to speak my courage failed me and I continued to listen to him, because I was truly interested.
"What do you usually have for breakfast?" he asked me.
"Coffee."
"We, if you please, have chocolate and raisins."
"How many rooms do you have?"
"Three."
"We have fifteen. Four rooms above, and eleven underground, so people won't see."

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Caustic Cover Critic @causticcovercritic.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Making a thing (much painting and other work to be done)

Small model derelict brownstone building with demonic red light glowing out of the windows

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Tim Howard @tmhwrd.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

[watching Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat] that’s ai

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Dan of the Year @downwithdan.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Ah yes the circle of life

• Dispatched
Sep 25 23:03 pm
In Transit
Sep 26 09:52 am
Delayed
Sep 26 10:57 am
Held By Carrier
Sep 26 15:07 pm
Destroyed
Sep 26 15:08 pm

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Caustic Cover Critic @causticcovercritic.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

doing the old "ordering a book I think there's a 20% chance I already own but I can't find it anywhere in the composted down mulch of unread books" thing, please help my children are starving etc

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Caustic Cover Critic @causticcovercritic.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

This book is such a weird one. On the micro level so many great sentences but on the macro level so dour and evasive and unenjoyable. A classic of the "it's actually probably quite good but I really didn't like it" genre.

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Caustic Cover Critic @causticcovercritic.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Somebody looking very beautiful/unhinged on her 8th birthday with her new toy

A brown labradoodle wearing a black and white bandanna, sitting on a rug that has had to be thoroughly cleaned more often than you would believe because it's the place in the house that the dogs always choose to vomit

A brown labradoodle in mid frenzy as she tries to yank a toy kangaroo out of a man's hand

a brown labradoodle chewing happily on a toy kangaroo

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Caustic Cover Critic @causticcovercritic.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

I don't know why the three simple notes at 3'07 (and repeated later) in this track reduce me to tears, I think I'm going through menopause or something www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjXF...

youtube.com

You Retreat In Time And Space

YouTube video by Boards of Canada - Topic

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Dr Ian McCormick @wokestudies.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Italian director Pier Paolo Pasolini punches a young fascist who tried to confront him outside the premiere for his film, Mamma Roma. (22 September 1962) Also my mum's birthday. We like Pasolini.

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Caustic Cover Critic @causticcovercritic.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Every now and then a publisher puts out a book that seems to be so squarely targeted at my interests that I suspect they're raided my brain. Not sure it's a great business plan for broad sales, but I'm happy. (SOVIET SCIENTIFIC INSTITUTES by Eric Lusito)

Cover of SOVIET SCIENTIFIC INSTITUTES by Eric Lusito, showing a decaying control panel and chair against an old Soviet mural

Two interior spreads from SOVIET SCIENTIFIC INSTITUTES by Eric Lusito, showing decaying exteriors of old scientific installations

Two interior spreads from SOVIET SCIENTIFIC INSTITUTES by Eric Lusito, showing decaying exteriors and interiors of old scientific installations

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Hannah Shelley, MLIS (Maggots, Lycanthropes & Ice Skeletons) @hannahshelley.site · 06/05/2025

Here's a sentiment analysis of the most versatile word in the Australian vocabulary. Hope this is helpful to our international friends.

A scientific sentiment analysis chart mapping Australian uses of the word 'cunt' across valence (positive to negative) and intensity axes. The diagram plots 16 variations including 'sick cunt', 'mad cunt', (very positive, high intensity) 'hard cunt', 'top cunt' and 'lucky cunt' (positive, high intensity), 'good cunt', 'clever cunt', 'funny cunt' (positive, lower intensity), 'soft cunt', 'lazy cunt', 'dumb cunt' (slightly negative, low intensity), 'dodgy cunt, gronk cunt, shit cunt and dead cunt', (negative, high intensity) and 'dog cunt' (very negative, high intensity). The neutral form 'CUNT' sits at the origin.

