iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Michael Downs @michaeldowns.bsky.social · 16h

... the fierce sun that sparkled the windscreen made Ugwu wonder if he had died and this was what happened after death: an unending journey in a car. – a #SundaySentence from Chimamanda Adichie's Half of a Yellow Sun.

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Michael Downs @michaeldowns.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

"She got back to Nsukka in the middle of the afternoon, that still hour when the sun was relentless and even the bees perched in quiet exhaustion." – a #SundaySentence from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Half of a Yellow Sun

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Michael Downs @michaeldowns.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

The @nytimes.com 's best 100 didn't include docs, but OJ Simpson: Made in America makes my list anyway. The Wire (2); Mad Men (3); The Americans (17); Deadwood (24); The Good Place (51); Ted Lasso (75); Reservation Dogs (87); A French Village; OJ: Made in America; Man in the High Castle

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Michael Downs @michaeldowns.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

Five years ago, thanks to the auspices of Fulbright Poland and Jagiellonian University, we arrived in Kraków for the start of ten months in that remarkable city. We had no idea how our time in Poland would transform our lives. Polska: Dziękujęmy. Dziękujemy z całego serca.

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Reposted by Michael Downs

Jen Benka @jenbenka.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

Remembering the comfort this poem by Polish poet Adam Zagajewski —selected by Alice Quinn to run in the New Yorker on Sept 17, 2001 —gave to so many. #NeverForget #September11 www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/57095/...

poetryfoundation.org

Try to Praise the Mutilated World

Try to praise the mutilated world. Praise the mutilated world and the gray feather a thrush lost, and the gentle light that strays and vanishes and…

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Michael Downs @michaeldowns.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

"The Adagio ignites our grief, then lets us go, to deal with its flame. ... Music accomplishes only so much. So much and so little." Thoughts from this book about Barber's Adagio, which twenty-five years ago became an artistic outlet for a grieving country.

simonandschuster.com

The Saddest Music Ever Written

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Michael Downs @michaeldowns.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

Today's my first day teaching the Novel: Structure, Form, and Style for Johns Hopkins. We'll dig deeply into these novels. This will be fun. #BookSky

The photo shows the covers of seven novels: The Good Lord Bird, A Prayer for the Dying, Stoner, Half of a Yellow Sun, People Like Us, The Correspondent, and Station Eleven

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Michael Downs @michaeldowns.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

The night of the Blood Moon eclipse.

An eerie play of light in black and white, with a lawn in the foreground, and behind that a wood slatted fence, and behind that apartment buildings, and above it all a bright, eclipsed full moon.

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Michael Downs @michaeldowns.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

"Jolene" is a live-forever song. Also impressive is "I Will Always Love You," her professional break-up song from Porter Wagoner. www.youtube.com/watch?v=7XSj...

youtube.com

Dolly Parton - I Will Always Love You [Official Music Video]

YouTube video by Dolly Parton

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Michael Downs @michaeldowns.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

Thank the universe that we for eighty years we had a Dolly Parton to break barriers, speak truths, and write exquisite songs. dollyparton.com

dollyparton.com

Dolly Parton | Official Website

The official website and historical archive of Dolly Parton.

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Michael Downs @michaeldowns.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

For a long time they sat together without moving, as if any movement might let escape from them the strange and terrible thing that they held between them in a single grasp. -- a #SundaySentence from John Wiliam's Stoner. Hard to choose from this one

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Michael Downs @michaeldowns.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

On a recent trip to the Oregon coast we watched clear spring water flow over beach sand to the Pacific, creating these amazing designs. So much to see and imagine in these geographies.

Sand mixes in beige and black to create flowing designs.

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Michael Downs @michaeldowns.bsky.social · 16/08/2026

"It's a bad habit, talking to the dead." – a #SundaySentence from Stewart O'Nan's A PRAYER FOR THE DYING, which he once described as a "Christian existentialist horror" novel. #BookSky

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Michael Downs @michaeldowns.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

Sometimes you read sentences that make you want to sit down and start writing and give up all in the same moment. Here's one.

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Reposted by Michael Downs

Jo Lloyd but jolly 🌍🐎 @jolloyds.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

Sure the eclipse was good, but have you seen this sentence from Jon Kalman Stefánsson? "that is why the sea is salty"

"Two crewmen drowned, their bodies were never found and thus they were added to the large group of fishermen who ramble about the seafloor, jabbering to each other about the jogtrot of time, waiting for the final call that someone had promised them in days of old, waiting for God to pull them up, fish them up with his net of stars, dry them off with his warm breath, permit them to walk with dry feet in Heaven, where one never eats fish, say the drowned, always just as optimistic, busy themselves with looking up at the boats, expressing amazement at the new fishing gear, cursing the rubbish that people leave behind in the sea, but sometimes weeping with regret for life, weeping as drowned folk weep, and that is why the sea is salty."

