iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by John Leman Riley

Eamonn-Forde @eamonn-forde.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Oh, Viz.

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Reposted by John Leman Riley

Nicolas Hénin @nicolashenin.net · 17/09/2026

Nice campaign by the Norwegian Consumer Council about the declining lifespan of products. Enjoy!

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John Leman Riley @lemanriley.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

I see that Abebooks (Amazon’s mini-me) has been infested by one of those companies charging $138 for a slender volume comprising stuff they’ve scraped off Wikipedia with a hilariously inappropriate cover and an “author” whose name is some permutation of Greek philosophers/mythical characters.

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John Leman Riley @lemanriley.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

Am working through this in chronological order. The latest bunch (1886-92) includes: - A man dying in agony, realizing his life has been pointless - A man failing to understand that he’s been hanged - A woman dying of disappointment after discovering that her husband isn’t dead - A woman going mad

The front cover of “The Norton Anthology of Short Fiction”, with Edward Hopper’s painting “Hotel Lobby” on the cover.

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John Leman Riley @lemanriley.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

Apparently you can find anything on Amazon. Apart from a spine.

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John Leman Riley @lemanriley.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

We hope Apple will protect their profitability by making their products slightly less pervy than Meta’s.

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John Leman Riley @lemanriley.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

Outraged that Nolan chose to render the wine-dark sea as a Cabernet Sauvignon rather than an authentic Agiorgitiko.

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John Leman Riley @lemanriley.bsky.social · 30/06/2026

It’s Bernard Herrmann’s birthday. Though he didn’t actually write any music for “The Birds”, (that was Oscar Sala), Hitch gave him a credit as Sound Consultant. Anyway, all that’s a slightly spurious reason to post the cats meeting a gull.

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John Leman Riley @lemanriley.bsky.social · 30/06/2026

I assume Supergirl has bombed because 15-year-old proto-incels are terrified of a powerful woman.

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John Leman Riley @lemanriley.bsky.social · 29/06/2026

To celebrate Mel Brooks’ centenary I watched “Blazing Saddles”. Then I went onto Letterboxd to read the reviews and found that many of them are indeed written by the common clay of the new west.

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John Leman Riley @lemanriley.bsky.social · 27/06/2026

It’s the 121st anniversary of the mutiny aboard the Battleship Potemkin. Rather than something from Eisenstein’s film, here’s a clip from Oleksandr Rojtburd’s “Psychedelic Invasion of the Battleship Potyomkin into Sergey Eisenstein's Tautological Hallucinations” boxd.it/8zVQnT

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John Leman Riley @lemanriley.bsky.social · 27/06/2026

Fans of #cinema #filmsky #horrorsky #soundtrack #filmmusic “The Omen” or Jerry Goldsmith. @tippingmyfedora.bsky.social and I take a detailed look at Goldsmith’s scores for the trilogy in the new issue of Monstrum, “The Omen at 50”. www.monstrum-society.ca/uploads/4/1/...

monstrum-society.ca

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John Leman Riley @lemanriley.bsky.social · 14/06/2026

It’s time for the annual trip to Regina, and time for the annual repost of this handy introduction to the mysteries of Canadian Football. johnlemanriley.substack.com/p/regina-the...

johnlemanriley.substack.com

Regina - the Game's Afoot

It's Football Jim, but not as we know it

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John Leman Riley @lemanriley.bsky.social · 03/06/2026

They use a comma, you use a semi-colon; they use a colon, you use a full stop. That’s the Chicago style.

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John Leman Riley @lemanriley.bsky.social · 30/05/2026

Come on! Carl Jungfraumilch was right there!

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John Leman Riley @lemanriley.bsky.social · 24/05/2026

This day in 1980 saw the release of Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of Stephen King’s novel “The Shinning”. #filmsky

A screenshot of Google’s “People also ask” for a search on “Shining”, which includes “Which is correct shinning or shining?”

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John Leman Riley @lemanriley.bsky.social · 24/05/2026

“The Shining” was released on this day in 1980. I saw this burger joint in Victoria, Vancouver Island on this day in 2026. #filmsky

The yellow clapboard wall of a burger restaurant in Victoria, Vancouver Island. On it is written the word “Redrum”, as it appears in the 1980 film “The Shining”, with the D and the second R reversed. The internal symmetry of the U and the M implies that it could be read backwards as “Murder”, but with what would then be the last two letters - E and R - reversed.

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John Leman Riley @lemanriley.bsky.social · 20/05/2026

In the light of the AI suspicions around the story than won the Commonwealth Prize and the claim that the author portrait might even be AI, the second paragraph reads like some sort of winking performance art.

The biography of the writer of the short story which won the Commonwealth Prize, with the author’s statement. The accompanying photograph is of a man matching the ethnic description and looking expressionlessly directly at the camera.

Jamir Nazir is a Trinidadian writer of East Indian heritage whose work explores the cultural intersections of the Caribbean and the Indian diaspora. A prolific poet and author, with books published and others forthcoming, he is particularly known for his love of poetry. His writing draws on the landscapes, histories and emotional rhythms of Trinidad, where memory, heritage and identity converge to shape voice and imagination.

I hope readers walk away reflecting on the quiet consequences of choices we normalise. Beyond the story's tension, it's that deeper moral examination that I hope lingers.'
- Jamir Nazir

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John Leman Riley @lemanriley.bsky.social · 15/05/2026

#lastfourwatched #filmsky @letterboxd.social Swedish comedy of embarrassment; American indie anti-heist movie, and two classics of necrorealism, combining absurdism with comedy violence and obscure politics in a silent Soviet cinema style using punk DIY aesthetic.

