iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Noah Berlatsky

Andrew Hickey @andrewhickey.500songs.com · 17m

I'll not be pretending. Pre-Lloyd Webber, stage musicals were mostly plays with a bunch of actual songs thrown in. Post-ALW they became middlebrow pseudo-opera, with none of the humour and tunes of eg Gilbert & Sullivan light opera, and none of the artistic merit of the hard stuff.

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Andrew Hickey @andrewhickey.500songs.com · 23m

Yeah, just look at Billy Sherrill, moving from FAME to Nashville. Tammy Wynette thought "Stand By Your Man" sounded more R&B than country.

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gamera obscura @ohrobin.bsky.social · 26m

“What separates country from blues or hip hop or rock or disco isn’t that country is the true music of the working class. What separates country is that it’s the contemporary music genre most defined by, and most closely associated with, whiteness.” This is so good.

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Noah Berlatsky @nberlat.bsky.social · 32m

one thing I hope people think about with this piece I guess is that country music looks a lot different if you acknowledge Black contributions and think about the way that a lot of stuff that could be country isn't just because it's by Black people. www.everythingishorrible.net/p/there-are-...

everythingishorrible.net

There Are A Lot of Reasons Not To Have Heard “Choosin’ Texas”

Country music’s racism is one.

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Jay Willis @jaywillis.net · 1h

The death penalty is a moral abomination. State-sanctioned barbarism pushed by incompetent morons and sanctioned by the Supreme Court. Absolute ghoul shit. www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...

The lone woman on Tennessee's death row was still alive after she was administered two lethal injections, her lawyer said in a motion seeking to halt her execution Wednesday night, a stunning development after the Supreme Court had stepped in to allow the state to put her to death.
At 8:26 p.m. local time, witnesses said
"executioners had injected both syringes of lethal injection chemicals and Pike is still alive and snoring," her lawyers said in a federal court filing.
They said Pike "has not lost consciousness and still has a heartbeat," and that curtains to the death chamber "have gone down twice."

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Semafor @semafor.com · 5h

Visitors to the US are on track to drop by almost two million year-on-year. “We’re the only major country in the world losing visitation,” the head of the US Travel Association said. “It’s mind-boggling.” www.semafor.com/article/09/2...

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Julian Sanchez @normative.bsky.social · 3h

So basically Trump has only been slightly less disastrous for international tourism than COVID.

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Jonathan Bernstein @jonathanbernstein.bsky.social · 2h

Yikes! I always think of the years I was Hill staff as pre-ethics but I don't think 1980s staff would have even considered trying to do this kind of thing. Of course when the party's leader sets the example that anything goes, well, of course.

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More like I-ACK @mumbly-joe.bsky.social · 3h

it was genuinely a mistake for Democrats to fail to do everything in their power and several things beyond it to put all of these coconspirators against American democracy in a deep dark hole for the rest of their lives.

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Will Stancil @whstancil.bsky.social · 2h

Repulsive

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Noah Berlatsky @nberlat.bsky.social · 2h

a D court would not solve all our problems. but it would abolish the death penalty.

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Evan Bernick, a finite mode with a smol hooman and a lorg floof @evanbernick.bsky.social · 12h

This is very interesting. Two thoughts: 1. This will be challenged. I wouldn't be surprised if challenges succeed. 2. You should be able to make officials who violate your constitutional rights pay for it, and if nothing else, this bill highlights how difficult it is-particularly w/r/t the feds.

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Zeddy @zeddary.bsky.social · 2h

Hegseth purged all the trans and woke cybersecurity specialists aaaaaaaand

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Noah Berlatsky @nberlat.bsky.social · 2h

the new neil young is surprisingly solid.

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Jonathan Howard @joho.bsky.social · 2h

I post this not to remind of VInay Prasad, but rather to remind of the academic system that nourished, encouraged, and literally promoted the guy who said things like this👇all the time.

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Noah Berlatsky @nberlat.bsky.social · 2h

oh right; it's the end of the month when everyone rejects my poetry.

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Prisonculture @prisonculture.bsky.social · 3h

Tracey wants the attention he's getting. In fact, like everything else, he's monetizing it.

