iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Julian Hanna @julianisland.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Wish I'd not been such a lazy student at McGill in the 1990s and turned up to some of Prof Carson's Classics lectures (before they closed the department altogether)

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Julian Hanna @julianisland.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Starting a new book project and it’s already spiralling infinitely outward to include every aspect of life, the universe, and everything

static.klipy.com

Charlie Day Conspiracy: Pepe Silvia

ALT: Charlie Day Conspiracy: Pepe Silvia

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Julian Hanna @julianisland.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

I finally visited the Six Collection in Amsterdam today. The private residence feels lived in, because it is - it’s currently occupied by the 13th Jan Six and family. There are all sorts of treasures back to Rembrandt’s portrait of Jan Six. Curios from the last few centuries fill every nook.

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Julian Hanna @julianisland.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

Fascinating stuff, and helpful if your job involves reading hundreds of AI-‘assisted’ articles each year by students (& colleagues)

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Julian Hanna @julianisland.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

Can you still be avant-garde if the conference dinner is in the same place as the Nobel dinner? (Yes, Beckett says it’s okay)

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Julian Hanna @julianisland.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

This reminds me of living in the Midwest and going to a bookstore to see a reading by a famous English author. He arrived straight from the airport, all in a flurry, took a long drink of water, and spat the ice cubes across the room.

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Julian Hanna @julianisland.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

Let’s not forget Canada (like Belgium) the unexpected home of so much experimental culture! youtu.be/2-xDtMnfJT8?...

youtu.be

hangedup - k-raa-k festival belgium 2003

YouTube video by Eric Craven

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Julian Hanna @julianisland.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

‘If we view ourselves from a great height, it is frightening to realise how little we know about our species, our purpose and our end.’ (Sebald’s narrator on a flight from Schiphol to Norwich in Rings of Saturn)

Open book with fish diagram on green table with blue coffee mug

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Julian Hanna @julianisland.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

Looking forward to the new Almodóvar & fresh autofiction discourse

Man’s face over dialogue: ‘That’s not fiction!’ ‘Autofiction!’

Woman faces man declaring ‘It’s bullshit!’

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Julian Hanna @julianisland.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

Just discovered a neighbourhood in Rotterdam where all the streets have jazz names (Ben Websterstraat, John Coltranestraat, Charlie Parkersingel, Thelonius Monkpad, Louis Armstrongweg) and now I want to live there

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Julian Hanna @julianisland.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

🙏🙏🙏 What is an island if not remote and hard to get to (but usually worth it)?

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Julian Hanna @julianisland.bsky.social · 08/08/2026

Amazing Bonnie Prince Billy show last night by a frog pond in a forest outside Haarlem. Happily - and somewhat unexpectedly if you followed Palace in the 90s - Will Oldham has grown into a consummate musician and performer

Will Oldham and band on an outdoor stage bathed in pinkish light

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Julian Hanna @julianisland.bsky.social · 03/08/2026

Monday, 35 degrees. Decided to fully embrace Europa by taking the week off, going to a spa in the countryside, getting nekkid with all the merry villagers & plunging into an ice bath with actual ice cubes. Also did the 90 C Finnish sauna where they slap you with wet branches (twice). Recommended.

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Julian Hanna @julianisland.bsky.social · 24/07/2026

Literary pilgrimage - island edition! Robert Graves and Laura Riding’s house in Deià, Mallorca, a 🧵

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Julian Hanna @julianisland.bsky.social · 23/07/2026

Being on a warm island and swimming every day is very, very good

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Julian Hanna @julianisland.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

The scent of the fig tree permeates everything

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Julian Hanna @julianisland.bsky.social · 20/07/2026

Doing one of my favourite things that I very rarely get to do, which is nothing

Evening view from a terrace with mountains

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Julian Hanna @julianisland.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

At an outdoor restaurant in Spain with a big tv - merry chaos as families move tables together and raciones start arriving in quick succession. Didn’t book ahead so we’ll be watching the crowd more than the game, which honestly suits me ok 🍷

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Julian Hanna @julianisland.bsky.social · 17/07/2026

Denis Johnson’s Train Dreams is predictably great

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Julian Hanna @julianisland.bsky.social · 08/07/2026

My kid is showing his final graduation film tomorrow and he got his mum to make the poster ❤️

Poster showing a figure in foreground with back turned in blue top and orange toque on a beach, another figure in distance

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Julian Hanna @julianisland.bsky.social · 05/07/2026

This was a good reread. Now I want to go smoke a Woodbine.