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John Leman Riley @lemanriley.bsky.social · 09/05/2026

“Fancy watching the new film with Sally Field, a young man and an octopus?” [Sally Fields is 80 and has done a remake of “Possession”!?]

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John Leman Riley @lemanriley.bsky.social · 22/04/2026

First asparagus of the season, and a new toy for Chaika and Sputnik. #cats #blackcats

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John Leman Riley @lemanriley.bsky.social · 17/04/2026

I suppose the experiment was to stick a whale’s head and a raccoon’s penis onto a bear’s body. Unless there are more revelations to come from Robert Frankenstein Kennedy Junior.

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John Leman Riley @lemanriley.bsky.social · 07/04/2026

“Planet of the Apes”, but more so… Artemis emerging from the dark side of the moon and the crew thinking, “Hang on, wasn’t there an Earth there a few hours ago?”

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John Leman Riley @lemanriley.bsky.social · 26/03/2026

A doc about women, a 70s meta comedy-actioner, a story which has attracted the ardent though misguided enthusiasm of true believers, and a doc about Bigfoot.

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John Leman Riley @lemanriley.bsky.social · 21/03/2026

#letterboxdFriday. A five-hour doc, a one-hour experimental drama with doc elements, and two films called “Secret Agent”, one of which includes a clip from another film whose hero imagines himself as a Secret Agent.

The posters for the films “The Savage Eye” (1959), “Secret Agent” (2025), “Secret Agent” (1936), and “Mr. Scorsese” (2025).

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John Leman Riley @lemanriley.bsky.social · 19/03/2026

The great thing about the X-Files is that even if it’s a poor episode, you can while away the time being amazed at how much Texas looks like Vancouver, or how much Ohio looks like Vancouver, or how much Chicago looks like Vancouver, or how much Montana looks like Vancouver, or how much …

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John Leman Riley @lemanriley.bsky.social · 13/03/2026

Films in Inuktitut, Iraqi Arabic, 19th-century English obscenity, hard-boiled Chicagoese and North Carolinian. #letterboxdfriday

Posters for the films “Talladega Nights” [NASCAR comedy starring Will Ferrell], “The Bride!” [Maggie Gyllenhaal’s feminist Frankenstein story starring Jessie Buckley], “The President’s Cake” [Iraqi drama] and “Wrong Husband” [Canadian Inuit myth-like story].

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John Leman Riley @lemanriley.bsky.social · 05/03/2026

It’s always worth sticking around for the credits. This is the first film I’ve seen that included a credit for the people keeping watch for approaching polar bears. youtu.be/XHx3GsodHGs?...

youtu.be

UIKSARINGITARA / WRONG HUSBAND

YouTube video by Western Arctic Moving Pictures

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John Leman Riley @lemanriley.bsky.social · 02/03/2026

Sputnik and Chaika are nine today.

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John Leman Riley @lemanriley.bsky.social · 28/02/2026

#Letterboxdfriday. Three great and interesting films. And a Guy Ritchie.

Letterboxd posters from four films. The Stuntman(1980). The Gentlemen (2019). Privilege (1967). Network (1976)

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John Leman Riley @lemanriley.bsky.social · 19/02/2026

Happy birthday, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor!

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John Leman Riley @lemanriley.bsky.social · 19/02/2026

Weird crossover moment. Currently working our way through “Twin Peaks” and “The X-Files”. On two consecutive nights, we get…

A scene from the X-Files with Michael J Anderson, perhaps better known as the Dancing Man from “Twin Peaks”.

David Duchovny as DEA Agent Denise Bryson, in “Twin Peaks”, but probably better known for “The X-Files”.

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John Leman Riley @lemanriley.bsky.social · 18/02/2026

If you like Canada, strange landscapes, birds, fronted adverbials or sentence fragments… substack.com/@johnlemanri...

substack.com

John Leman Riley (@johnlemanriley)

If you like Canada, birds, fronted adverbials and sentence fragments.

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John Leman Riley @lemanriley.bsky.social · 08/02/2026

I’m not surprised that people parade their ignorance on Letterboxd, but I am constantly amazed that they pay to become Patrons in order to do it.

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John Leman Riley @lemanriley.bsky.social · 16/01/2026

It’s a film set in the 19th century. Someone coughs. We, who have never seen TB, immediately know what will happen. The characters, who are intimately familiar with the disease, have no idea.

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John Leman Riley @lemanriley.bsky.social · 25/12/2025

It seems weirdly specific to wish a merry Christmas to 19th-century railway construction workers living near Edinburgh, and with children, but … For Leith navvy dads!

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John Leman Riley @lemanriley.bsky.social · 19/12/2025

How is it that every hotel in the world has a different model of coffee maker, all of which operate differently, and none of which are supplied with instructions. I JUST NEED A CUP OF BLOODY COFFEE!

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John Leman Riley @lemanriley.bsky.social · 18/12/2025

I see Google are advertising their new phone with a song about a class A drug that can cause mini-strokes, brain shrinking, mood disorders and tremors; impair problem-solving, decision-making, spatial understanding, vocabulary, attention, learning, and memory, and increase the risk of dementia.

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John Leman Riley @lemanriley.bsky.social · 25/11/2025

A while back I was on @severinfilms.bsky.social BluRay of “Viy”, talking about Russian/Soviet horror & scifi. Here’s a @letterboxd.social list of the films I mentioned, plus more. It’s still very incomplete, so I might expand it, but it’s a sort of starter pack to the subject. boxd.it/QjiKI/detail

boxd.it

Russian/Soviet Folk Horror/Sci-Fi

A while back I was an extra to Severin’s Blu-Ray of Viy, talking about Russian and Soviet horror and sci-fi. Some people were nice about it, especially the number of titles I mentioned. So I thought I...

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