iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Mark Wallace, so-called @markwallace.bsky.social · 08/08/2026

Book I still haven't finished after a couple of months, book I started and finished in a couple of days, book I purchased.

Three books: The Wake, by Paul Kingsnorth, which I like but which has gotten quite slow in the middle; The Collapsing Empire, by John Scalzi, which is really good like potato chips are really good so you can't stop eating them, y'know? and The Universal Baseball Association, Inc., J. Henry Waugh, Prop., which I'm really looking forward to.

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Mark Wallace, so-called @markwallace.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

After Tintin, the fictional character who most inspired me to become a journalist was probably Karl Kolchak: The Night Stalker. Happily getting reacquainted after a number of decades. So good.

Darren McGavin in white shirt and dark tie at a typewriter, from the first episode of Kolchak: The Night Stalker, 1974. What a badass ❤️

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Mark Wallace, so-called @markwallace.bsky.social · 14/06/2026

Reading an old copy of @grantamag.bsky.social and I can't imagine what it must have been like for Paul Theroux to publish his first novel, a stupendous moment in any writer's life, and then receive a letter from his mother calling it "trash."

Cover of Granta #98, featuring a large blue swimming pool against the backdrop of a gray sea with hills in the distance under an overcast sky. Scotland or Wales, I believe. Always evocative, Granta.

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Mark Wallace, so-called @markwallace.bsky.social · 03/05/2026

My head goes to what is the Doskvol and Deadlands for a city of criminal mice? Maybe a quaint little house surrounded by skyscrapers under construction, something like this?

A quaint little pink house surrounded by big city buildings that have been filtered into B&W to heighten the effect of its isolation. Ideal setting for a Mausritter x Blades in the Dark game, right?

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Mark Wallace, so-called @markwallace.bsky.social · 01/05/2026

It is possible that a more "me" jacket than this does not exist.

picture of an orange chore coat with its inner and outer pockets stuffed with books and pens. What's that you say? I'm drooling?

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Mark Wallace, so-called @markwallace.bsky.social · 28/03/2026

one of the all-time greatest movies ever fight me

Jackie Earle Haley, Dennis Quaid, Dennis Christopher (on bicycle), and Daniel Stern all looking so fucking 1979 in Breaking Away, one of the all-time greatest movies ever fight me

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Mark Wallace, so-called @markwallace.bsky.social · 16/11/2025

Your last saved meme is your moral philosophy

Same photo of Elliott Gould looking sad at the bar that I usually post. I mean, it's a great photo, so... And my moral philosophy!

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Mark Wallace, so-called @markwallace.bsky.social · 15/11/2025

Just spent a week with my aging dad. Had a nice time and was happy to be able to help him out. Fringe benefit: came back with these 15mm Napoleonic figures he's had for 50 years and which we used to wargame with when I was ca. 8yo. Some of these little Prussian guys I painted when I was a kid!

Some 15mm Napoleonic lead figures. On cardboard bases. It was a long time ago.

15mm Napoleonic lead figures in a pile. Been in the box for too long, time to get some wargame on.

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Mark Wallace, so-called @markwallace.bsky.social · 21/10/2025

stop scrolling and post two characters who bring you happiness

John Cho and Kal Penn in the movie poster for Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle

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Mark Wallace, so-called @markwallace.bsky.social · 13/10/2025

Today's harvest. (About 4x this many went in the compost — too many worms.)

50 apples and a quince drying on a towel, artfully shot in portrait mode against the backdrop of a dun California hillside

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Mark Wallace, so-called @markwallace.bsky.social · 10/09/2025

it's fun when William Gibson reads like the lore in a TTRPG module, especially when he's just talking about the here and now

A page from the William Gibson novel Agency in which the POV character talks about the fall of democracy and the insulating power of the kleptocracy. Apologies for not typing the whole thing out on my phone.

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Mark Wallace, so-called @markwallace.bsky.social · 26/08/2025

No new pictures, where are you mentally

A large grey sloth, clinging vertically to a tree, peering deep into your soul, seeing your secrets, knowing your guilt. Or perhaps just asleep.

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Mark Wallace, so-called @markwallace.bsky.social · 04/08/2025

I am staying next door, so I guess I'd better start writing some kind of weird-ass novel.

A plaque that says, in French, "The Irish writer James Joyce stayed in this hotel in October 1922. He started writing his novel Finnegan's Wake." That's a big fucking bed to lie in, I tell you.

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Mark Wallace, so-called @markwallace.bsky.social · 31/07/2025

The Centrale Montemartini is a museum of Roman antiquities set in a nearly 100yo former steam power plant. One of the most striking juxtapositions of imagery I've seen in a while. Very cool.

Ancient Roman busts arrayed alongside a huge black iron steam boiler with contraptions along the top that echo the rank of disembodied heads.

A headless statue from ancient Rome standing in front of the ductwork of a 75yo steam boiler.

Busts and a headless statue from ancient Rome beside a huge black iron boiler, as well as it's control panel.

An ancient Roman sarcophagus with a wavy vertical motif in front of huge vertical black iron boiler pipes.

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Mark Wallace, so-called @markwallace.bsky.social · 24/06/2025

What's a poster you had in your room growing up?

Queen's Fat Bottom Girls / Bicycle Race poster, from the album Jazz, featuring a lot of naked women on bicycles. Remarkably lenient, my parents, to let me hang this in my room.

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Mark Wallace, so-called @markwallace.bsky.social · 12/06/2025

You've been kidnapped. The characters from the last TV show you watched are trying to rescue you. Who is coming to save you. No, you don't want to see my belly.