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Caustic Cover Critic @causticcovercritic.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Lemme hear you say B! (B!) O! (O!) O! (O!) Look, you get the gist

4 books
'To Smithereens' by Rosalyn Drexler
'The Membranes' by Chi Ta-Wei (trans. Ari Larissa Heinrich)
'People Like That: Collected Stories' by Agnes Owens
'Distraction' by Bruce Sterling, which I absolutely thought I already owned but can't for the life of me find anywhere

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Caustic Cover Critic @causticcovercritic.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

this is like one of those "make a book less appealing" memes, but for real

an ad for "Barry Hannah's triumphant classic ('Airships'), NOW WITH AN APPRECIATION BY RICHARD FORD" (emphasis mine)

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Caustic Cover Critic @causticcovercritic.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

And of course it would be a fucking Bob bloody Dylan book

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Caustic Cover Critic @causticcovercritic.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

Maybe because I'm a bit drunk at the moment, but based on the particularly queer-heavy Taiwanese fiction I've read (admittedly not a VAST amount) that has been translated into English, this seems a very interesting and not-wrong view: (from fivebooks.com/best-books/t...)

"The Membranes was written by a gay writer during Taiwan’s democratisation, post-martial law. The gay community was no longer taboo, and The Membranes can be called gay science fiction. Interestingly, Chi Ta-Wei considered Taiwan, homosexuality and science fiction to be the same. Taiwan had an odd existence in the world, not legitimately considered a country by the United Nations, always pushed around in world politics. Homosexuality in the 1990s was a new phenomenon, and people were trying to make people aware of its existence and the need for gay rights. Science fiction was, to Chi Ta-Wei, a very interesting metaphor. It is not hooked by the rules of mimesis. It’s a fantasy, it’s a genre that owns freedom."

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Jane Espenson @janeespenson.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

Does she understand that the bones are going to be inside her? What is she promising that dog?!

An ad for a drug that grows “new bone,” with a woman earnestly engaging with a dog who looks like it wants bones.

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Caustic Cover Critic @causticcovercritic.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

I'm enjoying this quite a bit, but all the people raving about it as a masterpiece are a bit strange. In its lurching from incident to incident, many of which don't lead anywhere, and its hectic race through the years it reminds me more than anything of Snoopy's novel.

Nelio Bidermann's LAZAR, trans. Jamie Bulloch

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Caustic Cover Critic @causticcovercritic.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

"the bing of Hiroshima", well, that's one way to put it

Promo email describing a book as "Set in 1945 between Hitler's death and bing of Hiroshima, The Second Child is a satirical thriller about one young woman's plot to outsmart the supreme dictators in a world on fire."

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Caustic Cover Critic @causticcovercritic.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

This Brian Aldiss book has an introduction by Aldiss referencing an introduction by @adamroberts.bsky.social that was only published 8 years after he (Aldiss) died. Either this edition was a LONG TIME in preparation, or some table-rapping has taken place.

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Caustic Cover Critic @causticcovercritic.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

VR FPS edition of Musil's THE MAN WITHOUT QUALITIES

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Elephant Mastodon @emath.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

Literary fiction is coming. It is going to revolutionize the economy. We know that China has already got a start on literary fiction. We can’t afford to be left out of the literary fiction economy. Think of your kids. They might already be engaging with literary fiction.

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Caustic Cover Critic @causticcovercritic.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

I've been trying for 24 hours to come up with a good joke about the covers of these 2 new releases. I'm obviously losing my powers, such as they were.

Gillian Anderson's MORE, erotica collection featuring two lemons on the cover as breasts, and Ottolenghi's SIMPLE TOO cookbook, featuring two lemons on the cover as lemons

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Caustic Cover Critic @causticcovercritic.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

Had COVID booster yesterday so the night was full of feverish dreams, including an interminable one where I invaded a true crime podcasters convention in order to argue with everyone there individually about why "liking the Pogues" was not evidence of being a serial killer.