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Dr. William Horne @wihorne.bsky.social · 5h

We talk a lot in the U.S. abt working class white Americans undermining their own interests in various ways, but it is striking to see how the ruling class will destroy itself rather than concede the right of others to live with dignity.

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Dr. William Horne @wihorne.bsky.social · 5h

Really striking that the ruling class has gone all in on gambling & AI to squeeze a just little more profit & power from this collapsing system. They might have taken steps to make it appear more stable & just, but doing so cuts against their claim to power. So instead they ensure its collapse.

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Rebecca Solnit @rebeccasolnit.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Time for this classic again.

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Governor JB Pritzker @govpritzker.illinois.gov · 5h

I’m calling on my fellow public servants - Democratic and Republican - to reject the influence of AI and Big Tech spending in our politics and elections. Americans deserve full confidence that our federal government focuses on their safety, not on companies' profit margins.

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Noah Berlatsky @nberlat.bsky.social · 5h

I read a fair number of romance novels. some are great, some are bad; it's like anything. certainly the hit to miss ration isn't worse than literary fiction.

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BeijingPalmer @beijingpalmer.bsky.social · 5h

many books are terrible and formulaic and could be replicated by AI, but there is no genre that is *inherently* terrible and formulaic and could be replicated by AI. there is terrible and formulaic 'literary' fiction.

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hello @twotimesjohnny.bsky.social · 5h

she‘s even wrong about clothes. if clothes could be made *entirely* by machine we would be living in another world completely

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Erin Biba @erinbiba.bsky.social · 5h

Everyone’s gonna memory hole this like they do her racism and antisemitism but this is your regular reminder that Joyce Carol Oates fucking sucks and just because she sometimes makes a funny tweet doesn’t erase how much she fucking sucks.

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Noah Berlatsky @nberlat.bsky.social · 5h

this is just an effort to blame victims. people are targeted because of hate, not because they did anything wrong. that's one lesson of the Holocaust and people really do not want to hear it.

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Sheryl Weikal says Prosecute ICE @leftistlawyer.com · 6h

Chicagoland friends, I have a favor to ask. I have a pro bono client, a Black woman, who is currently facing charges for allegedly pointing a gun at her abusive ex - who admitted to raping her. I would love if there could be a show of support for her at her next few court dates.

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BeijingPalmer @beijingpalmer.bsky.social · 7h

everyone lucked the hell out on the terror attack today where the co-pilot stabbed the pilot, passengers took down the attacker *and* there seem to have been two off-duty pilots who were able to land the plane safely. Could have been one of the worst attacks for a while otherwise.

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Kyle Cheney @kyledcheney.bsky.social · 5h

JUST IN: A federal judge has denied DOJ's effort to obtain Georgia's complete, unredacted voter list, the latest in a string of more than two dozen defeats for the Trump administration in efforts to obtain state voter rolls. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

storage.courtlistener.com

#146 in United States v. Raffensperger (N.D. Ga., 1:26-cv-00485) – CourtListener.com

ORDER. It is ORDERED that Defendant Raffensperger and Intervenor-Defendant's BVMF's Motions to Dismiss (Docs. 16, 23 ) are GRANTED IN PART as set forth in this Order. Intervenor-Defendants' Common Cau...

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Elizabeth Spiers @espiers.bsky.social · 6h

Just read @katemanne.bsky.social ‘s fantastic piece in The Cut about the Cornell rape and she points out that students protesting conditions in Gaza were treated more harshly than the rapists and holy shit, this detail

One of these students was my own advisee, and having supported her throughout the the months-long case, I can state with confidence that she did nothing wrong. Moreover, she happens to be deaf and was suspended in part for being “unreasonably loud.” Privacy consideration

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Angie Nixon @angieforfl.bsky.social · 6h

Three things Congress could pass to lower your bills: universal healthcare so a hospital stay doesn't become debt, repeal the tariffs that act as a tax on working families and universal child care so parents can get back to work. #AngieForFlorida

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Noah Berlatsky @nberlat.bsky.social · 6h

that's an awful lot of old white guys standing around while trump falls asleep.

