iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

John Raimo @johnraimo.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Bravo! Very much looking forward to reading the whole book one day soon.

John Raimo @johnraimo.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

Imagining what a family and friend "pun-oholics anonymous" intervention would look like for you, Ben. Thinking bouncy castles, children happily playing, lovely weather, great food and huge outdoor tables to accommodate your loved ones, laughter, and a desperate attempt to keep the microphone hidden.

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John Raimo @johnraimo.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Just a quick note on this score but Wolf published an American edition of his autobiography "Man Without a Face" (not to be mistaken with the 1993 Mel Gibson movie ...) in 1997 with Time Books. (Never heard of them, either.) The "Troika" book seems to have been first out in 1989 (DE; Aufbau Verlag).

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John Raimo @johnraimo.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

How many first generation AfD leaders descended from displaced East Prussian aristocracy is ... kinda nuts as well.

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John Raimo @johnraimo.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

Also: slightly inconveniencing the accumulation of generational wealth through unhinged capitalism > global warming, civilizational collapse, &c. Mean to soon read Astra Taylor and Naomie Klein's latest on this score ....

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John Raimo @johnraimo.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

I've tried to explain this to non-German friends and colleagues, only to be met with disbelief that such people are even still around ....

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John Raimo @johnraimo.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

(Also the weirdos who *only* read Shakespeare / Austen / Milton / George Eliot / Celan / Goethe / Dante, &c. alone without any synchronic interest in other period writers or diachronic sense of wonder and hermeneutic savvy—often valuing some notion of 'one-author' philological mastery? Ignore them!)

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John Raimo @johnraimo.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

A favorite quote: "The remarkable thing about Shakespeare is that he really is very good, in spite of all the people who say he is very good" (Robert Graves). Not an anti-Brandom sentiment! Just a reminder to always go back and read the thing itself despite fellow, sometimes awful mortals gushing.

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John Raimo @johnraimo.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

Rather love that the Kyle Saunders figure mentioned is a political scientist (*ahem* coughs any historian anywhere) interested in quantitative research methods .... Cue the Upton Sinclair quote, "everything looks like a nail if you only have a hammer," side consulting gigs, donor classes, &c. 🤢

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John Raimo @johnraimo.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

'National bourgeois,' no? 🙃 (Had to look it up, myself; neat word!)

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John Raimo @johnraimo.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

I distinctly recall Kushner making public claims for rationing ventilators in 'blue states' (and NYC) during the first stages of the pandemic.

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John Raimo @johnraimo.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

It's been more than disheartening to see certain figures putatively on the 'centrist' left suggest that, push come to shove, they'll have no choice but to effectively opt for fascism as opposed to slightly higher corporate and capital gains taxes (which enjoy democratic pluralities in polling).

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John Raimo @johnraimo.bsky.social · 08/08/2026

Do you know of Jindřich Štyrský's work, by any chance? This collaboration with Jindřich Heisler is wonderful (translation courtesy of the amazing @twistedspoon.bsky.social), as is his "Emilie Comes to Me in a Dream" ("Emilie přichází ke mně ve snu"): www.twistedspoon.com/needles-of-t....

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John Raimo @johnraimo.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

This is wonderfully done! 👏 Bravo!

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John Raimo @johnraimo.bsky.social · 02/08/2026

Just going to throw out as a fellow Walter Murch fan that he has a great new(ish) book out with Faber: www.faber.co.uk/product/9780.... Had no clue he did a recut (?) of that Welles film, however!

faber.co.uk

Suddenly Something Clicked: The Languages of Film Editing and Sound Design

The triple-Oscar winner of the Godfather films, Apocalypse Now and The English Patient presents a masterclass on movies and how they are made.

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John Raimo @johnraimo.bsky.social · 25/07/2026

Something to be said for a history of the 'thesis statement' (vs. research questions) in American secondary & higher education, not to mention competition with 'hard sciences.' This also disfigures some higher-end history in terms of punchy hypotheses conflated with 'revisionary' impact & novelty.

