iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Greg Jarrell @gregjarrell.com · 23/09/2026

Two photos for Trane's 100th birthday: One from the building where he was born, the other a mural several blocks away. Hamlet, NC

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Greg Jarrell @gregjarrell.com · 19/09/2026

A couple of recent action shots.

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Greg Jarrell @gregjarrell.com · 16/09/2026

Two Annie Dillard books are lodged permanently in my head: The Writing Life and Holy the Firm. I hear these texts when I'm writing and turn to them often.

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Greg Jarrell @gregjarrell.com · 12/09/2026

Look who is being honored in my neighborhood coffee shop. #blessed

A handsome man playing saxophone (it's me) with long locks blowing in the wind. The photo is printed and framed with a caption reading "customer of the month."

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Greg Jarrell @gregjarrell.com · 10/09/2026

My friends and colleagues killing it out here in Charlotte. (The tune is Stevie Wonder's 'Visions.') We're plating a couple nights in Boone, NC this weekend if you're around.

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Greg Jarrell @gregjarrell.com · 05/09/2026

A few other shots from Houston's historic Third Ward.

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Greg Jarrell @gregjarrell.com · 05/09/2026

I walked a lot of miles through Houston today. Landed at Project Row House's, which I cannot commend highly enough. Social practice artists doing incredible work.

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Greg Jarrell @gregjarrell.com · 05/09/2026

Greetings from Houston. Got off the plane 48 hours ago, have not stopped sweating since.

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Greg Jarrell @gregjarrell.com · 27/08/2026

Tressie, the column is excellent, and this right here made the hairs on my neck stand up:

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Greg Jarrell @gregjarrell.com · 26/08/2026

This week has started rough, so it was nice to be reminded this morning of past parenting wins.

Screenshot of Facebook update from Aug 26, 2016 by Greg Jarrell:
Boys singing classic Sesame Street songs, replacing key lyrics with genitalia words. Summer delirium has set in.

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Greg Jarrell @gregjarrell.com · 20/08/2026

Little guy is 47 today, can't sit like that anymore.

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Greg Jarrell @gregjarrell.com · 18/08/2026

Hysterical. Your post was the perfect fusion of that one plus this classic:

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Greg Jarrell @gregjarrell.com · 15/08/2026

We had a neighborhood gathering last night in memory of Khalil, a young man killed in 2012 at only 13 years old.

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Greg Jarrell @gregjarrell.com · 14/08/2026

Now you wait just a minute... (From www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...)

Trump's vice president was a writer before he was a politician, and brought a writer's vices with him: a titanic but fragile ego, limitless self-interest amd threat for adulation, an unsleeping vigilance fornany slight.

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Greg Jarrell @gregjarrell.com · 13/08/2026

These ladies were rolling crates of puppies around Mount Holly, NC yesterday, and asking people to pet them. I would like to thank everyone involved for their service.

Two women pulling crates of golden doodle puppies down a brick sidewalk in a small town business district.

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Greg Jarrell @gregjarrell.com · 02/08/2026

It's James Baldwin's birthday. Here's a scorching passage from the essay "On Being White...and Other Lies."

And have brought humanity to the edge of oblivion: because they think they are white. Because they think they are white, they dare not confront the ravage and the lie of their history. Because they think they are white, they cannot allow themselves to be tormented by the suspicion that all men are brothers. Because they think they are white, they are looking for, or bombing into existence, stable population, cheerful natives, and cheap labor. Because they think they are white, they believe, as even no child believes, in the dream of safety. Because they think they are white, however vociferous they may be and however multitudinous, they are as speechless as Lot’s wife–looking backward, changed into a pillar of salt.

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Greg Jarrell @gregjarrell.com · 31/07/2026

Now in stock at your neighborhood Aldi

Boxes in grocery store freezer reading "frozen ice cubes." Price marker says $2.49

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Greg Jarrell @gregjarrell.com · 30/07/2026

Ella Baker share.google/6QIhdvHt2Vrh...

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Greg Jarrell @gregjarrell.com · 28/07/2026

Recent and current reading stack.

Stack of books in front of a mustard yellow wall. James Baldwin votive candle peeking around the edge.
Books from top to bottom are:
Travelling while Black--Nanjala Nyabola
City of Quartz--Mike Davis
The Anarchy of Black Religion--J. Kameron Carter
Affordable Housing in Charlotte--Tom Hanchett
The Jazz Ear--Ben Ratliff
The Most Secret Memory of Men--Mohamed Mbougar Sarr
They Stole a City--Lauren Collins

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Greg Jarrell @gregjarrell.com · 27/07/2026

Mr. Stripey tomatoes picked today. Big ones, perfect for this sandwich I'm about to eat.

Two large tomatoes, red with yellow striping from the blossom end extending up

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Greg Jarrell @gregjarrell.com · 26/07/2026

They got a whole clothing section at Lowe's now?

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Greg Jarrell @gregjarrell.com · 24/07/2026

Collard greens and red wine on the front porch tonight (until the mosquitoes run me back inside).

The view from the front porch, where a bowl of greens, a Mason jar of red wine, and a potted plant sit on a glass-top table.

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Greg Jarrell @gregjarrell.com · 24/07/2026

Backyard chicken folks, take a victory lap and post a picture of your birds.

Three gray hens and one brown one behind a pig wire fence, in front of a bright blue coop.

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Greg Jarrell @gregjarrell.com · 21/07/2026

Finally caught up to Jimothy's east coast cousin, dropping him off now in his new home across the Catawba River, far from my chicken coop.

Raccoon in a cage. He has a look of mischief in his eyes, which I assume is the result of evading capture for several weeks.

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Greg Jarrell @gregjarrell.com · 15/07/2026

NC road trip continues with a stop at Grady's, a historic eastern NC barbecue spot. Black-owned. Amazing pork and sides.

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Greg Jarrell @gregjarrell.com · 15/07/2026

On pilgrimage with my oldest son. Hamlet, NC.

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Greg Jarrell @gregjarrell.com · 09/07/2026

When the lady wants buttermilk biscuits for breakfast, the lady gets buttermilk biscuits.

A pan of hot buttermilk biscuits, fresh out of the oven, on an old, well-used baking g sheet.

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Greg Jarrell @gregjarrell.com · 07/07/2026

And the inexplicable trumpet with 13 bells and 8 valves.

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Greg Jarrell @gregjarrell.com · 07/07/2026

The simpler saxotromba....

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Greg Jarrell @gregjarrell.com · 07/07/2026

A six valve trombone....

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Greg Jarrell @gregjarrell.com · 07/07/2026

The Belgians are good at soccer and waffles. You know what else they've given the world? Adolphe Sax, inventor of odd musical instruments. Let's take a quick tour. Here's a four valve trumpet...