iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Keef @keef.org · 04/08/2026

Went and saw this last night. Highly recommended when it opens this weekend.

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Keef @keef.org · 07/05/2026

Putting “Hard Target” on while I work was a good choice today.

In the background, a ramshackle building explodes into fiery chaos, spraying wooden debris and embers everywhere. In the foreground, a horse races toward us: majestic, powerful, a deep chestnut with white markings running between the eyes down the nose. On that horse’s back rides a figure of pure regal domination, a full white pushbroom moustache failing to cover his wide-open screaming mouth, his balding head reflecting the orange of the flames behind him, holding aloft a bow, his quiver of arrows on his back. This is Wilford Brimley.

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Keef @keef.org · 02/10/2025

NEW SHORTS WHO DIS

This is a picture of me, poolside, wearing my first pair of bodybuilding shorts (given to me by A Friend). The shorts are leopard-spotted, and come up to cover my navel. My arms are raised and I’m flexing my biceps, like a real tough guy. It turns out that bodybuilding shorts do a great job at concealing one’s gut.

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Keef @keef.org · 31/08/2025

Practicing my “rizzed-up selfies” as an almost fifty year old man. Maybe I’ll get the hang of it in another decade or so.

A “rizzed-up selfie” of yours truly. Beard a little too skraggly. Glasses a little too low. One eyebrow cocked a little too confidently. Smirk not quite smiley enough. Tugging down the collar of my black t-shirt in an unearned gesture of lackluster machismo. Fuck it, I’m still cute

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Keef @keef.org · 26/04/2025

It's been a hell of a year, but a crowd of people gathering to listen to other people make music is always satisfying.

This time it's the band Explosions in the Sky on the stage, surrounded by fog, with lights flashing all around. Four dudes with guitars and a drummer. Wild.

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Keef @keef.org · 26/04/2025

Live music is such a balm for the soul.

Godspeed You! black Emperror on the stage at Austin Psych Fest. I was close enough to feel the rumble of the stacks, which is a lot of the point.

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Keef @keef.org · 27/03/2025

Well now. This is probably pretty overdue.

The ceiling of a room. The room is darkened. Shining on the ceiling is a pall of blue light, with a field of green "stars." Also visible on the ceiling: a vent; an emergency fire alarm light; several unlit can lights; another, smaller vent; a CCTV camera.

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Keef @keef.org · 18/02/2025

Now they know how I feel, at least.

The chat support window for Spotify.

Transcript:

I'm good, thanks for asking.
[Spotify Agent] at 12:21 PM, Feb 18

Can you please elaborate your concern?
[Spotify Agent] at 12:21 PM, Feb 18

Well, Joe Rogan is an idiot with an enormous platform that is actively harming both our country and the world at large. It drives me nuts that part of the money I pay to Spotify goes to that goon. I would like to request that none of my subscription money goes to him or his ghoulish podcast.
You at 12:22 PM, Feb 18

Follow up Spotify Support chat.
Transcript:

... your feedback to the right team, so that they will look into it. We'll make sure to pass your feedback along
[Spotify Agent] at 12:34 PM, Feb 18

Thank you! Just register my dissatisfaction that Spotify pays that doofus a ridiculous amount of money to blather his
misinformation to ridiculous amounts of people.
You at 12:35 PM, Feb 18

Please don't worry, I have taken your concern as a feedback and let the right team know, so that they will look into it.
[Spotify Agent] at 12:37 PM, Feb 18

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Keef @keef.org · 13/02/2025

Hey, neat! It's Amazing Spider-Man 5, from 1963! It's the first time Spidey and Dr. Doom interacted! This was hiding in the corner of a lot I won for a truly cute amount on the internets. Probably the best score I will ever find.

The Amazing Spider-Man number 5! Spidey swings his way across the cover, but Doom has severed his web! He's about to land in some... lava or something!
CAPTION:
"It had to happen! Sooner or later, SPIDER-MAN was bound to battle DOCTOR DOOM!"
Dr. Doom's word balloon:
"This is your FINISH, Spider-Man! If the FANTASTIC FOUR couldn't stop me, what chance have YOU?"
Art by Steve Ditko.

