iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

The current baseball playoff structure is too extensive. It lets bad teams (hi, Houston!) in. But man, do I love these days with four straight games.

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This was a very good game to listen to as I drove home from Milwaukee today.

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Tomás Murray @tomasjmurray.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

I drove to Milwaukee today for a funeral, and I listened to this record on the way. It would be hard to overstate how much it means to me. Because the members of R.E.M. experienced mortality in their circle in their early 30s, I learned in some tiny way, at 20, what that is like. And never forgot.

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Reposted by Levi Stahl

“A wet wind of autumn, smelling of sodden gardens, blew in her face and tilted her hat. Leaves whirled along it, and one lime leaf, as though imploring shelter, lodged in her fur collar. Every gust did more to sadden the poor trees.” (Elizabeth Bowen, ‘A Queer Heart’)

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Reposted by Levi Stahl

Lewie Pollis @lewispoll.is · 30/09/2026

I had forgotten about this research I did! My findings a couple years ago may be relevant for all these playoff bullpen games: "After controlling for quality of talent, a postseason-wide shift of one inning per game from starters to relievers is associated with a 47-point increase in ERA."

thelewsletter.lewispoll.is

Is This How the Strikeout Era Ends?

How the 2024 playoffs could change modern pitching philosophy

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Issue 2: When an early autumn walks the land . . .

In honor of the start of the baseball playoffs and the past couple of weeks of perfectly autumnal weather, here’s a collection of quotes on the season from my newsletter last year: this-not-that.ghost.io/issue-2-when...

this-not-that.ghost.io

My plan is for every other issue to be from my commonplace book, gathering quotes from my reading. Some issues will be themed, while others, most likely, will be a grab bag. After the past three week...

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Rohan Maitzen @rohanmaitzen.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

From the index to The Complete Peanuts, 1991 to 1992.

Text with a drawing of Lucy and Charlie Brown in the middle:

Peter and the Wolf (Prokofiev, Sergei: musical composi-tion)...7, 138
Pigpen...220
Poe, Edgar Allan...142
"Pomp and Circumstance" (Elgar, Sir Edward:
song)...69
PSYCHIATRIC
HELP 5¢
THE DOCTOR
15
psychiatric help...18, 92, 109,
126, 231, 266, 291

Text with a drawing of Snoopy in the middle:

"Raven, The" (Poe, Edgar
Allan: poem)...142
Red Baron, The..216 root beer...11, 43-44, 46-47,
136, 292
"Rosebud"
' ...151
sand castle...88, 239

Text with a drawing of Marcie in the middle:

television...56, 75-76, 109,
132, 154, 170, 181, 193, 232
Thanksgiving..297-299
Tolstoy, Leo...260, 301
Tooth Fairy..193-194
typewriter...74-75, 77, 82-83,
151, 157, 163, 184, 212, 214-215, 217, 236, 238, 256,
267, 269, 271, 301
Under the Greenwood Tree (Hardy, Thomas:
novel)...100

Text with a drawing of Snoopy in the middle:

Woodstock's friends (Bill, Conrad, Harriet, Olivier, Raymond, Wilson)... 1, 16-17, 45, 47, 96, 213, 219, 248, 262, 302, 312, 314
"Woof" ...161, 191, 202-203
World Famous Attorney..11, 20, 36, 51, 211, 236, 241, 253-254, 272
World Famous Flagman...4-5
World Famous Sergeant
Major of the Foreign Legion...11, 16, 122, 229-
230, 256
World Famous Surgeon...281

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Reposted by Levi Stahl

I’m still making my way through Phineas Finn and the weirdly magical thing about Trollope’s novels is that they are rarely exciting but also never boring. Once you settle into his pace it’s like you could just read along indefinitely. Plus he always makes you care about his people. 🙂📚

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Sally Benson’s charming slice-of-life story is back in print for a new generation of readers.Originally published as World War II raged overseas, Meet Me in St. Louis is Sally Benson’s semi-autobiogra...

We are mere weeks away from bringing Sally Benson’s sweet, funny, delightful family comedy Meet Me in St. Louis back into the world. Order yours now from your local bookstore—and be ready to go back for another for a friend when holiday shopping season arrives!

press.uchicago.edu

Meet Me in St. Louis

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One is reminded of the old village woman who insists upon showing you her bad toe. No doubt it is better to display one’s bad toe than to follow the middle-class habit of denying that one has any legs at all. —Virginia Woolf, supporting Joyce Carol Oates, in “Maturity and Immaturity”

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That time Zechariah went to Lambert’s.

Text of Zechariah 5:1:

CHAPTER 5
T
HEN I turned, and lifted up mine eyes, and looked, and behold a flying roll.

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Seeing Lambchop tonight at Old Town. I think this is the 7th time I’ve seen them? Nothing like it.

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Working on some improvisations using a simple bass & some blues scales. One thing I’m trying to do here is shift midway from the C minor blues scale to the G minor without it seeming too jarring. Then the next thing is to get to where I have -all- the blues scales & can create more melodic lines.

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"Silicon Valley created a new, worse version of popularity that everyone just accepted at face value at some point between 2019-2023." The Garbage Day newsletter is talking here about pop music, but I'm gonna hold onto this and apply it everywhere.

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Running yesterday I toggled between the radio broadcasts of the Cardinals & Cubs games. Just wanted a little more time with my guys & my radio friends. I love October baseball. For 25+ years we’ve hosted & fed friends night after night for it. But the end of the dailiness always leaves me sad.

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Cheever in his journal occasionally calls it his “love muscle,” and, nope. Let’s not do that, John.

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The slow smiles of the Saturday passengers in a train as we wave. —John Cheever, journal

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Just saw Destroy All Monsters (1968) at the Alamo. About halfway through, I thought, Too many people, not enough monsters. The second half righted the balance.

The poster for Destroy All Monsters, which includes a whole bunch of Godzilla’s buddies.

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There is a street fair on Clark and to walk on Clark south of Addison I just had to consent to a bag check. That’s all kinds of wrong.

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Tobias Wilson-Bates @phdhurtbrain.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

“Over the Rainbow,” by Harold Arlen and Yip Harburg, 1938. This isn’t what I meant to work on this morning, but I happened to turn to it in a fakebook, and how could I resist?

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Reposted by Levi Stahl

Some people claim that they haven’t read The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner: Written by Himself: With a detail of curious traditionary facts and other evidence by the editor but this book has been a banger for 202 years.

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“Gnossienne No. 2,” Erik Satie, 1913. Nothing like Satie for a Sunday morning.

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Listening to Justin Verlander pitch one last time. What a career.

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If you’re writing about Harvard, you’re not writing about higher ed, you’re writing about Harvard. If you’re writing about higher ed, you’re not writing about Harvard.

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Way back in the pre-COVID days we took a tour with Andrea and it was great!

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Home by myself this morning, so I made some biscuits and vegetarian gravy.

A plate with a whole biscuit next to a torn-up biscuit that’s covered with gravy. In the background is a mug with Burt Reynolds’s face on it.

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