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Caustic Cover Critic @causticcovercritic.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

Sometimes I look over from my desk and there's a peeping Tom peering in through the front windows:

Male Eastern grey kangaroo standing in a garden by a birdbath, peering in through a window at the viewer

Male Eastern grey kangaroo standing in a garden, peering in through a window at the viewer

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Caustic Cover Critic @causticcovercritic.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

Fucked around, found out (you end up with books, apparently)

6 books:
Salma el Moumni: Farewell Tangier (trans. Lynn E Palermo)
B Traven: The Death Ship & The Bridge in the Jungle
Lope de Vega: Three Major Plays (trans. Gwynne Edwards)
William Golding: Free Fall
Mai Jia: In the Dark (trans. Olivia Milburn & Christopher N Payne, though you wouldn't know it from how Penguin only acknowledges them in tiny type on the copyright page and nowhere else)

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Caustic Cover Critic @causticcovercritic.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

This new edition is of a book from well before her witless AI booster era, but I'd be very interested to know if/how much her sales have been affected by her comments. I've lost my enthusiasm for her work, and I know I'm not alone.

New Text Publishing edition of PRIMEVAL AND OTHER TIMES by Olga Tokarczuk

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Caustic Cover Critic @causticcovercritic.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

That strange, fascinating, disorienting feeling where a novel introduces you to a whole new religion/way of looking at the world you'd never encountered before, and you have to puzzle it out from context clues.

Book: 'White Moss' by Anna Nerkagi, trans. Irina Sadovina
Book is pictured in a garden on a sunny day with a brown labradoodle rampaging in the background

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Caustic Cover Critic @causticcovercritic.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

Is anyone else interested in a group read of this monstrous thing? Not sure how we'd organise it, but if people would like to be involved, let us know!

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Caustic Cover Critic @causticcovercritic.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

Sad to hear that Péter Nádas, one of the giants of modern Hungarian literature, has passed away. Embarrassingly for me, I still have his monumental (in size and stature) PARALLEL LIVES to read.

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Caustic Cover Critic @causticcovercritic.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

A strong contender in the "My T-shirt has people asking a lot of questions already answered by my shirt" field (not my photo)

someone wearing a shirt on the back of which are the words "THE ONLY THING I LIKE MORE THAN READING BOOKS IS FUCKING"

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Caustic Cover Critic @causticcovercritic.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

Finally got my disgusting little paws on this, the complete fiction and poetry of Antigone Kefala, the wonderful Romanian-Greek-New Zealander-Australian writer and allusive laureate of the migrant experience. It seems to be a limited edition, which maybe explains why it took so long to get a copy.

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Caustic Cover Critic @causticcovercritic.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

love to put on an album, just enjoy an hour of great music, plus when it's over you're one hour closer to the sweet release of death putting an end to all your problems

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Caustic Cover Critic @causticcovercritic.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

Post a picture that should be an album cover.

A small black Schnauzer dressed as a black spider and wearing an old-fashioned maid’s cap

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Caustic Cover Critic @causticcovercritic.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

Made a spectacle of myself crouching down in front of Van Gogh's 'Wheat Fields with Reaper, Auvers' to try to photograph the massive texture of the brush strokes, but, honestly, look at these motherfuckers!

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lastpositivist.bsky.social @lastpositivist.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

Now this was some DISCOURSE fuck yeah, bloody hell we have fallen from the true glory days of all fuck off with your speed cameras give me this

"There's a thread going around mocking writers who "don't read very much" and I'm trying not to haul out my soap box but... this is ableist? Not everyone can read for pleasure (or indeed at all) and some of those people are writers.

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Caustic Cover Critic @causticcovercritic.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

The excellent @andrewmale.bsky.social suggested I provide a list of actual good Father's Day book suggestions, so here are 10 "Dad-coded" books that are actually really great literary experiences.

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