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John Raimo @johnraimo.bsky.social · 24/07/2026

To put it briefly and bluntly: the quality of the interview was shockingly poor, viz. almost insouciantly lazy, deferential, and exculpatory. The journal's editor-in-chief asked a few 'hard' questions and—oh, okay, moving along—had no follow-ups or even cordial interrogations. Just an embarrassment.

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John Raimo @johnraimo.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

I hope you do write about Gibbon! I'll risk an inarticulate comment and say something about his project, writing style, and the guy's character brings out the best in other writers and scholars. (Writing recently for the NYT, Charles King (Georgetown) seems to be writing a reception history, too?)

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John Raimo @johnraimo.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

This unlike my white-whale of big French reading projects: Colette. Even her 'Claudine' books—the huge bestsellers—are just a step above my grasp of the language! Chateaubriand by comparison is a pussycat batting around the passé simple. Go figure. 🤷🏻‍♂️ My own next big project? Walter Kempowski. 🤦🏻‍♂️🤦🏻‍♂️🤦🏻‍♂️

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John Raimo @johnraimo.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

Chateaubriand is just like Proust and other (predominantly French)men lacking an editor 🙃: the trick is just breaking it up over years and not reading too much of the same rich prose at once. It's fascinating how the narrative/authorial loop changes over time. And the French is not too difficult!

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John Raimo @johnraimo.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

(Similarly great reading project to break up over years: Gibbon unabridged. One of the singular intellectual privileges of my life, longueurs and all. The whack-a-mole section on Athanasius is also Looney Tunes avant la lettre, and most people never find out how great the Byzantine stuff is. 🙃)

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John Raimo @johnraimo.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

Oh, this sounds stunning. Thanks for the recommendation, immediately adding to my lists! (Unrelatedly, just bought your colleague Ann Blair's latest out today: press.princeton.edu/books/hardco...)

press.princeton.edu

In the Scholar’s Workshop

The hidden hands behind history’s great scholarly works

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John Raimo @johnraimo.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

Oh, and the first volume will have Chateaubriand's very worked up accounts of visiting America, allegedly cavorting about with Native Americans, meeting Washington, and writing "Atala," too.

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John Raimo @johnraimo.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

(Reading the original over four years is one of my best readerly experiences, unrelatedly. What a gorgeous stylist; what a sophisticated theorist of experience and of narrative; what a political/religious, hyperbolic weirdo! Fumaroli is unsurprisingly great on Chateaubriand, too.)

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John Raimo @johnraimo.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

Just to back this up: the New York Review Books has an ongoing, multipart translation of Chateaubriand's memoirs; cf. www.nyrb.com/products/mem.... Can't vouch for them, myself, but I hear good things about the translation.

nyrb.com

Memoirs from Beyond the Grave: 1768-1800

Written over the course of four decades, François-René de Chateaubriand’s epic autobiography has drawn the admiration of Baudelaire, Flaubert, Proust, Barthes, and Sebald. Alex Andriesse's English tra...

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John Raimo @johnraimo.bsky.social · 18/07/2026

Big fan of @ottiliemulzet.bsky.social's work in general; this will be a treat!

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John Raimo @johnraimo.bsky.social · 17/07/2026

Awesome! Excited to read this soon. And god, Seagull Books are just the best Anglophone publisher going these days ....

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John Raimo @johnraimo.bsky.social · 07/07/2026

Cf. www.nytimes.com/2017/08/11/o...

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John Raimo @johnraimo.bsky.social · 05/07/2026

Woah, cool! Will (eventually) give it a peek. Sounds a bit like Antoine Volodine's or Vladimir Sorokin's work, not to mention Anna Kavan's novel of the same title. (This is a compliment!)

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John Raimo @johnraimo.bsky.social · 05/07/2026

Dare I ask which novel ...? Guessing "Genji," something from Hugo, or "Schattenfroh." :-)

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John Raimo @johnraimo.bsky.social · 03/07/2026

The haircut is very ... mid-twentieth century. (...) (...)

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John Raimo @johnraimo.bsky.social · 02/07/2026

My diaries note Kushner using the phrase "blue states" on this score, and yet haven't been able to easily find records of this. Almost thought I was the only one to remember this.

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John Raimo @johnraimo.bsky.social · 30/06/2026

For colleagues in #bookhistory and #history. 🗃️ Please read Anthony's work if you haven't yet; it's a wonderful legacy he left us all.