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Keef @keef.org · 05/02/2025

Here is another picture of my cat, Weasel, to help your timeline be not all doomscrolling horrors

Weasel, sleeping atop a brown-and-white quilt. She looks a bit like a bright orange stripey cinnamon bun. Her eyes are closed in contentment. If this picture had audio, you could hear her snoring a little bit.

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Keef @keef.org · 24/01/2025

Hey, neat! It's the rare British edition of Forbidden Worlds 73, the first appearance of Herbie Popnecker! Herbie is a magnificent little guy, and Alan Moore has said that Herbie is his favorite superhero.

The cover of a comic book. It says it's Forbidden Worlds 4, but it's a British Reprint of Forbidden Worlds 73, from American Comics Group, published in 1958. The cover features a fella in WWII pilot clothes who has scrambled up the mast of a ship. He is being chased by a pirate (in full regalia, eyepatch, bandanna and all) waving a lit torch.
There's a caption box that reads:
"Can a man crash through the barrier of TIME itself? See it happen, in...
The RIDDLE of ROBERT O'MALLEY!"
The guy in the mast, presumably Robert O'Malley himself, has a word balloon coming from his mouth. It reads:
"This-- CAN'T be! Shot down by J*p Zeros-- and now trapped aboard an ANCIENT PIRATE SHIP!"

The first page of the first Herbie story. Because it's the British edition, it's in black and white instead of color. There are three panels. The first one takes up the top third of the page, and it features a shlubby little boy with a bowl cut, wearing a button-down white shirt and a short tie, and what looks like jeans or khakis with a belt. He walks calmly toward the viewer, eating a lollipop. He is surrounded by exciting things! A rocket launches at him. A Native American in full headdress waves a tomahawk at him. An explosion explodes in the background. An elephant charges at him. Two dueling dandies fence behind him. A plane crashes! A cowboy with a smoking gun rides a horse at him! A pirate waves a cutlass and leers!
Second panel, takes up half of the bottom third of the page. A man in a suit stands before a group of people. Caption reads:
It was a PTA meeting, and the speaker's subject was an important one--
The guy has a word balloon. It reads:
"Yes, I repeat-- the boys of today are the leaders of tomorrow!"
Third panel, taking up the last bit. Closeup on the fellow, as he points directly at the viewer. He is holding a glass of water and he looks kind of like a baffled Salvador Dali. Word balloon:
"You must see, therefore, that what we need in this country are REAL boys-- boys of ACTION! Boys who are always out DOING things! George Washington, father of his country, was such a boy-- so was Abraham Lincoln!"

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Keef @keef.org · 22/01/2025

Look at this goddamn little scramp

Our cat Weasel. She is various shades of orange, with darker orange tiger stripes. She is laying in a sort of half-turn, exposing her tum, eyes mostly closed, her tail jutting off at a jaunty angle. She is laying on top of a quilt that is itself on top of a blanket. There are other, unseen blankets, because it is very cold. She is: a good kitty.

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Keef @keef.org · 18/01/2025

Oh my god look at this adorable perfect little piece of shit

A perfectly beautiful bright orange cat, laying mostly upside-down atop a circular cat scratcher- ball roller thingy, batting away at the white ball that rolls around the outside. The entire thing is on top of a reddish-orange rug. The cat is wonderful. I love her.

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Keef @keef.org · 08/01/2025

The kid found a recipe that looked good, and here is the result. We made brioche dough yesterday, then today greased up a Bundt pan and rolled the dough around chunks of chocolate and put it in monkeybread-style; baked it up and created a tasty treat.

A beautifully browned ring of baked-up monkeybread-style brioche bread wrapped around chunks of chocolate. It looks much better than I thought it would.

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Keef @keef.org · 07/01/2025

The cat continues to keep me awake past my bedtime simply by being beautiful

The cat, once again laying on my purple-and-cream quilt. She gazes nicely into the lens. She is purring. I should be sleeping. I should be sleeping, but there she is purring and being pretty.

