iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

James Lyden @jameslyden.com · 21/09/2026

Because this is the first time the opprobrium has affected them personally. How do you get a cover photo like this and the corresponding advances if he can decide, by dint of your employer, that you aren't allowed in the room?

Jonathan Karl's book "Front Row at the Trump Show" which shows a picture of Mr Karl in the oval office with president Trump talking to him

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James Lyden @jameslyden.com · 20/09/2026

Because it's about them, and if they're not allowed in the room, how is Jonathan going to get enough material to write this?

Jonathan Karl's book, "Front Row at the Trump Show," which shows him being lectured during Trump's first term

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James Lyden @jameslyden.com · 06/09/2026

Here's the mascot, JoJo, for Chicago grocery chain Jewel Osco, a terrifying visage that looks like something you need to take antibiotics for, not purchase them from

Horrible furry creature with one eye wearing a Jewel Osco pharmacy coat and giving two thumbs up

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James Lyden @jameslyden.com · 21/08/2026

You're almost certainly thinking of Saldo

3 bottles of wine with dymo tape labels reading "Saldo"

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James Lyden @jameslyden.com · 05/08/2026

"You think all we have are the pervert glasses but we're straight up savages, yo. I got this badass tattoo but my dermatologist said I couldn't show it to you until October"

Mark Zuckerberg on a surfboard wearing so much sunscreen he could be mistaken for a mime

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James Lyden @jameslyden.com · 14/07/2026

Javier Bardem is also there and he's got a proven level of efficiency in Texas

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James Lyden @jameslyden.com · 08/07/2026

Here he is at the Chicago Pride Parade in 1993, back when Dan Savage's readers were addressing him as a slur (at his own invitation) and JB wasn't running for office. I know thinking a billionaire sharing your political views is akin to the stripper really liking you, but he's as good as you can get

Current governor of Illinois JB Pritzker holding a sign reading "Fighting for Your Rights" with the caption "1993, JB Pritzker at the Pride Parade"

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James Lyden @jameslyden.com · 26/06/2026

This is where I tell myself "bummer about the minimal personal charisma part"

My closest match is Zohran Mamdani, Mayor of New York City

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James Lyden @jameslyden.com · 18/06/2026

When they clinched on Saturday and announced the parade on Thursday with the holiday weekend, I started wondering if there was a Knicks equivalent of this

Top reads 1st - 26th Dec above a smiling figure in a Santa hat, below the stick figure it reads "Festive."

Next panel over the top reads 27th Dec - 31st Dec above a stick figure wearing a puzzled expression and holding a wedge of yellow cheese. Below the stick figure it reads "Confused, Full of cheese, Unsure of the day of the week."

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James Lyden @jameslyden.com · 14/06/2026

I had this poster on my wall when I was a kid. Given that Charles has earned this celebration, I hope they get it done tonight

Charles Oakley standing at the front of a Chicago Transit Authority "El" train with the caption "For a Fast Break, Rebound from O'Hare with the CTA"

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James Lyden @jameslyden.com · 07/06/2026

The most IYKYK Blackhawks jersey there is

Chicago Blackhawks Scott Foster #90 jersey

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James Lyden @jameslyden.com · 03/06/2026

Breaking news from Rep. Kean:

Tweet thanking primary voters from Congressman Tom Kean, who hasn't been seen in months, with "every day I wake up" circled in red

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James Lyden @jameslyden.com · 31/05/2026

I'm picturing him being airdropped into Tehran in this outfit to perform for a stunned and bewildered audience

Vanilla Ice in a red white and blue glitter based outfit, with large baggy pants and prominent shoulder pads, exhorting an audience to cheer

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James Lyden @jameslyden.com · 24/05/2026

So soon to use a reaction image from a data center protest that took place today but I think this one's going to get a workout

Protestors holding signs saying "WE DON'T WANT THIS" and "FUCK YOU"

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James Lyden @jameslyden.com · 21/05/2026

Quote with a fictional band that is not Spinal Tap

The Wonders/Oneders, from "That Thing You Do!"

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James Lyden @jameslyden.com · 07/05/2026

I've seen this concept before

A still from Bill Watterson's comic strip "Calvin and Hobbes" in which Calvin is drawing a graph entitled "Dad Performance" on an easel with a downward trend so sharp that he has to add extra sheets of paper while Calvin's father looks on bemusedly

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James Lyden @jameslyden.com · 02/05/2026

They just showed him on the broadcast and it reminded me of this

A Far Side cartoon in which three deputies are running out of a building reading "Sheriff" with a caption of "Looks like the bank's been hit again. Well, no hurry - we'll take the big horse." On the left side of the panel is a horse so large that only the right rear leg is visible to the top of the building

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James Lyden @jameslyden.com · 29/04/2026

Penn Jillette, September 1994

Most of the way down to Atlantic City, we talk about interactive entertainment. Penn says it'll never work. Entertainment movies, theater, music, art - boils down to the performer, not the audience, being in control.

"Technology adds nothing to art," he says. "Two thousand years ago, I could tell you a story, and at any point during the story I could stop, and ask, Now, do you want the hero to be kidnapped, or not?" But that would, of course, have ruined the story. Part of the experience of being entertained is sitting back and plugging into someone else's vision.

