iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Mike Barthel @mikebarthelauthor.com · 2h

And that’s how my AU history of 9/11 was born

Mike Barthel @mikebarthelauthor.com · 15h

At 20 I insisted I didn’t have a type. At 47 I’m like of course I have a type, it’s lumpy space princess from adventure time

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Mike Barthel @mikebarthelauthor.com · 19h

Perilously close to trading the Wikipedia entry for sophism here

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Mike Barthel @mikebarthelauthor.com · 19h

They think nothing is real except jazz

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Mike Barthel @mikebarthelauthor.com · 30/09/2026

Oh yeah Cage opened his own in New Orleans. It’s mostly magic eye posters.

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Mike Barthel @mikebarthelauthor.com · 30/09/2026

Was inadvertently exposed to Nic Cage’s performance as John Madden and holy shit they’re gonna hang that thing in the Louvre.

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Mike Barthel @mikebarthelauthor.com · 29/09/2026

Ooh! Makes sense—always wondered how that apocalyptic stuff made its way into Joel’s vocab, but “sci-fi concept whittled down to fit into hyper-specific localism” fits the song.

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Mike Barthel @mikebarthelauthor.com · 29/09/2026

[Moe from the Simpsons saying “car hole” voice] Saxophoner. Saxophone guy. Sax slinger. Saxy blow. Basement Sax.

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Mike Barthel @mikebarthelauthor.com · 29/09/2026

Heard a BBC reporter pronounce “saxophonist” and I had to sit down.

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Mike Barthel @mikebarthelauthor.com · 29/09/2026

Realized people might think it was Haim!

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Mike Barthel @mikebarthelauthor.com · 29/09/2026

Did one of those unboxing videos for my novel, DON’T SAVE ME (and revealed where I got the title from), available here: a.co/d/02J37l0s

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Mike Barthel @mikebarthelauthor.com · 29/09/2026

That’s why I’ve gotta post about it, making it everyone else’s problem.

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Mike Barthel @mikebarthelauthor.com · 29/09/2026

[Ram Jam voice] Ooh black cherry / Frangipane Ooh black cherry / Frangipane

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Mike Barthel @mikebarthelauthor.com · 28/09/2026

Barron Trump listening to “10 Crack Commandments,” getting really into it, bobbing his head, thinking about getting a tattoo.

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Reposted by Mike Barthel

Polly, Transfeminist Killjoy @crosspollytaupe.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

one of my favorite tumblr posts

coffee shop by my house hired a new barista who is extraordinarily hot and flirts with me incessantly but she also makes the worst - and i truly mean the worst - coffee i’ve ever paid for. atrociously bad. just another of god’s little jokes

just remembered the barista who worked there last year and treated me with an attitude generally reserved for children and the incompetent to the point where she would frequently adjust my drink order in front of me and every single time it was BANGIN’

#cloth barista wire barista

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Mike Barthel @mikebarthelauthor.com · 28/09/2026

Typed “what’s a qualia” into google and it felt like I was setting Chico Marx up for a real zinger.

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Mike Barthel @mikebarthelauthor.com · 28/09/2026

One must imagine Sisyphus rapping

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Reposted by Mike Barthel

Bryan Waterman @waterman.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

My only contribution to the song-about-Texas discourse is to note that I’ve thought of the ending of “Lecture on Nothing” a couple dozen times today.

Last lines of John Cage’s “Lecture on Nothing. Apologies that this cut and paste will inevitably be unable to reproduce his spacing:

A lady
from Texas
said:
We have no music
I live in Texas
in Texas.
is because
The reason they've no they have recordings
music in Texas in Texas.
Remove the records from Texas and someone
will learn to sing
Everybody
has a song
which is
no
song at all :
it is a process
of singing
and when you sing you are
where you are
All I know about method is that when I am not working I sometimes
think I know something, but when I am working, it is quite clear that I know nothing.

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Reposted by Mike Barthel

Jeff Weiss @passionweiss.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

POW had somehow never run an interview with Doseone, one of the all-time underground rap greats. So @paulxt.bsky.social talked to the Anticon co-founder about Sumerian tablets, original sin, the Big Bang, Eraserhead and "Sighting," his latest brilliant set of poems. www.powmag.net/p/doseone-in...

powmag.net

You Can Scare the Moment Away: An Interview with doseone

The anticon. co-founder talks about his new album, David Lynch, Mark Rothko’s suicide, and much more.

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Mike Barthel @mikebarthelauthor.com · 28/09/2026

So are we willing to forgive Justin Timberlake for that country album now or what

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Reposted by Mike Barthel

Craig Jenkins @craigsj.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

got into a lot of this re what history was being made and what country artists are and aren't doing about the shifting political climate earlier in the run, as long as y'all talkin about it www.vulture.com/article/coun...

vulture.com

Country Music’s Middle Road

As MAGA grows more unpopular, the genre once perceived as redder than ever is moving to the center.

