iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

this, more than anything, is why i fell out of love with anglophone chart pop circa 2017: soca, dembow, kuduro, favela funk, coupé-décalé, bouyon, amapiano, reparto, etc. may have their limitations but at least they’re good for dancing to

the pax britannica of the 19th century, built out of the wreckage of revolutions and on the back of paleocolonialism, was followed by the pax americana of the twentieth, built out of the wreckage of world war and on the back of neocolonialism. further wreckage looms now, with no pax foreseeable

372

related: i've been seeing people mourn the disappearance of silky-voiced male romantics from modern r&b, but i'm pleased to report that the style still survives quite strongly in konpa, bachata, afropiano, and kizomba

1112

my own particular excuse for not having paid much attention to u.s. pop phenomena this decade is that i’ve been too busy trying to keep up with developments in latin american, african and caribbean pop, and i figure that plenty of my peers have the u.s. (and other imperial cores) covered already

150

got a new like on this so i revisited it. holds up, imo

BrowseTheStacks @browsethestacks.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Reposted by J Bogart

The DC Comics Covers Of Jeffrey Catherine Jones

0206

Reposted by J Bogart

J Bogart @jonathanbogart.net · 27/09/2026

if you're going to see one 2026 movie with a strong visual aesthetic about limited horizons in the philippines and centered on relationships between young women, see Filipiñana. but if you're going to see two, this one is good too boxd.it/gvCMkL

boxd.it

A ★★★★ review of Forgotten Island (2026)

when i saw coyote v. acme a few weeks ago a few trailers went into the memory banks for maybe seeing someday, among them the one for this post-spiderverse filipino fantasy. and then today i felt the n...

0123

third show in three days, almost like i’m not a hermit for whom money is getting tight. but i am old enough that i got a balcony seat instead of standing on the floor.

A photograph of the empty pre-show stage at Thalia Hall from an upper left balcony. Guitars and effects pedals are set up on stage right, a dense percussion ensemble on stage left, and in the center a single microphone stand, with an acoustic guitar on a rest behind. Lights are busy, purples and pinks.

Neglected Books @neglectedbooks.com · 27/09/2026

Reposted by J Bogart

"One rarely comes across a book that has both guts and charm, but this one has," Langston Hughes wrote of Helen Bevington's When Found, Make a Verse of. "The people who discovered it then loved it ... a going-back-to-book to open almost anywhere for sheer pleasure." neglectedbooks.com/?...

0174

Reposted by J Bogart

Anthony Cougar Miccio @anthonymiccio.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

I feel like that would be a smart move for people boggling at pop music ignorance - are you sure your parents could name and recognize the number one song that week when they were your age now? If so, why? Were they outliers?

291

J Bogart @jonathanbogart.net · 27/09/2026

as primarily a twentieth-centuryist this is certainly a tempting view to take (although i can similarly imagine medievalists taking issue with classicists about the analogy)

051

J Bogart @jonathanbogart.net · 27/09/2026

boxd.it

A ★★★★ review of Forgotten Island (2026)

0123

second show of the weekend, going from jazz shakespeare to ballet molnár

The pre-show stage of the Chicago Lyric Opera, featuring a large gray screen with the image of a window broken into it, through which can be seen clouds and sky. The vast proscenium with many gilded decorations dominates the photo, as it is taken from quite far back on the main floor.

150

my ballot was too stuffed with the americas to include any african artists: maybe yours can rectify that

010

thread about the week’s best new music drop

051

Chuck Eddy @chuckeddytor.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

going on fourteen years in chicago, second time visiting navy pier (and first time of my own volition)

A photograph of the curtained stage at the Chicago Shakespeare Theater before a performance, taken from a house left balcony. There are still many empty seats in the pit, and those who are seated are almost exclusively white and elderly. The curtain is deep red and heavily swagged (a term I had to look up), with a broad spotlight on the upper center.

160

Reposted by J Bogart

Though the anniversary is inexplicably rarely celebrated or even acknowledged, yesterday was in fact the 38th anniversary of “Cars With the Boom” hitting the Billboard Hot 100. In observance of that pivotal pop culture moment, a review of Bunny & Tigra’s second and best album I wrote a year later.

chuckeddy.substack.com

L’Trimm review, 1989

Preceded by Frank Kogan’s explanation of why I = Tigra and he = Bunny

0112

J Bogart @jonathanbogart.net · 25/09/2026

"Cuban Olivia Rodrigo" would be reductive but not necessarily inaccurate: alt-rock guitar is the first sound on the album, but she quickly moves into digital clave dance forms, including reggaeton and reparto, as well as more smeary, uncategorizable beats.

160

J Bogart @jonathanbogart.net · 25/09/2026

hard out here for someone who stopped making even a token effort to keep up with tv somewhere around the time netflix started streaming, but i can take comfort in the knowledge that even if the watercooler medium du jour was stuff i like more (novels, comics, music) i'd still be out of step

050

J Bogart @jonathanbogart.net · 25/09/2026

there's no generalization more undefeated than "the golden age of comics is twelve," even when, as in my case, the comics i was most deeply immersed in at the age of twelve were early to mid 20th-century newspaper comics, roughly Krazy Kat through Pogo

050

J Bogart @jonathanbogart.net · 24/09/2026

having a hard time deciding whether the project i'm running over the course of 2027 should be presented as a blog or as static pages. blog pros: RSS, automated collation, simple design, tagging system, exportable. blog cons: inflexible design, forced rev chrono order, PITA to upload to

120

Reposted by J Bogart

David Cantwell @cantkill.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Today's tip: Buy Bogart!