"The fact of the matter is, since the beginning of time, you could buy a Picasso and change the colors. That's trivial. But you don't because you're buying a piece of Picasso's fucking soul. That's the definition of art: "Art is one person's ego trip."

Penn says he and Teller "have been offered a huge amount of money and a huge amount of technology to do interactive shit. We have turned them down. Not that the technology wasn't up to snuff, but because we don't have any ideas."

"The whole fucking world is pretending the breakthrough is in technology," he says, as we whiz by the Blade Runner-like landscape of New Jersey oil refineries. "The bottleneck is really in art."

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James Lyden @jameslyden.com · 13/04/2026

Behold my son's basset hound puppy Goober, unbearably excited to see everyone as they got home

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James Lyden @jameslyden.com · 27/03/2026

Did it specifically for that reason!

An email from the Wikipedia Foundation acknowledging a donation

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James Lyden @jameslyden.com · 07/02/2026

Still one of my favorite stories about any artist

From Wikipedia: "[Mark] Morrison later was incarcerated in Wormwood Scrubs for a year for paying a lookalike (Gabriel Maferika) to perform his court-appointed community service in his stead, while Morrison himself went on tour."

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James Lyden @jameslyden.com · 26/01/2026

Exhibit B - Billy Beane describing Lenny Dykstra in Michael Lewis's "Moneyball"

$"Physically, Lenny didn't belong in the same league with him. He was half Billy's size and had a fraction of Billy's promise - which is why the Mets hadn't drafted him until the 13th round. Mentally, Lenny was superior, which was odd, considering Lenny wasn't what you'd call a student of the game. Billy remembers sitting with Lenny in a Mets dugout watching the opposing pitcher warm up. 'Lenny says, "So who's that big dumb ass out there on the hill?" And I say, "Lenny, you're kidding me, right? That's Steve Carlton. He's maybe the greatest left-hander in the history of the game." Lenny says, "Oh, yeah! I knew that!" He sits there for a minute and says, "So, what's he got?" And I say, "Lenny, come on. Steve Carlton. He's got heat and also maybe the nastiest slider ever." And Lenny sits there for a while longer as if he's taking that in. Finally he just says, "Shit, I'll stick him." I'm sitting there thinking, that's a magazine cover out there on the hill and all Lenny can think is that he'll stick him." The point about Lenny, at least to Billy, was clear: Lenny didn't let his mind screw him up. The physical gifts required to play pro ball were, in some ways, less extraordinary than the mental ones. Only a psychological freak could approach a 100-mph fastball aimed not all that far from his head with total confidence. "Lenny was so perfectly designed, emotionally, to play the game of baseball," said Billy. "He was able to instantly forget any failure and draw strength from every success. He had no concept of failure. And he had no idea where he was. And I was the opposite."$

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James Lyden @jameslyden.com · 25/01/2026

Ah yes, the Corey Wootton Special

Welfare cheat and sex pest Brett Favre is shown lying prone on the field after Chicago's Corey Wootton flung him to the ground so hard that his head hit the turf and concussed him, sparing us yet another summer of speculation about whether or not he would return

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James Lyden @jameslyden.com · 11/01/2026

Similar energy when Bette Midler was a guest

Krusty the Clown explaining to Bart and Lisa Simpson "Bette and I owned a racehorse together - Krudler."

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James Lyden @jameslyden.com · 28/12/2025

This is a White Sox Charities license plate in the Chicago suburbs reading ENNUI, and if there's a better description of being a fan of a team that's lost over 400 games in the last four years I'm not sure what it could be

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James Lyden @jameslyden.com · 15/12/2025

People older than commonly available cell phones sneering about "I didn't HAVE that when I was a kid and we were fine" and I remember how kids used to get in fights over whose turn it was to play with this. What would happened If someone had shown up with a tablet playing Angry Birds?

A Mattel electronic football game with red calculator dots and six marginally functional buttons, the height of kid consumer technology in 1977

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James Lyden @jameslyden.com · 29/11/2025

"You...took your shoes off? In a confined space that you're sharing with strangers in close proximity? Why would you think that's... acceptable?"

Pope Leo standing in the aisle of an airplane, holding a baseball bat and speaking with a passenger

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James Lyden @jameslyden.com · 21/11/2025

the greatest team name in all of sports is the alternative identity of the San Antonio Missions, the San Antonio Flying Chanclas, commemorating that magical time when your beloved grandmother threw a shoe at you

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James Lyden @jameslyden.com · 10/11/2025

I always think of this when I start thinking that

Cartoon in which a character says "I want things to be different", proceeds to wreck everything with a baseball bat, then says "oh no" amidst the resultant destruction

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James Lyden @jameslyden.com · 02/09/2025

Assorted White Sox, competent and not, and one guy with the Cubs nicknamed The Octopus because he had six fingers on each hand

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James Lyden @jameslyden.com · 02/09/2025

Assorted White Sox, competent and not, and one guy with the Cubs nicknamed The Octopus because he had six fingers on each hand

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