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Keef @keef.org · 05/01/2025

gaaaaah ok I swear I am going to sleep now

This frickin CAT is now rolled over halfway, one paw thrown over her head, the other bent in this super-cute way, exposing her belly, her back legs sort of curled / tucked / splayed, tail curled back up over her feet. She is so goddamned cute I can't stand it.

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Keef @keef.org · 05/01/2025

I should be sleeping but NOOOOOO I can't stop looking at this dang cat

The CAT is sleeping. Or close to it, except putting. This is a closeup of the cat, one paw curled under, both eyes closed, whiskers jutting up at a jaunty angle. Nose just as pink as can be. This cat is very content. I am pleased that she is settling in so readily.

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Keef @keef.org · 05/01/2025

This cat is... pretty great

The cat, all curled up like a cinnamon bun on my bed (a quilt that is white and several different shades of purple). Her eyes are mostly closed and she looks very content. She is very tiger-y, all orange tones with darker orange stripes. She is still learning that hands are not toys, but she'll get there.

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Keef @keef.org · 04/01/2025

Shortly after Christmas I had the opportunity to visit one of my favorite record shops in the Midwest. It is a vast treasure trove of unimaginable junk, cascading through dozens of rooms; there are also comics and books. It was fun.

Me, wearing a Canadian tuxedo, in a small room. Behind me is a plethora of ancient audio equipment. To my right are many shelves co raining 10" records and weird paperback originals. I am going through long boxes full of unbagged comics, and I am holding one up and making a very goofy face.

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Keef @keef.org · 01/01/2025

Figured now was as good a time as any to bust out a fancy beer from my fancy beer dumpster. Happy new year errbody!

It's a bottle of Goose Island 2015 Bourbon County Rare Stout, in front of the fancy wooden box it came in

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Keef @keef.org · 23/12/2024

Midwestern Sepulchral

A photograph taken through the drivers' side window, somewhere in the Midwest. It is that sort of sad abandoned photo that can only be taken in the Midwest: skeletal trees strain for light; the ground is brown and bleak and multitiered; behind all of this, the sky is a gradient, lightening as it gets closer to the horizon, a panoply of dull blues and grays and whites.

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Keef @keef.org · 20/12/2024

You KNOW I gotta rep with pride

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Keef @keef.org · 20/12/2024

This is from my flash "A Spectre Lurks at the Putt-Putt on Riverside," published by the magnificent @xraylitmag.bsky.social

"Wow," said Todd. "You feel that?"

"Yeah," I said. The icy feeling slid up the back of my calves and circled up and around my inner thighs, settling in the middle of my torso. "I should've brought my hoodie."

"Look," he said, and pointed.

The ghost hovered on the brick pathway between Todd and the eighth hole. It was wearing a polo and khakis, which faded and became transparent above what probably would've been a pair of Sperrys. It had a dad-bod paunch, a pancake ass, and no head. Its clothes and skin were the dirty white of the moon in an old mirror.

"Jeez, gross," I said.

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Keef @keef.org · 12/12/2024

Ayyyyy! I'm bein concerned with general ideas over here!

A screenshot from Midnight Cowboy. Jon Voight stands like a doofus, slimeball Dustin Hoffman slaps the hood of a yellow cab.

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Keef @keef.org · 11/12/2024

FUCK YES I'm staring at this right now

Florian Bertmer's 2010 screenprinted poster of THE HOLY MOUNTAIN for Mondo. The Alchemist, wearing all white, is surrounded on both sides by bejeweled goats. The floor behind him is festooned with candles. Under his feet, a banner reads: "YOU CAN CHANGE YOURSELF INTO GOLD." Around him in arcs, all in yellows and oranges and golds, are stylized frogs in Spanish crusader armor and lizards in native costumery. In the lower-left, above the credits block, is Jodorowsky's signature in sharpie. In the lower-right, to the right of the credits block, is a pencils drawing of a crowned goat by Bertmer.

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Keef @keef.org · 10/12/2024

I will never not think of this literary classic

This is a screenshot from the onion dot com. The headline is "William Safire Orders Two Whoppers Junior."
Article text:
News, News In Brief
William Safire Orders Two Whoppers Junior

Published: September 20, 2000

NEW YORK - Stopping for lunch at a
Manhattan Burger King, New York Times
'On Language' columnist William Safire ordered two "Whoppers Junior" Monday.