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Michael Downs @michaeldowns.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

What a gift to hold this novel, just arrived from @regalhouse.bsky.social and how great it will be to crack its spine and again be in the good company of Skip Hays, who is much missed. #BookSky

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Michael Downs @michaeldowns.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

Twenty-first-century road trip: during a restroom stop, I'm facing a urinal and my phone–sinister, insistent–says, "Proceed to the route."

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Michael Downs @michaeldowns.bsky.social · 01/08/2026

Today marks 80 years since a senator from Arkansas led the creation of the #Fulbright program, an effort in global cultural exchange meant to help people across the globe learn to better negotiate their inevitable misunderstandings. Thank goodness this year didn't also result in the program's end.

fulbright.org

House Rejects Amendment to Eliminate Fulbright Funding

On July 15, the U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly rejected an amendment to H.R. 8595 that would have eliminated funding for the Fulbright Program by a vote of 79-348. To those who spent the...

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Michael Downs @michaeldowns.bsky.social · 26/07/2026

She wore a flowered blue dress of the type whores naturally favored, and that thing was so tight that when she moved, the daisies got all mixed up with the azaleas. She walked like a warm room full of smoke. – two for #SundaySentence from James McBride's The Good Lord Bird

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Michael Downs @michaeldowns.bsky.social · 12/07/2026

No #SundaySentence from me this week, but here is my dog pal, Raven (name evoking the poem), performing her best trick in a secondhand bookstore in Montana.

A smallish dog with a black-and-oaten fur amid shelves of books, appears to be reading a book with the title "The Literary Dog."

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Michael Downs @michaeldowns.bsky.social · 06/07/2026

"What do you remember from that day when the circus fell to ash?" 7.6.1944 – eighty-two years ago - a circus tent burned in Hartford, killing nearly 170 people. In my book about the fire, The Greatest Show, a character notes that "the redeeming currency of old pain is drama."

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Michael Downs @michaeldowns.bsky.social · 03/07/2026

These words were written months before we came to understand the historically unscrupulous income that came to the president in his first year of gaming our government to his benefit.

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Michael Downs @michaeldowns.bsky.social · 21/06/2026

What I learned at #ZootownFestival: 1. #TedeschiTrucks always deliver, even to those of us far from the stage. 2. Big dang binoculars justify the effort to bring them. 3. I'll forget the bad food and long remember Tedeschi shredding her guitar and baring her soul on "Love Has Something Else to Say."

Festival goers congregate, sitting and standing and dancing before a distant stage. In the distance: grass-sloped mountains, blue sky, and clouds.

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Michael Downs @michaeldowns.bsky.social · 21/06/2026

The cool night air blesses my face, the stars shine brighter than ever, and the near-full moon has tears in its eyes. - a #SundaySentence from The Night is Not For You, a novel by @emanquotah.bsky.social

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Michael Downs @michaeldowns.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

More than 20 years ago, my wife and gave me an ash sapling for my birthday, and we planted it in our Montana front yard. Aphids can kill ash saplings. So I spent much time on a step ladder with soapy water, brushing aphids from one leaf, then another. There's no tree I love more than this one.

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Michael Downs @michaeldowns.bsky.social · 08/06/2026

Embarking on a writing project involving "Sitting on Top of the World." If you're a Spotifier, follow my playlist as I keep adding versions of this remarkable song .... open.spotify.com/playlist/6rk...

open.spotify.com

My Li'l All n All

Playlist · mdowns2014 · 22 items · 1 saves

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Michael Downs @michaeldowns.bsky.social · 15/06/2026

In the primeval forests of Poland, bison fend off wolves. The video is only a year old, but watching it is akin to looking back to something ancient. notesfrompoland.com/2026/06/15/v...

notesfrompoland.com

Video captures wolves attacking bison in Poland for first time

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Michael Downs @michaeldowns.bsky.social · 14/06/2026

I have an inkling of how the NY Knicks feel today. A few words of mine are a #SundaySentence.

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Michael Downs @michaeldowns.bsky.social · 14/06/2026

"...she has ambitions, an embarrassing thing for any woman, but particularly for her, who has a magpie's education from the College of Whatever Happened to Be on Father's Bookshelf..." – a #SundaySentence from Sabina Murray's "Fish," reimagining the life of British adventurer Mary Kingsley.

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Michael Downs @michaeldowns.bsky.social · 12/06/2026

An important read from a columnist in Baltimore.

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Michael Downs @michaeldowns.bsky.social · 10/06/2026

My favorite writer with new work at Short Reads.

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Michael Downs @michaeldowns.bsky.social · 08/06/2026

open.spotify.com

My Li'l All n All

Playlist · mdowns2014 · 22 items · 1 saves

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Michael Downs @michaeldowns.bsky.social · 07/06/2026

" 'I prefer a living creature,” says Rumpelstiltskin, ‘to all the treasures in the world.” — Sabrina Orah Mark, “Rumple. Stilt. And Skin.”

theparisreview.org

Rumple. Stilt. And Skin. by Sabrina Orah Mark

August 15, 2019 – Lately I have been hurting people I love with my writing.