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Noah Berlatsky @nberlat.bsky.social · 6h

she also got accepted for a playwriting contest thing that rejected me. she was kind about that. ("they sent you a personal rejection! that's impressive!")

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Susan Rinkunas @susanrinkunas.com · 8h

To recap: three GOP-led states that wanted the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade in order to "send abortion back to the states" are now asking the Court to strike down abortion protections in blue states

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BeijingPalmer @beijingpalmer.bsky.social · 6h

“That things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs”

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rax ‘levon honkers’ king @raxkingisdead.bsky.social · 6h

this is why trying to see far into the future will drive you insane, all you can see is how far away the world you want still is. but the more straightforwardly oppressive world of the distant past is also far away! because small people did small things that added up over time!

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rax ‘levon honkers’ king @raxkingisdead.bsky.social · 6h

if you begin feminist history at #MeToo then it's easy to despair that nothing has changed (or that some things have actually gotten worse). if you take a much longer view though things have changed so much! the little gestures we make today are adding up to something we can't see yet!

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Scott MacFarlane @macfarlanenews.bsky.social · 9h

NEW: Despite Trump fixation, Internal probe of Federal Reserve's building renovation project finds "At no point during our evaluation did we find reasonable grounds to believe that a violation of federal criminal law had occurred requiring a referral to the US Attorney General"

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Noah Berlatsky @nberlat.bsky.social · 6h

my daughter invited me to a play then realized she would prefer to see it with her friends and uninvited me. she was cheerful about it though.

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Noah Berlatsky @nberlat.bsky.social · 6h

for tomorrow, I wrote a piece about how I go about writing movie criticism. it's mostly because I'm going to be talking to a class, but maybe of interest to some others! sign up and it'll be in your inbox in the morning, whoosh. open.substack.com/pub/noahberl...

open.substack.com

How To Movie Critic

So you want to opine…

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G Elliott Morris @gelliottmorris.com · 11h

Subscribe to Strength In Numbers today for unparalleled Value Above Replacement www.gelliottmorris.com/subscribe/

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Orion Kidder @orionkidder.bsky.social · 7h

I often think about Trump like Tony Soprano. Tony wasn't a criminal mastermind with "animal cunning." He learned a few specific tricks from his mafia family that he could pull of IF he had the backing of that family: money, weapons, hired goons. Without that, he's just some asshole. See also, Trump.

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Noah Berlatsky @nberlat.bsky.social · 7h

good piece. I think that it fits with my theory that the post labor day polling drop for Rs is not about diesel prices or anything specific; it's just that people loathe Rs and are now beginning to pay attention to them, which is filling them with rage. 1

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David S. Bernstein @dbernstein.bsky.social · 11h

It feels like we’ve reached a point where Republicans annoy voters by their mere presence. Tough for midterm candidates to improve their standing when that’s the case. My new column in the newsletter (with My Fair Lady lyrics slipped in, for some odd reason): open.substack.com/pub/goodpoli...

open.substack.com

Voters Seem Annoyed

I can’t get over the fact that the President offered $5,000 to every adult American, and adult Americans, according to polls, said “Ugh, would you please stop bothering me with your lame ideas?”

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Jonathan Bernstein @jonathanbernstein.bsky.social · 7h

Open to arguments about however people would rank Clinton/Obama/W. Carter would fit into that group, too.

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Jonathan Bernstein @jonathanbernstein.bsky.social · 7h

Ranking recent presidents (Reagan on) on how comfortable they seemed with religious talk and practice: 1. Biden 2. Clinton 3. Obama 4 W. [gap] 5. GHW Bush [decent-sized gap] 6. Reagan [enormous, wider than all of creation gap] 7. Trump

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Noah Berlatsky @nberlat.bsky.social · 7h

trump lies all the time, but he doesn't really have the ability to dissemble. 1

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Polling USA @usapolling.bsky.social · 10h

Generic Ballot Polling: 🔵 Democrats: 55% 🔴 Republicans: 45% Argument/Verasight / Sept 21, 2026

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Noah Berlatsky @nberlat.bsky.social · 7h

quantus is one of the pollsters with consistently lower numbers for Ds. which doesn't mean they're wrong, but not great for Rs that their best cast right now is winning IA by 2.

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