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John Raimo @johnraimo.bsky.social · 30/06/2026

Oh god. What a wonderful scholar and lovely, generous man. I wanted to collaborate with Anthony, interview him on his last book, and keep learning from him for years to come. He was so young and had so much more to share with the world. Just utterly, utterly tragic.

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John Raimo @johnraimo.bsky.social · 29/06/2026

Waiting for a follow-up reference to "Ecco the Dolphin" now ....

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John Raimo @johnraimo.bsky.social · 29/06/2026

(Perhaps a somewhat heartening anecdote to a sad story but I bought up tons and tons of Litz's books at Micawber, assiduously read them and his occasional marginalia .... Then Ron Bush and Donald Brown, who you may know, told me the whole story. Just tragic.)

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John Raimo @johnraimo.bsky.social · 29/06/2026

I was an undergrad who finished up in 2008. Most of the 'old(er) guard' had moved on by then. Michael Wood was my BA advisor and I enjoyed taking classes with Michael Cadden, Jeff Dolven, &c. Yet I have to confess Pton was an awful experience; only John and Tony Grafton (barely) salvaged my career.

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John Raimo @johnraimo.bsky.social · 29/06/2026

I got to know Roche a bit, too, and managed to speak with both Schorske (!) and Kennan (!!) once. I regret never getting to meet Gossman, though, or taking a class with Corngold or Peter Brown (though I could have slipped in their last undergrad courses). Also heard stories about A. Walton Litz ....

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John Raimo @johnraimo.bsky.social · 29/06/2026

If there are any monographs out there on this score, I'd love the references!

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John Raimo @johnraimo.bsky.social · 28/06/2026

Should add that, ideally, this would be great. But I saw at firsthand how Robby George and a few other poor-faith rightwing actors (that's really the crux of it!) instrumentalized dialogue to launder *a priori* far-right politics, unscientific beliefs, and more in a dizzying sort of relativism. ☹️

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John Raimo @johnraimo.bsky.social · 27/06/2026

I love how especially susceptible American rightwingers are to imagining that a posh British accent—real or otherwise—implies competence (cf. Will Lewis at the Washington Post).

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John Raimo @johnraimo.bsky.social · 26/06/2026

I liked Morten Høi Jensen's recent book (yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300...), then Thomas Sparr published a lovely longer essay on the same just a while ago, too (www.berenberg-verlag.de/buecher/zaub...). Just for starters!

yalebooks.yale.edu

The Master of Contradictions

The arresting story of how Thomas Mann wrote The Magic Mountain as a defeated Germany descended into political chaos“Jensen brings to the subject the bread...

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John Raimo @johnraimo.bsky.social · 26/06/2026

One way to think of Douthat is as a good ol' pile of thumbs in a trenchcoat masquerading as a public intellectual. Just nothing but thumbs all the way down.

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John Raimo @johnraimo.bsky.social · 26/06/2026

I vaguely recall Douthat possessing a veneer of restraint and deniability, so to speak, during Trump I but now it's basically just traditionalist Catholicism and "this is why I deserve an elven second-wife" all the time.

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John Raimo @johnraimo.bsky.social · 17/06/2026

I knew them both well. MS was a big-fish-from-a-little-pond overwhelmed by Princeton. Basically an ideological vacuum at first, could have gone Obamian with the right internship. Had an identity driven by consumption, e.g. vinyl, &c. Scharf is an infinitely sadder case. He was a good kid back then.

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John Raimo @johnraimo.bsky.social · 16/06/2026

I think I'm on the record already saying this but I knew Schmitz well in college; he's a wannabe intellectual thug; and he's an acolyte of Robby George (of course). He's an intellectual runner-up to Sherif Girgis, basically, and the Catholic supremacism's dogsbody with a textbook Backpfeifengesicht.

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John Raimo @johnraimo.bsky.social · 15/06/2026

(You can throw in de Certeau here, too, even if—gah—the most famous essay of his on reading as bricolage is by far a weaker piece in his oeuvre. But 'the classics' *and* contemporary writing? Fireworks! 🎆)

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