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Michael Downs @michaeldowns.bsky.social · 06/06/2026

Peak blossom day at Packer Meadow, Lolo Pass, Idaho, 5200 feet. Selish and Nimiipuu people have long harvested the roots for winter food. Lewis and Clark stopped here twice. We heard it will snow tomorrow so visited today.

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Michael Downs @michaeldowns.bsky.social · 04/06/2026

"Writing about music is like dancing about architecture" is false. This series proves it. "A song’s texture turns tactile with Lucinda Williams. Sweat salt. Ice crunch. Oyster grit. Matches. Grease (bacon, engine, hair). ... She titled one masterpiece album “Car Wheels on a Gravel Road."

nytimes.com

The 30 Greatest Living American Songwriters (Gift Article)

More than 250 music insiders and six New York Times critics weighed in on who defines the new American songbook. Here are the artists they chose.

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Michael Downs @michaeldowns.bsky.social · 31/05/2026

"That bird didn't fly and Mero wound up sixty years later as an octogenarian vegetarian widower pumping an Exercycle in the living room of a colonial house in Woolfoot, Massachusetts." – the fate of a Wyoming ranch kid in Annie Proulx's "The Half-Skinned Steer" serves as this week's #SundaySentence

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Michael Downs @michaeldowns.bsky.social · 24/05/2026

Outside the circle of warmth, the snow squeaked and the stars pulsed in the impenetrable heavens. – a campfire #SundaySentence from Louise Erdrich's story, "The Flower."

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Michael Downs @michaeldowns.bsky.social · 17/05/2026

Sherwood Anderson gave us our first portrait of American small town life in Winesburg, and it remains an accurate portrait. So many great characters. So much yearning.

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Michael Downs @michaeldowns.bsky.social · 17/05/2026

She strokes Mother’s hands like they’ve just pulled Jesus down from the cross, and Mother seems to calm at the touch. – a #SundaySentence from @rosebunch.bsky.social, from a story published by Arkansas International. www.arkint.org/magazine/ros...

arkint.org

Rose Bunch — The Arkansas International

The Needy

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Michael Downs @michaeldowns.bsky.social · 06/05/2026

@sammyzorba.bsky.social, here's another for your Jim Harrison collection. "I would rather give full vent to all human loves and disappointments, and take a chance on being corny, than die a smartass."

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Michael Downs @michaeldowns.bsky.social · 05/05/2026

@thebaltimorebanner.com's model for local news sets the national standard. Banner journalists have stepped on the Pulitzer stage two years in a row. What a gift to those of us who live here. www.thebanner.com/community/lo...

thebanner.com

The Banner named Pulitzer finalist for reporting on Baltimore’s school transit failures

The Pulitzer Prize Board has recognized The Banner for a second consecutive year.

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Michael Downs @michaeldowns.bsky.social · 03/05/2026

Hardly a man stirred from the meager protection of his sleeping bag until 11 a.m., when Shackleton ordered all hands out to kill penguins. – a #SundaySentence from Alfred Lansing's ENDURANCE about the 1914-1916 Antarctic expedition.

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Michael Downs @michaeldowns.bsky.social · 30/04/2026

Coming to Maryland's Good Contrivance Farm for a workshop and talk! His cartoons have been featured in the #NewYorker and #McSweeney's, and his #graphicnovels have won him Baltimore's biggest literary award. Spread word to any aspiring artists! baltimorefishbowl.com/stories/maki...

baltimorefishbowl.com

Baltimore Fishbowl | 'Making Comics Come Alive' Workshop May 9 at Good Contrivance Farm -

If you like graphic novels, illustrated essays, and other use of images in writing, you'll want to attend Nguyên Khôi Nguyễn's workshop—"Making Comics

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Michael Downs @michaeldowns.bsky.social · 30/04/2026

Sitting on Top of the World-Chris Smither The Weight-The Band Sweet Thing-Van Morrison Greenville-Lucinda Williams Go-Pearl Jam Angel from Montgomery-B Raitt September-Earth, Wind & Fire Little Wing-S Ray Vaughn The Sound of Sunshine Going Down-M Franti Sultans of Swing-Dire Straits #TopTenSongs

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Michael Downs @michaeldowns.bsky.social · 28/04/2026

Nobody shaped my writing more than William Kennedy, acrobat of vision, structure, and sentences. I don't write a bit like him. But his imagination fed mine. I nearly knee-capped him once with a hard shove to a parking garage door. Acrobat that he is, he dodged the danger, then gallantly said hello.

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Michael Downs @michaeldowns.bsky.social · 27/04/2026

Graduation ceremonies mean everyone knows Elgar's "Pomp and Circumstance" but I prefer "Nimrod" from his Enigma Variations. Yesterday, I heard the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra performed it as a memorial. Listen to this version loud. You'll remember how much you love being alive.

youtube.com

Enigma Variations, Op. 36: Variation 9: Nimrod

YouTube video by Sir Andrew Davis - Topic

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Michael Downs @michaeldowns.bsky.social · 26/04/2026

Marin Alsop is a gift to the world, and we in Baltimore so benefit from her life and work in our city.

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