"A majority of Burger King patrons operate under the fallacious assumption that the plural is 'Whopper Juniors," Safire told a woman standing in line behind him. "This, of course, is a grievous grammatical blunder, akin to saying 'passerbys' or, worse yet, the dreaded 'attorney generals."

Last week, Safire patronized a midtown Taco Bell, ordering "two Big Beef Burritos Supreme."

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Keef @keef.org · 10/12/2024

I kept thinking people were talking about TICKS (1993), originally titled Infested, and being like "oh, how delightful that people are rediscovering the movie where Carlton from Fresh Prince plays a hardened OG and Clint Howard screams the titular line," but this is almost as good (PS watch TICKS).

Clint Howard, after mutant ticks have crawled under his skin and ravaged him, as he turns to the camera and screams, "I'M INFESTED!"

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Keef @keef.org · 10/12/2024

But he manipulated and cherry-picked the data. Comics were THE predominant popular reading material in the day, with every person reading multiple every week, including adults. He knew his argument was bogus.

An excerpt from Wikipedia.
After Wertham's manuscript collection at the Library of Congress was unsealed in 2010, Carol Tilley, a University of Illinois librarian and information science professor, investigated his research and found his conclusions to be
largely baseless. In a 2012 study, Tilley wrote
"Wertham manipulated, overstated, compromised, and fabricated evidence-especially that evidence he attributed to personal clinical research with young people— for rhetorical gain."(19]
Among the criticisms leveled at Seduction of the Innocent are that Wertham used a non-representative sample of young people who were already mentally troubled, that he misrepresented stories from colleagues as being his own, and that Wertham manipulated statements from adolescents by deliberately neglecting some passages while rephrasing others such that they better suited his thesis.
[10]

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Keef @keef.org · 10/12/2024

Ah well, I will make do

My desk, featuring a can of full-sugar Creamy Coconut Dr. Pepper.

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Keef @keef.org · 10/12/2024

hello græ-tzchen

Dan Stevens in Cuckoo, with his silly haircut and glasses and scraggly beard, playing a flute ominously as he is going to call trouble down upon Gretchen

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Keef @keef.org · 10/12/2024

Curry for the kid's lunches this week (and my lunches this week)

A truly massive amount of massaman curry with chicken over jasmine rice

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Keef @keef.org · 09/12/2024

THE DARK MANSION OF FORBIDDEN LOVE

It's the cover of "Dark Mansion of forbidden Love" #2, a DC comic. A woman in a white dress with long flowing blond hair scurries toward us, away from a dark mansion cast in purple shadow with a single lighted window. A man in a hat and trenchcoat, entirely in silhouette, follows.
Cover text:
THE DARK MANSION OF FORBIDDEN LOVE

A full-length novel of love and danger complete in this issue!

A nightmare begins for Ellen Drew after her marriage to David!

Who is the strange man holding her prisoner in a ..
HONEYMOON OF FEAR

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Keef @keef.org · 09/12/2024

Huh, this is a weird one. Picked it up for $1 a while ago because it looked neat, just now went to bag it and realized it's special. This is the SXSW version of Age of Ultron 1, and I can't find much info. It's signed by Axel Alonso and Peter Phillips? Apparently very limited? Who knows.

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Keef @keef.org · 07/12/2024

Sure, but I can't imagine this three-piece-suited respectable zombie could effectively fight a shark

Deep underwater. On the left, a zombie has his arms outstretched in a combination defensive and fighting pose. On the right, a giant shark swims toward him. They are going to fight. THEY ARE GOING TO FIGHT

Still from Lucio Fulci's ZOMBIE 2

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Keef @keef.org · 06/12/2024

I'm a sucker for 'em too. They're so silly & fun. I got this lot for the Hell-Riders, but these were also in there, and they're just as fun. Very early Punisher appearance, when he was still basically a xerox of Mack Bolan's "Destroyer." I already had a copy, but I'm sure I'll trade it to someone.