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Mike Barthel @mikebarthelauthor.com · 27/09/2026

Had I recently said “we’re never going there again, it’s so unsafe”? Of course I had. But it hits 2pm on a Sunday and you have 7 hours to kill and well

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Mike Barthel @mikebarthelauthor.com · 27/09/2026

Trampoline park scene report: they’re playing the Cranberries’ “Dreams”

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Mike Barthel @mikebarthelauthor.com · 27/09/2026

No I’m down for it (assuming a 10% finder’s fee)

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Mike Barthel @mikebarthelauthor.com · 27/09/2026

Yeah, I guess there’s also a story here about how the charts matter less as a storytelling tool about what actual songs are making an impact culturally.

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Mike Barthel @mikebarthelauthor.com · 27/09/2026

I think the more interesting argument is how sclerotic the charts are given the lengthy tenure of almost all the artists involved—surely someone has run the numbers on that. (Though the Occam’s Razor explanation for why millennial artists stick around so long is that there are way more Millennials.)

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Mike Barthel @mikebarthelauthor.com · 27/09/2026

I did listen to the Harry Styles album, so must have heard those, but I don’t think I could pick them out of a lineup.

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Mike Barthel @mikebarthelauthor.com · 27/09/2026

My paranoid suspicion is that YouTubers are the monoculture now

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Mike Barthel @mikebarthelauthor.com · 27/09/2026

Here are the top 10 singles from 2026 that were released this year—I’ve heard songs by these artists but almost none of these actual songs. (I was busy listening to albums from 2001!)

January 10
"Choosin'
Texas"
Ella Langley
January 17
"End of
Beginning"
Djo
January 24
"I Just
1
Bruno Mars
February 7
"Aperture"
Harry Styles
February 14
"The Great
Divide"个
Noah Kahan
March 14
"Risk It All"
［UITRI
Bruno Mars
"Stateside"
PinkPantheress with Zara
Larsson
March 21
"American
Girls" 1
Harry Styles
March 28
"So Easy (To Fall in Love) "[K][P]
Olivia Dean
April 4
"Swim"个
BTS
April 18
"Be Her"[K]
Ella Langley

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Mike Barthel @mikebarthelauthor.com · 27/09/2026

If you haven’t heard the #1 song in the country, and you’re in the Bluesky demographic, the Occam’s Razor explanation for most people (though not my mutuals!) is that you’ve aged out of current pop music!

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Mike Barthel @mikebarthelauthor.com · 27/09/2026

Few things better illustrate the problems of collective action better than a bunch of kindergartners trying to make giant bubbles with rope wands and the kids who don’t currently have wands deciding it would be more fun to pop the bubbles before they can start.

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Mike Barthel @mikebarthelauthor.com · 27/09/2026

Or…bad job? It’s so hard to say anymore

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Mike Barthel @mikebarthelauthor.com · 27/09/2026

Only one hit for “poptimism choosin texas” good job everyone

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Mike Barthel @mikebarthelauthor.com · 26/09/2026

Kiddo is watching this terrible Willy Wonka reality show thing and uhhhhhh nope!!

Wikipedia screenshot. The series has no traditional host and the voice of Willy Wonka is an Al recreation of Gene Wilder's performance from the 1971 film, created with the consent of his estate.

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Mike Barthel @mikebarthelauthor.com · 26/09/2026

Sending up a small prayer of gratitude that the second strip never came up during the Vampire Weekend wars

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Mike Barthel @mikebarthelauthor.com · 26/09/2026

I hoped to get “6 in the Mornin” on here too, but the release dates for all of these jumped around a lot during fact checking and I couldn’t get the puzzle pieces to align right.

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Mike Barthel @mikebarthelauthor.com · 26/09/2026

Ultramagnetic MCs - Ego Trippin (1986) EU - Da Butt (1988) Model 500 - The Chase (1989) Big Daddy Kane - Ain’t No Half-Steppin’ (1988, MAIN)

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Mike Barthel @mikebarthelauthor.com · 26/09/2026

*holding back tears* GUYS YOU CANNOT PLAY THE ADVENTURE TIME EPISODE WITH “EVERYTHING STAYS” WITHIN EARSHOT OF ME RIGHT NOW

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Mike Barthel @mikebarthelauthor.com · 26/09/2026

All ages show and a surprising number of tweens!

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Mike Barthel @mikebarthelauthor.com · 26/09/2026

What if instead of extreme negative emotions we made music about extreme positive emotions? What if instead of extremely harsh music we made extremely beautiful music? I am of course a sucker for that.

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