iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

i still have to squash an impulse to reply “’tain’t funny mcgee” to people in 2026

010

there are some half dozen others in much less concrete format, mostly centering music, comics, or prose, though there are a couple film projects i might work through someday. none of them are or will be marketable in any recognizable sense, which is frankly a relief

projects i still intend to get around to someday: - a study of comic fiction in english, 1880-1960 - translations of/introductions to vanguardist fiction in spanish, 1918-1933 - a century of important latin american recordings, 1926-2025 - etc. not to mention the project that will take all of 2027

191

arguably my entire critical project (such as it is) is an attempt to shine a spotlight on the rapidly receding waters of the past and pick out the gold that can still be reached by our nets, to coin a metaphor with zero application to any actual real-world activity

1152

i know i'm an outliter because i recognized all the titles on the 1926 list but only really know the author names on the 1976 list

Postmambo Studies @postmambo.bsky.social · 11h

Reposted by J Bogart

They’re not dropping bombs on Cuba, but this is siege warfare. They don’t care if there’s a single Cuban left alive if they can grab the territory and the minerals. All of the 8 million or so left on the island will be traumatized for life as a result of what they’ve experienced just this year.

011

J Bogart @jonathanbogart.net · 11h

so what i'm hearing is that i need to be more annoying

J Bogart @jonathanbogart.net · 11h

kicking myself that i didn't think to word it: "(from a futurist perspective) R&B, dance or Latin, or (from a traditionalist perspective) country, jazz or Latin,"

010

J Bogart @jonathanbogart.net · 12h

i would add genre specialists: people who prioritize (from a futurist perspective) R&B, dance or Latin, or (from a traditionalist perspective) country, jazz or folk, and end up in anti-rockist postures as a means of elbowing space in the discourse for their specialty

220

J Bogart @jonathanbogart.net · 30/09/2026

we’re sharing favorite albums of the year with the best quarter of it left to go? all right, i GUESS (first time in fifteen years ive listened to enough albums to make a list, rubric is do i want to listen to it again)

A screenshot of a Notes app document in dark mode, titled 2026 albums, and which goes on to read:

RaiNao, Marcriá
Anitta, Equilibrivm I & II
Melanie Santiler, Los Cisnes
Tokischa, Amor & Droga

There is a lot of blank space below that as if to indicate how much I haven’t yet heard.

050

J Bogart @jonathanbogart.net · 29/09/2026

being about weed definitely helped, stoner stuff always had a home on alt rock in the 90s

351

J Bogart @jonathanbogart.net · 29/09/2026

rap hits embraced by a white audience often got airplay on alternative channels, a legacy of the beasties crossover, and which eminem benefited from too

110

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

050

26/9/28: Mari la Carajita, ¿Ya se fue Nana? (2026) one of Venezuela's current great pop hopes, slinging salsa, reggae(ton), electropop, and traditional llanero rhythms with assurance. she gets political, has a raunchy wlw song, and collaborates with a bunch of other up-and-coming venezuelan artists

Mari la Carajita, ¿Ya se fue Nana? (2026)

A photograph from the inside of a miniature house showing a Venezuelan living room, with couch, chairs, side table, chanclas, tile floor, overhead lamp, and walls decorated with local and religious iconography, while a woman, giant in comparison to the size of the room, looks in through the window, with a vaguely worried expression.

000

crossing one's fingers for a chinese FDR is feeling a lot like the world's last best hope

i'd say not entirely negative (also a role the U.S. played in global culture circa Comstock and Volstead) -- although thanks in large part to the license of Hong Kong and Taiwan to produce less restricted cultural exports

"biggest fish in an increasingly balkanized pond" won't translate to "world's policeman" in the profoundly shitty way of the late 20th century, but the way film and even print production these days have to tiptoe around chinese sensibilities means that the soft power is already in place

230

i still think it's the most likely outcome, just not in a way that maps onto past precedent

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

382

not that that's any comfort to monolinguals who primarily want to hear music from their own communities, but my feeling is that the millions if not billions of people who have fought through the language barrier to love music in english deserve at least a token effort in the other direction

070

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

1122

and the fact that it took a whole weekend of discourse for me to even manage to compose this many words about it is another reason i can’t be trusted to be a bellweather about anything, really

retreating from medium to low-profile criticism to a purely hobbyist stance has been beneficial for my mental health, if not for the dissemination of my ideas (such as they ever were), so i’ll take the dereliction of duty charges on the chin, and still consider it worth it

150

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

A ★★★★ review of Forgotten Island (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

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

she still doesn’t quite fit into my usual listening patterns (a little too classicist, not vulgar enough), but i wouldn’t be surprised if more of you know about her in future

010

Mari Froes put on a great show. i was expecting an evening of hushed, exquisite bossa vibes, but her band (one guitarist, one drummer) gave brazilian white stripes, as much indie rock as samba or axé, and she was charming and exciting in turn, even breaking out the funk clave at one point.

140

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.

130

i also was not aware of the humpty dance until much later, being in guatemala in 1991 (aged 13), and it not being one of the three rap songs that got airplay on english language radio

the circumflex would be a feature of portuguese transliteration, notating a nasalized vowel

020

should have looked at pt.wikipedia at any point, thanks!

meaning is pretty clear, a Yoruba word referencing a Nigerian town: www.yorubaname.com/entries/Ele%... en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Ejigbo

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

glad because it means i have access to a lot of music, etc. i otherwise wouldn’t, sad because shared culture is an important element of human connection, in conclusion a land of contrasts

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

huh, i can hypothesize that the sound she actually sings (“Elejigbô”) was originally parsed as “el ejigbô” and the article was dropped from the title, but corrected later? (with international versions being typically careless about reproduction)

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

boxd.it

0123

it’s Elegibô, i assume Dan’s got a typo

since Margareth has been mained, my replacement bonus is: Emeline Michel, “Flamn” (Haiti, 1989)

020

saw Liliom (2011) performed by the Joffrey. absolute spectacle, real twentieth century high art shit, Michel Legrand’s score leaps between delicate impressionism and swaggering jazz, the staging is breathtaking, it’s still an ultimately sentimental work

020

intermission: god damm this is so impressive. it’s closing this weekend so i can’t tell you to see it but i’m very glad i am

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

I don't think of him as particularly tall but I'm also always thinking of him next to Edward Everett Horton

100

"Elegibô" was a bonus for me, but if you're making it a main that's even better

110