iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

James Anear @jamesanear.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

My poetry debut will be in the Yesterday Review, look forward to it.

James Anear @jamesanear.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Poetry magazine cover branding changes look like, according to my designer friend, "Chobani slop." Couldn't agree more. Shame to see it go like this.

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James Anear @jamesanear.bsky.social · 05/08/2026

Someone stole my package of a Japanese textbook. Enjoy studying?

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James Anear @jamesanear.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

You know you're deep into an author's work when you start reading arguments about translation quality. I was curious why there were so many tonal changes in my No Longer Human copy, turns out the arguments about this particular translator (Keene) are endless. I might pick up a Gibeau copy.

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James Anear @jamesanear.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

Book translation work is fascinating... the original, vs my (probably bad) translation of the second sentence, vs an official translation. I had no idea translators took so many liberties?? Both in style and content.

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James Anear @jamesanear.bsky.social · 01/08/2026

Finished reading these two today. Really enjoyed the short story collection in the White Nights special edition. I didn't expect to enjoy it as much as I did. The Siken book took me forever to get through, because it was so good I kept taking a long time to read each poem carefully. Loved both.

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James Anear @jamesanear.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

Always complaining that I can't read books in Japanese well, so I bought a few Dazai books in Japanese to force myself to learn. I'll just go page by page.

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James Anear @jamesanear.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

She has access to the nuclear codes

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James Anear @jamesanear.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

I'd rather we get false positives for AI on Substack vs like the enslopification run wild like it has. Even if my writing got a false flag, I'd prefer that to BS unfiltered slop spam.

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James Anear @jamesanear.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

Right after this photo she started trying to eat the Murakami library book

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James Anear @jamesanear.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

Yes she is so very pretty!!!

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James Anear @jamesanear.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

Review for Real World is up open.substack.com/pub/jamesane...

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James Anear @jamesanear.bsky.social · 26/07/2026

Officially adopted my kitty, Lady!! I took this photo for the rescue to use on their website ❤️

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James Anear @jamesanear.bsky.social · 26/07/2026

The Chinese spines do look pretty interesting, I bet they have great covers. Book design in East Asia is pretty good overall

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James Anear @jamesanear.bsky.social · 26/07/2026

Lobotomizing my phone was a fantastic decision. I spend so much less time on it, and instead do other things. Like reading or playing with the cat.

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James Anear @jamesanear.bsky.social · 26/07/2026

Which is your favorite translation of your work? I see a few on there.

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James Anear @jamesanear.bsky.social · 26/07/2026

I use Edge for browsing and microslop keeps your new tab page hostage with their MSN news site. It was always making me mad with various ragebait news articles. So, I switched the language to Chinese a while ago and it's working great. I can't understand a word of this.

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James Anear @jamesanear.bsky.social · 26/07/2026

I'm glad I stopped going to the overpriced cafes nearby and instead have been reading at the library. I'm saving money and I get to look at the ocean LOL.

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James Anear @jamesanear.bsky.social · 26/07/2026

I finished it! I really liked it, I'll write a review about it after having some time to think more

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James Anear @jamesanear.bsky.social · 24/07/2026

Woke up to this little hog snoring next to me

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James Anear @jamesanear.bsky.social · 23/07/2026

Went and read at the library today, it's nice because they have a view of the ocean

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James Anear @jamesanear.bsky.social · 23/07/2026

my cat changed my mind on the cover thing because I realized there's nothing cuter than a cat standing on top of a book that says "I am a cat"

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James Anear @jamesanear.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

Quickly snapped a photo because the book she's on was too perfect!

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James Anear @jamesanear.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

Anti-design book cover project continues

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James Anear @jamesanear.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

Yes she is!! I love her so much!!

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James Anear @jamesanear.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

Everything but Olga because of the AI thing hahaha. I enjoyed the writing style of Hurricane Season a lot, too

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James Anear @jamesanear.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

My "anti-design" concept isn't that graphic design is evil, only that it's been hijacked by advertising and commercialism. Every logo becomes an advertisement. Every font. Even illustration work becomes advertisement. How can we undo this? It's a question worth pondering.

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James Anear @jamesanear.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

Continuing my "anti-design" experiments: removing/obscuring labels on products. Makes me consider if the product itself is doing the work rather than the marketing. So far already realized there are some skin care products I kept around because they looked expensive, but I was not using them.

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James Anear @jamesanear.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

Experimenting with a new concept called "anti-design." For books, this means wrapping them in white paper and assigning them a number. Then you search for the number to identify it. This is to attempt to make it so the book is solely judged on content rather than graphic design (advertising) choices