Scene from Severance in which Mark and Hilly wait for the goat people to approach.

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Mark Wallace, so-called @markwallace.bsky.social · 02/06/2025

I've made a terrible mistake: have not listened to Low in quite some time. Rectifying now. #bowie #davidbowie #brianeno #tonyvisconti

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Mark Wallace, so-called @markwallace.bsky.social · 17/04/2025

A movie that takes place where you're from.

John Cazale and Al Pacino looking sweaty and nervous in Dog Day Afternoon. What a film! Don't tell me you've never seen it. Actually, do tell me, and I'll be the biggest cheerleader for the treat you're in for.

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Mark Wallace, so-called @markwallace.bsky.social · 27/01/2025

If you see this quote with a photo of a bridge from your gallery

Vast miniature railway layout with a little rail bridge at the right

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Mark Wallace, so-called @markwallace.bsky.social · 27/01/2025

what's your #comicsdna? Comics that were formative to you.

The cover of Flight 714, showing Tintin and Captain Haddock exploring a cave with two huge idols

A scene from Mobius's Airtight Garage, of a flying machine descending on a city

The Flaming Carrot, with his big carrot head, telling you everything you know is wrong.

Howard the Duck, defending a buxom Bev with a sword.

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Mark Wallace, so-called @markwallace.bsky.social · 27/12/2024

Absolutely enthralled and transported by WG Sebald's Austerlitz, but I have to say, coming to one of his paragraph breaks makes me feel like throwing an all-night party and then collapsing in bed for a week.

Cover of WG Sebald's stunning book, Austerlitz, showing a boy in frilly 19th-century costume? idk I'm sick this week give me a break sorry

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Mark Wallace, so-called @markwallace.bsky.social · 24/12/2024

"You will be visited by three spirits." The three spirits:

Matchbook cover depicting Manny, Moe, and Jack, the Pep Boys, against a red background. All three have 1930s-era greased hairdos, yellow dinner jackets, and double-breasted waistcoats. Manny is smoking his cigar. You remember the Pep Boys from before Manny had his cigar taken away, don't you? I do.

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Mark Wallace, so-called @markwallace.bsky.social · 29/11/2024

Day 12: Stayin' Alive, The Bee Gees (A song from your preteen years.)

The Bee Gees in signature white outfits and teeth, on the cover of the Stayin' Alive single

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Mark Wallace, so-called @markwallace.bsky.social · 28/11/2024

Day 11: Common People, Pulp (A song you never get tired of.)

Island Records cassette release of Pulp's Common People

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Mark Wallace, so-called @markwallace.bsky.social · 27/11/2024

Day 10: Sleepy California, Her Space Holiday (A song that makes you sad)

Her Space Holiday's Marc Paul Bianchi looking blankly at you through his horn-rim glasses and from under his perfect hair, while a reel-to-reel oversees the scene. I'd make soulful electronica songs if I had thatcool of a look too. Right? You feel me?

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Mark Wallace, so-called @markwallace.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

Day 9: ABC, The Jackson 5 (A song that makes you happy)

The Jackson 5 standing amid three capital letters spelling ABC that are as tell as they are. Blue background. Orange A. Yellow B. Red C. Naturally.

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Mark Wallace, so-called @markwallace.bsky.social · 23/11/2024

Day 8: David Bowie, Ashes to Ashes (A song about drugs or alcohol)

Sleeve of the 45 rpm single for David Bowie's Ashes to Ashes, featuring Bowie in a silvery iridescent Harlequin suit, listening to a silver shoes like it was a phone. We know Major Tom's a junkie.

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Mark Wallace, so-called @markwallace.bsky.social · 22/11/2024

Day 7: Smells Like Teen Spirit, Nirvana (A song to drive to)

grainy black and white photo of Kurt Cobain shouting into a microphone. no notes.

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Mark Wallace, so-called @markwallace.bsky.social · 21/11/2024

Day 6: It's Your Thing, The Isley Brothers (A song that makes you want to dance)

It's Your Thing 45 rpm single on T Neck records with an orange label with pink and blue stripes. A little boring, I know.

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Mark Wallace, so-called @markwallace.bsky.social · 20/11/2024

Day 5: Lust for Life, Iggy Pop (A song that needs to be played loud) Sorry for the wonky threading.

A young Iggy Pop buttoning a white shirt on the cover of the Lust for Life / The Passenger single. Great songs.

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Mark Wallace, so-called @markwallace.bsky.social · 20/11/2024

So what's ancientGreekPhysicianSky like around here? I am neither a classicist nor a medical person, but I am reading Galen, and reading about Galen, and thoroughly enjoying myself. Very interesting cat. I get the impression he was a bit like the Dr. House of 2nd-century Rome.

A woodcut or engraving, as might appear as the frontispiece of a book, of the ancient Green physician Galenus of Pergamon. He has a beard and a toga, like all ancient Greeks. (Frontispiece! Good word, right?)

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Mark Wallace, so-called @markwallace.bsky.social · 19/11/2024

Day 4: Don't Give Up, Peter Gabriel ft. Kate Bush (A song that reminds you of someone you'd rather forget)

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Mark Wallace, so-called @markwallace.bsky.social · 18/11/2024

Day 3: Kooks, David Bowie (A song that reminds you of summertime)

The incomparable David Bowie, young, holding his long feathery hair away from his face, transmitting the message that it's fine to be just who you are.

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