A copy of "Marvel Super Action" number one. Painting by Bob Larkin. The Punisher leaps forward, in front of a wall of flames and explosions, firing a machine gun. He grimaces so evocatively that you can nearly hear his grunts. Cover text:

MARVEL SUPER ACTION
FEATURING
AMERICA'S GREATEST CRIME DESTROYER!
THE PUNISHER

GULF-COAST GUNDOWN!
AGAINST A SYNDICATE FORTRESS...

EXTRA!
THE HUNTRESS AND FORTUNE: MANHUNTER FOR HIRE!

THE PUNISHER BECOMES A ONE MAN
INVASION!

The cover of Marvel Preview number 3. Painting by Gray Morrow. An enormous crowd of monochrome vampires surrounds Blade, the Vampire Hunter, who is decked out in a bright red leather jacket and brandishing two huge stakes. He has a goatee and is wearing weird 70s, I guess, basketball-style goggles? Behind him, two women take refuge. Cover text:

MARVEL PREVIEW PRESENTS
BLADE
THE VAMPIRE-SLAYER

WANTED FOR-MURDER!

A NOVEL-LENGTH TALE OF TERROR!

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Keef @keef.org · 06/12/2024

I can't prove it, of course, but I've always suspected that Stephen King saw this cover and used it as a basis for the "Alexis Machine" story in "The Dark Half." There is no corresponding wedding story in the magazine itself, which is mostly reprints of crime comics.

An excerpt from Stephen King's novel "The Dark Half." Our hero, Thad Beaumont, is being coerced by his dark twin, George Stark, to write a new Alexis Machine novel. Here's the text in the screenshot:

"Thad bent forward and began to fill up the empty space.

STEEL MACHINE
by George Stark

Chapter I: The Wedding

Alexis Machine was rarely whimsical, and for him to have a whimsical thought in such a situation as this was something which had never happened before. Yet it occurred to him: Of all the people on earth- what? five billion of them?— I'm the only one who is currently standing inside a moving wedding cake with a Heckler & Koch .223 semiautomatic weapon in my hands.
He had never been so shut up in a place. The air had gotten bad..."

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Keef @keef.org · 06/12/2024

Skywald was doing all kinds of weird stuff in the 70s-- they published a bunch of horror mags, among others. Here's another one of my faves, about the terrible Toots Garboli:

The cover of "The Crime Machine" number one. A bikini moll leaps out of a cake, accompanied by two fellas with machine guns, who mow down the capos in attendance at the wedding. Painting by Tom Palmer. Cover text reads:

THE CRIME MACHINE

BOSS OF THE DEATH GANG!

RACKET KING! BABYFACE NELSON!
BROTHERS IN CRIME! BIG CITY MURDER!

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Keef @keef.org · 05/12/2024

Some neat recent acquisitions. In rougher shape than I thought, but still. The Hell-Rider was sort of a Ghost Rider prototype created by Gary Friedrich, who went on to create Ghost Rider at Marvel with Roy Thomas and Mike Ploog. This also features the first black woman superhero-- the Butterfly!

The cover of Hell-Rider number one, from 1971! On a beach, the Hell-Rider, wearing some sort of black leathery thing open in a V down to his navel, rides a hawg into two fellas in green spandex. His motorcycle has a flame-thrower, which is spraying flames all over the baddies, causing them to recoil and grasp at their wounds. On the beach to the right, a fella wearing a black hood is pointing a gun in the general vicinity of our "hero." On the beach to the left, two women in bikinis cling to each other for comfort.

Painting by Harry Rosenbaum.

RIGHT ON WITH THE NOW SUPER-HERO!

BEGINNING... THE ORIGIN!

HELL-RIDER BATTLES THE HEROIN-SPAWNED TERROR OF... THE CLAW

ROAR INTO ACTION WITH THE EXCITING WILD BUNCH!

WAIT'LL YOU MEET THE LUSCIOUS BUTTERFLYI

The cover of Hell-Rider number two! Our hero, still wearing his leathery thing designed to show his whole-ass torso, has somehow ridden his motorcycle up a power line, enabling him to launch a flying kick into a hairy shirtless brute attempting to leap out of a very high window holding an unconscious lady. Very far away on the ground, the size of ants, policemen and bystanders gaze up in bewilderment.

