iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Gene Seymour @geneseymour.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

As I've been lately reading Emily Wilson’s translation of “Odyssey," I’m not at all visualizing Matt Damon in the lead. You know who I do keep seeing (& hearing) as Odysseus? Idris Elba. The mere suggestion of which would have made Elon Musk’s head explode like a “Scanners” special effect.

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Gene Seymour @geneseymour.bsky.social · 24/07/2026

I'll probably have more to say about "Odyssey" (just like everybody else has in these noisy neighborhood), but for now, I'll leave it at this: If Christopher Nolan had been as goofy & ragged with Batman as he was with Homer, I'd have liked those "Dark Night" movies a whole lot more than I did.

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Gene Seymour @geneseymour.bsky.social · 09/07/2026

Nothing has become Mitch McConnell's life so much as the manner in which he's leaving it. Right? Or did I mean "Left"? Is "become" the right word? What's a gerund? What movie are they showing in the common room this evening? And will he be there?

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Gene Seymour @geneseymour.bsky.social · 31/05/2026

Back in the 1990s, I was proud to be included among a murderer's row of music critics on the masthead of FI, an audiophile magazine that gave its writers lotsa space & the freedom to do whatever they wanted. Last week's Miles Davis' centennial made me exhume this piece from 1997.

open.substack.com

Miles Lives!

Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying & Accept the Early 1970s Albums As They Were -- & Remain.

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Gene Seymour @geneseymour.bsky.social · 19/05/2026

Bomani Jones on Wemby's Game 1 performance last night, especially That Three from El Logo: "The future is here! We just saw a flying car"

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Gene Seymour @geneseymour.bsky.social · 02/03/2026

Digress all you want, Amy Madigan!!! You earned this!!! #ActorAwards2026

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Gene Seymour @geneseymour.bsky.social · 25/02/2026

Most of you may not know, remember, or even care about this not-so-long-ago history. But it was one of the first things I thought of when Jackson died & it not only bears repeating, it bears hammering.

newrepublic.com

30 Years Later, It Looks Like Jesse Jackson Won the Economic Argument

The civil rights icon’s progressive ideas were sidelined during the centrist Clinton years, but they’re ascendant in the Democratic Party today.

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Gene Seymour @geneseymour.bsky.social · 07/02/2026

Today is the 100th anniversary of Black History Month. Am I in trouble for mentioning this? substack.com/home/post/p-...

substack.com

History as an Inalienable Right

Why Every Month Should Be Black History Month

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Gene Seymour @geneseymour.bsky.social · 24/01/2026

In time for Awards Season, the latest version of my Personal Best Movies from the year I was born till now. If you're scoring, there's 6 westerns (& if you count "Yojimbo"), 3 tie finishes & as of this year, 2 Black vampire movies, neither of which, I say with mild regret, is "Blacula."

substack.com

Seymour's Movies

My List of Personal Best Movies for Every Year I've Been Alive (Ties Included, If Not Required)

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Richard M. Nixon @dicknixon.bsky.social · 07/11/2025

I'll save you a lot of reading: unless Mamdani starts taking money from Turks and roasting leprechauns - and even then - there is no way in hell Stefanik is going to win New York a year after this election in the city.

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Gene Seymour @geneseymour.bsky.social · 14/10/2025

I'd been working on this one for so long that if often felt as though I'd been writing it my whole life. In a peculiar way, maybe I have... www.thenation.com/article/arch...

thenation.com

Chester Himes’s Harlem Noirs

Himes helped reinvent the idea of the detective novel. He also transformed it into a powerful vehicle for social criticism.

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Richard M. Nixon @dicknixon.bsky.social · 02/09/2025

Belichick, you know ... it's like if I ran for Mayor of Fresno ...

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Gene Seymour @geneseymour.bsky.social · 27/08/2025

Today marks Year Four of Ferdinand's insertion into my life. Read the attached to find our what that sentence means.

geneseymour.com

In Which I Get My New Aortic Valve & Take it Out For Walks — That Gene Seymour

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Gene Seymour @geneseymour.bsky.social · 20/08/2025

Still trying to get the hang of this thing. But at least it's no longer calling itself "Gene's Substack." Baby steps.

thatgeneseymour52.substack.com

Soft-Boiled Resistance

Be Like Charles Simic (& If You Can't, Then Be-Bop)

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Gene Seymour @geneseymour.bsky.social · 15/08/2025

Oscar Peterson, the Frank Lloyd Wright of Swing, turns 100 today. And what do I mean by that analogy? This is what I mean. www.youtube.com/watch?v=agi5...

youtube.com

Kadota's Blues (Live At The London House, Chicago, 1961)

YouTube video by Oscar Peterson - Topic

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Richard M. Nixon @dicknixon.bsky.social · 22/06/2025

I do not as yet see full-blown war. They are telling Iran in private it's over. The nuclear program has likely not and will not be destroyed, but it has been set far back. I don't see the collapse of the regime, either. The region is now monumentally more unstable. This could all change in an hour.