011

J Bogart @jonathanbogart.net · 24/09/2026

i played the Jessi Colter and Charlie Rich albums listed here a lot in the mid-2000s and David co-signing them as hidden gems makes me feel unexpectedly bullish about my country bonafides

140

J Bogart @jonathanbogart.net · 24/09/2026

in a phase of project preparation, scouring through old newspapers, where i have the opening lines of the Gershwins' "But Not for Me" running through my head near-continuously for a very specific reason

J Bogart @jonathanbogart.net · 23/09/2026

another day, another set of alleged leftists engaging in retributive fantasies about demographics who had better do it, and decrease the surplus population

J Bogart @jonathanbogart.net · 23/09/2026

re: conversations on my timeline today, it occurs to me that relating to pop music was never a priority for me after middle school. in part because i was raised in the evangelical CCM tradition, where identification was so innately assumed that secular music read as speculative fiction by contrast

061

J Bogart @jonathanbogart.net · 23/09/2026

the Are Comics Serious Literature? print is hanging on my fridge, one of two comics pages i have intentionally hung up so that i look at it every day. (the other is the Jan 30, 1927 Polly & Her Pals)

041

Reposted by J Bogart

Neglected Books @neglectedbooks.com · 23/09/2026

No blurbs for the John Day Co. (in 1927).

1245

Reposted by J Bogart

Neglected Books @neglectedbooks.com · 22/09/2026

Doing some research, I stumbled onto a big half-page ad for an act known as the Watson Sisters from a 1944 issue of Variety. "The One and Only Original" it proclaimed. I had to know more about the Watsons. And what a career they had, I learned. Come, let's wander down this rabbit hole! 1/6

2247

J Bogart @jonathanbogart.net · 22/09/2026

seeing Play On! at Chicago Shakespeare Theater on Fri, Liliom at the Joffrey on Sat, Mari Froes at Thalia Hall on Sun: i’m finally growing into the Arts Dork i always intended to be

010

J Bogart @jonathanbogart.net · 22/09/2026

this gets at the fundamental truth of cartooning i believe in wholehearted contradistinction to the cinemasins-y "make it make sense" fandustrial complex: comics are not representative of a Tolkienian subcreation that must logically cohere: they are lines on pages (paper or digital), joyously unreal

152

Reposted by J Bogart

Álvaro Pons @alvaropons.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Cómo es posible que la sugerente escena del cómic colombiano actual sea una ilustre e injusta desconocida aquí? Y se puede hacer la misma pregunta de la argentina, brasileña, mexicana...

0103

J Bogart @jonathanbogart.net · 21/09/2026

late 1995? it would have been something like: Rich Mullins, A LITURGY, A LEGACY AND A RAGAMUFFIN BAND dc Talk, JESUS FREAK The Crossing, DANCING AT THE CROSSROADS The Fairfield Four, STANDING IN THE SAFETY ZONE V/A, STRONG HAND OF LOVE: A TRIBUTE TO MARK HEARD

J Bogart @jonathanbogart.net · 21/09/2026

as a maker of deeply idiosyncratic and foolhardy canons i hope i can cajole people into checking out i realize i'm biased here, but the click-driven consensus-organized publication-sponsored canons that regularly take up conversational space here never feel very satisfying to me

2110

J Bogart @jonathanbogart.net · 21/09/2026

best tv shows of the 21st century using the only reasonable metric, which is that i watched every episode: 30 rock happy endings better off ted deadwood take my wife green wing dark angel pretty sure that's it. (yes this is exactly equivalent to a non-reader volunteering his favorite books)

060

J Bogart @jonathanbogart.net · 18/09/2026

Joe Shuster. Ultimately I think something important was lost when the Superman strip stopped living in Roy Crane's shadow and the art got more industrial even if it was "better."

The cover of Action Comics #23 (April 1940), showing a woman in a green dress falling from a great height over a cityscape as Superman flies to catch her. She looks terrified; he looks determined.

J Bogart @jonathanbogart.net · 18/09/2026

"The True Story of the Unconquered," a comics biography of Emiliano Zapata drawn by Joe Kubert in 1946 for Interfaith Publications.

Steve Lieber @stevelieberart.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Reposted by J Bogart

In class, when he wasn't critiquing or lecturing, he doodled with whatever tool was handy. He'd sometimes tear these doodles up and toss them in the trash after class, prompting a mad rush of Kubies to the basket to recover what he'd done. Here's one that I recovered and taped back together.

2675

J Bogart @jonathanbogart.net · 18/09/2026

very disappointed i haven’t published more, baffled leaning toward relieved at how quiet the life i’ve built is, amazed by my library and outraged at how little of it i’ve read/listened to

160

J Bogart @jonathanbogart.net · 17/09/2026

in one of those phases where all my posting is adding to threads everyone has muted, so getting less dopamine out of social media than my usual subsistence levels. an observation rather than a complaint