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Julian Hanna @julianisland.bsky.social · 03/07/2026

Seasonal reading for the reluctant anglophile

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Julian Hanna @julianisland.bsky.social · 28/06/2026

Cape Verde and Ireland, serendipitously united in the World Cup, each have their own chapter in ISLAND. I recommend picking it up along with Mark Yakich’s brilliant FOOTBALL for a bit of summer reading :) #WorldCup #CapeVerde #objectlessons @bloomsburyacademic.bsky.social

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Julian Hanna @julianisland.bsky.social · 26/06/2026

Drinking the red chilled tonight. Don’t judge me, I’ve seen them do it in Spain 🍷

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Julian Hanna @julianisland.bsky.social · 23/06/2026

A reminder that ISLAND is an ideal summer book! Perfectly pocket-sized, keeps you cool on hot days 😎🏝️

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Julian Hanna @julianisland.bsky.social · 22/06/2026

Greetings from the summer office 🌱

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Julian Hanna @julianisland.bsky.social · 20/06/2026

#nowplaying I love how they buried the title track at the end of the first side like they didn’t even care it was one of the most transcendent pop songs ever written

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Julian Hanna @julianisland.bsky.social · 20/06/2026

Cat people of Bluesky: does your cat let you bathe her? (Cooling off just now in the garden)

Black cat wrapped in a towel after a cool bath

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Julian Hanna @julianisland.bsky.social · 03/06/2026

Just a thousand-year-old grand fir, no biggie

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Julian Hanna @julianisland.bsky.social · 02/06/2026

Hanging with the herons. Not keen to leave this place

Heron in foreground and Olympic mountains in the back, sea between

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Julian Hanna @julianisland.bsky.social · 02/06/2026

London has foxes; I just passed a buck and a rather grand peacock on my way through town 🦌 🦚

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Julian Hanna @julianisland.bsky.social · 15/05/2026

Gwendoline Riley brilliant on ‘stubbed-toe, short-leash exchanges’ by text with a parent (from My Phantoms)

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Julian Hanna @julianisland.bsky.social · 05/05/2026

‘if "work" isn't a part of "life", and we're only left a few precious hours for the "life" part, we probably want to make "life" look as little like "work" as possible. That's bad. Like really bad. Because the kinds of things that make our lives meaningful are very often hard.’ YES

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Julian Hanna @julianisland.bsky.social · 03/05/2026

The chapter on post-WWI economic collapse in Austria is gripping: ‘with the daily loss in value of money, once the most stable aspect of life, people came to appreciate true values such as work, love, friendship, art and nature all the more’ & ‘lived more intensely than ever before’

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Julian Hanna @julianisland.bsky.social · 02/05/2026

Went to an anarchist mushroom exhibition today and it was pleasantly full of fungal manifestos 🍄

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Julian Hanna @julianisland.bsky.social · 02/05/2026

Spike Lee asked about AI in filmmaking: ‘Isn’t it the future?’ ‘The future don’t have to mean good.’

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Julian Hanna @julianisland.bsky.social · 01/05/2026

This continues to be fascinating. It’s 1914 and Franz Ferdinand has just been assassinated, but at first no one cares because it’s a beautiful summer and no one liked him anyway

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Julian Hanna @julianisland.bsky.social · 01/05/2026

Picked up some Townes Van Zandt records because it’s easier than just waitin’ around to die

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Julian Hanna @julianisland.bsky.social · 29/04/2026

Joanna Newsom is Gavin Newsom’s cousin. California is a funny place.

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Julian Hanna @julianisland.bsky.social · 23/04/2026

An analysis of the work of lost Lost Generation poet Joseph Moncure March - all his work was out of print at the time. I found an early edition of The Wild Party for $1 at a book sale and was hooked. (This was before Art Spiegelman’s illustrated reissue.) Good times.

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Julian Hanna @julianisland.bsky.social · 22/04/2026

Island cat, lately confined to an urban garden for her own safety, surprised everyone including herself today by making a mad dash out the front door while I was fixing the lock. A keystone cops-style mêlée ensued + hot pursuit through hedges but she was eventually persuaded to return home.

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Julian Hanna @julianisland.bsky.social · 21/04/2026

Stefan Zweig on the gentleness of Rilke: ‘even when he laughed, it was a sound that merely hinted at laughter.’

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Julian Hanna @julianisland.bsky.social · 20/04/2026

I see manifestos are in the news for all the wrong reasons again

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