iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Man, I love how languid Ella is on the ballads on her Gershwin songbook record.

0110

It wasn’t until a few days later that I saw a sculptor name on it, and, because a friend shared that name, I asked her. Turns out her dad made it in 1960, and her sister had it but (shocking!) didn’t want it.

I put a wish out online back in 2020, lamenting that capitalism was useless because it couldn’t supply me a Samuel Johnson bust. A few days later one showed up, no box or info, on my porch.

120

Levi Stahl @levistahl.bsky.social · 13h

Good thing that man loved cats.

Our cat Rory, a gray cat who still has some air of kitten to him, perched on a shelf on the wall with his front two paws resting on the head of my bust of Samuel Johnson.

1364

Sounds manly as all get-out. Real chest-hair book.

Something Liam Gallagher (of all people) said in the recent Oasis concert film fits with some of the ideas in the most recent @philipchristman.bsky.social newsletter: “You have to care a lot to really not give a fuck.”

051

The trailer just looked entirely unappealing, giving the impression of a very obvious comedy that wasn’t dyne slightest bit funny.

240

That reader seems to have had days of the week on the brain, as this was written on a chapter-opening page 38 pagers earlier.

The word Thursday, written in cursive with a pencil running at an upward angle on the upper left of anotherwise blank page.

010

Thanks for the almost correct annotation, past Chicago Public Library patron!

Text from Ruth McKenney’s My Sister Eileen, next to which is written in pencil HIS GAL, FRIDAY:

This drove me to Mr. Churchill. I fled from my insulter and arrived at the forbidding door of Mr.
Churchill's hotel room, still unnerved. I knocked valiantly. I had mapped out my strategy well in advance. When Mr. Churchill asked, "Who's there?" I intended to reply, "Maid, with towels." Then, when he opened the door, I planned to stick my foot in the crack and ask him a lot of questions very fast.
I think a scene such as this had been in a newspaper film about that time.

160

Nothing better than Smoltz recommending a bunt and then Turang homering to dead center.

1253

Already we’ve twice seen the benefit of having a shortstop’s arm at second.

000

I have a collection from Routledge of contemporaneous reviews of Dickens (not just bad ones, to be clear) that I refer to all the time. I would love to have one for every major author.

Misiorowski’s neck is longer than Altuve is tall.

010

I bet Kiké Hernandez spent the day making friends with the ghosts at the Pfister Hotel.

140

Nice to be back at the piano after nearly a week away. I’m taking it really slow figuring out “Oh, Lady Be Good,” trying to come up with a version of the harmony part that lets me get all the 11ths and 13ths and suspended 9ths and such. So all I’ve got now is the first sequence.

151

We watched these every Sunday morning on TV when I was a kid, followed by (on days we skipped Sunday School), The Adventures of Superman. They remain really dear to me.

160

two vast and trunkless legs of bone . . .

The legs of a twelve-foot skeleton in someone’s yard.

2270

Ruth McKenney, My Sister Eileen.

Text:

EILEEN and I have always been very depressed by those engaging little tales of how captains of finance or editors of magazines or lady presidents of big important department stores made their mark in the world.
You know, the growing lad dashes out into the blistering wintah breeze to sell a mean newspaper.
In about two months the head slugger in the circulation department recognizes true genius in the budding banker; he equips the ambitious boy with a Colt machine gun and from there on in our lionhearted hero overcomes all obstacles including competitors and winds up complaining about labor unions to the president.

140

I go away for five days and . . .

A slightly undersized plastic human skeleton wearing a sweater and sitting in a chair in our library.

0140

Once I had the rhymes “Bible—li’ble” and “Goliath—dieth,” I felt I was probably on the right track. —Ira Gershwin, Lyrics on Several Occasions

030

Every once in a while I find myself thinking about Eddie Albert’s character’s utter contempt for Charles Gordon’s character in The Heartbreak Kid and it makes me smile.

020

Boredom can be regarded as a kind of fossil fuel, poured into inertia and ignited with fabulous results, but I am skeptical of this view, which reeks of unempirical optimism. —Gary Indiana, Do Everything in the Dark

1111

We had Tanuki and Rory in the vestibule, bribed with treats, so people could see them. Tanuki is basically Liza, so she had a great time being on stage and adored. Rory, alas, seems like maybe he’s more a Joey Luft type, not sure why we’re making him do this thing he doesn’t really enjoy.

Our gray cat, Rory, seen through the window of our vestibule. He looks concerned.

080

The Bowmanville Cat Tour was great. Hundreds of happy people smiling at cats and greeting them by name. I overheard a toddler say to their mom, “Let’s go see more kitties!”

A view of the crowd at the cat tour from our porch. There are people on the porch taking photos of our cats in the vestibule and tons of people crowding the sidewalk on both sides of the street.

A view of our building, a brick two-flat, with a crowd of people on the sidewalk and on our porch.

1224

Ruth McKenney, “Noel Coward and Mrs. Griffin.”

Text:

"The play?" Mrs. Grifin squeaked.
"I SAID WHAT WAS WRONG WITH THIS HOWARD OR COWARD OR WHATEVER YOU CALL HIM?"
"Why, Mr. McKenney!" Mrs. Griffin's bleat was tremolo. "I don't know what gets into you, shouting like that."
"Now listen, Mrs. Griffin." Father's voice was back down to sub-basement levels, although slightly shaky. "Just tell me as simply as you can why you do not consider this Howard or Coward or whoever he was fit for Eileen and Ruth to see."
«Eileen and Ruth!" Mrs. Griffin sounded pleased.
"Mercy! Don't tell me they saw that awful busi-ness!"
"MRS. GRIFFIN," Father thundered, "PLEASE."
"Well, in the play, he was in love with his mother."
Father was gruff. "Go ahead."
"Well, that was it."

030

Last night’s Sox loss was a real “the other guys drive nice cars, too” kinda game. Just tip your cap and come back stronger in April.

020

The dominance of pitching is a real problem that MLB needs to address (yet seems almost wholly uninterested in addressing), but tonight at least that dominance was exhilarating. We saw pitchers do absolutely wild things with the ball, with complete control. Electric stuff.

250

Babe Ruth would have been instantly reduced to a pile of dust by any one of the pitchers either team sent out there tonight. Good god.

160

It’s really good. I find myself thinking frequently about the not quite right approximations of human things and spaces it’s full of.

110

Aw, I’m glad you saw them! It was really fun.

010

Oh, that’s great! I made it for the last 40 minutes or so. Tanuki was having fun. Rory seemed less certain.

Our cat Rory, stuck in the vestibule, looking concerned.

110

A minute ago I was saying that Burke was just about matching Williams except for one bad pitch, then I stopped myself and was like, no, that’s not what that was.

030

Man, both these pitchers are making the ball do whatever the hell they want thus far.