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Gene Seymour @geneseymour.bsky.social · 21/05/2025

Lest we forget: "It's a dog-eat-dog, world, Sam and I'm wearing Milk Bone underwear." -- Norm Peterson, Boston barfly.

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Gene Seymour @geneseymour.bsky.social · 26/02/2025

8 years ago, The Thing To Do (for want of a better phrase) was to (re)read "1984" to get, I guess, a "sense" of whatever was about to, so to speak, Happen Here. Read it again, like now, & if you really want to know why it's happening again, read Orwell's "Politics & the English Language."

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Gene Seymour @geneseymour.bsky.social · 23/02/2025

Going through the motions. After March 2, it's back to Euro-Noir novels & Big East B-Ball. geneseymour.com?p=4029

geneseymour.com

Seymour Movies Thinks It’s Too Old For This Oscars Shit — That Gene Seymour

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Gene Seymour @geneseymour.bsky.social · 16/02/2025

You know a movie is great when it makes you forget who, where, & at times like this, even WHAT you are. This is a great movie. #Flowisthebestof2024

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Gene Seymour @geneseymour.bsky.social · 15/02/2025

"Common sense and a sense of humor are the same thing, moving at different speeds. A sense of humor is just common sense, dancing." Clive James

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Gene Seymour @geneseymour.bsky.social · 12/02/2025

My shiny new BookForum review of Philip Freeman's most excellent & much needed Cecil Taylor biography. www.bookforum.com/print/3103/t...

bookforum.com

Tinker Taylor

How a progressive jazz legend reconfigured the way we experience music – Gene Seymour

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Gene Seymour @geneseymour.bsky.social · 11/02/2025

Not an Oscar voter, never was, never will be, But if I were voting now for Best Picture, it would come down to either "Anora" or "Nickel Boys." If Harris had won, I'd go with Nickel Boys." But because it was The Other One, I'd go with "Anora" because it's closer to The Way Things Are Now.

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Library of America @libraryofamerica.bsky.social · 21/01/2025

“That’s not something you’ll get on the MGM backlot.” In this excerpt from our recent “LOA at the Movies” panel, film critics Mike Sragow, @selfstyledsiren.bsky.social, @geneseymour.bsky.social, and @carrierickey.bsky.social discuss the overlooked 1949 adaptation of Faulkner’s Intruder in the Dust.

youtube.com

LOA at the Movies Discusses Intruder in the Dust (1949)

YouTube video by Library of America

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Gene Seymour @geneseymour.bsky.social · 16/01/2025

"Keep your eye on the donut and not the hole." Copy that, Special Agent Cole. #RIPDavidLynch.

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Gene Seymour @geneseymour.bsky.social · 26/12/2024

If you're like me (& lots of luck if you are), you likely can't wait for this year to go away while dreading whatever's waiting for us after the...um...Ball Drops. But I can't let go off '24 without acknowledging some of the things that made me happy and/or think harder over the previous 12 months.

geneseymour.com

Gene Seymour’s Favorite Things in 2024 — That Gene Seymour

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Gene Seymour @geneseymour.bsky.social · 16/12/2024

Thought Chris Rock's latest "SNL" hosting gig felt a little off, especially the monologue -- except for one deceptively offhand reference to Elon Musk as an "African American." Don't know if anybody else noticed it, but as a Black man, I'm thinking, "Maybe it's time to (re)define our terms."

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Brian Gaar @briangaar.bsky.social · 02/12/2024

Maybe the Grinch would be nicer if every five minutes a dude wasn’t singing songs about what a piece of shit he is

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Gene Seymour @geneseymour.bsky.social · 12/12/2024

Happily gobbled up all of "Black Doves" till midnight like a tin of Christmas cookies. Emma Peel & John Steed retrofitted for the 21st century with moral ambiguities & digital spice (though no AI as yet) & its own gleeful layering of outrageous improbabilities. Cozy up!

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