Painting by Harry Rosenbaum.

RIGHT ON, WITH THE CYCLING SUPERHERO!

NIGHT OF THE RIPPER!

BLOOD FOR THE WILD BUNCH!

SHE STINGS LIKE A BEE, FLOATS LIKE... THE BUTTERFLY!

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Keef @keef.org · 04/12/2024

One of the best. I'm lucky enough to have the presentation copy of "After Dark" given to him by Manly Wade Wellman (another favorite).

The cover to the BCE of Manly Wade Wellman's "After Dark," a Silver John novel. A pair of yellow eyes with cat-slit pupils gaze out from behind a pair of wire-rim spectacles; a wall of flame; a small cabin.

The inscription inside.
"For
Karl Edward Wagner
the Big Dutchman -
the biggest there is-
affectionately
Manly Wade Wellman"
Then there's some pencil information below it, added by the bookseller, that I really should erase

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Keef @keef.org · 04/12/2024

Yeah these are hella weird

Spotify screencap:
"July was your Royalcore Calm Classical
Soundtrack moment.
You were big on artists like Alec Holowka, Kyle Dixon & Michael Stein, and scntfc."

Spotify screencap:
"January was your Goth Synthesizer New Wave phase.
You were really into artists like The Cure, Talking Heads, and New Order."

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Keef @keef.org · 04/12/2024

uh yikes but also NO REGRETS

Spotify tells me the embarrassing reality:
"Your top song was Starburned and Unkissed by Caroline Polachek. You were in the top 0.005% of listeners globally."

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Keef @keef.org · 04/12/2024

I'm normally not crazy about sharing these things but all of these songs are extremely good and several of them are underappreciated and everyone should listen to them a million times just as I did

My top five songs on Spotify wrapped.

1. Caroline Polachek - Starburned and Unkissed (from I SAW THE TV GLOW)

2. Merce Lemon - Backyard Lover

3. Soundgarden - Outshined

4. Jimmy Eat World - Sweetness

5. Four Tet - My Angel Rocks Back And Forth

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Keef @keef.org · 04/12/2024

PRY THEM FROM MY COLD DEAD HANDS

My top five songs on Spotify wrapped.
Your top songs
1. Caroline Polachek - Starburned and Unkissed (from I SAW THE TV GLOW)

2. Merce Lemon - Backyard Lover

3. Soundgarden - Outshined

4. Jimmy Eat World - Sweetness

5. Four Tet - My Angel Rocks Back And Forth

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Keef @keef.org · 04/12/2024

Hell yeah! I've got one of his signed and numbered ones, gifted by a very dear friend.

The signed and numbered edition of Ralph Steadman's "Bad Craziness." It's all scratchy black ink. A carful of people in the foreground, crew cuts and normies; in the background, they're being overtaken by Thompson and his lawyers who vomits into the open window of the normal car. Thompson's thought balloon: "BAD CRAZINESS!"

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Keef @keef.org · 30/11/2024

$1 pickups (it finally happened to me, @aaronmeyers.bsky.social !)

A pretty nice copy of Amazing Spider-Man 601, featuring Mary-Jane Watson sitting on a couch sipping a cup of coffee, looking wistfully out the window at Spider-Man, who is swinging away. Art by J. Scott Campbell.

A very nice copy of Wolverine Volume 7 number 36. Wolverine is on the cover, but it's not the little hairy fellow we all know and love. Nope, this fellow's head is all on fire, just a metallic skull surrounded by flame. Instead of adamantium claws, they are made of fire. "Enter: THE HELLVERINE!"
Art by Ryan Stegman

A beautiful copy of Amazing Spider-Man 611 (2nd printing). A scrawled and cartoony Deadpool is on the right, giving a thumbs-up. On the left, Spider-Man's costume is weighed down with about a dozen pouches, pockets, ammo belts, one epaulet, and a bunch of guns. He looks silly and exasperated. Deadpool's word balloon:
"See, Spidey? Everything WAS better in 1992!"
Art by Skottie Young.

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