iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Peter Kravitz @peterkravitz.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

The Rulers by Cecilia Rikap looks accurate and necessary (unfortunately). Pair it with this comment from pavement art at Pond Street London NW3 on how the powerful profit from bubbles:

A child’s painting using green and blue and red and orange paint pressed from the bottom of a jar onto paper to illustrate the phrase ‘I can count the bubbles’, with autumn leaves surrounding it on the pavement.

051

Peter Kravitz @peterkravitz.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

Adding these two Barbara Hanrahan novels from the glorious Pink Shorts Press, with glorious covers by the author…

Two covers. One with a woman face on with hair coming down over one eye, wearing a flowered top and striped skirt. In the background are creatures and flowers pink and purple. Slightly trippy, visionary. The other: half a face with birds on the face and more trippy flowers and faces in the background.

150

Peter Kravitz @peterkravitz.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

Tolstoy, born on this day in 1828, which is a good excuse for Maira Kalman’s imagining of him having breakfast. From her “still life with remorse (family stories”

Tolstoy at the breakfast table wearing Russian hat having

0258

Peter Kravitz @peterkravitz.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

This wonderful Gwen John exhibition has landed in Edinburgh until January 2027…

An extract from a Gwen John notebook:
“Thought: You make your life. Let it be consciously, with fearlessness”

1134

Peter Kravitz @peterkravitz.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

And hats off to @deepvellum.bsky.social who have just this week done her Nelly’s Version: “A middle-aged woman suffering from amnesia checks into a small-town hotel under the pseudonym Nelly Dean with a suitcase full of cash and no idea where it, or she, came from…”

Book cover has a picture of a woman maybe in the 1940s carrying a square leather suitcase. I’m wearing a dress with buttons all the way down the front standing in thick grass.

072

Peter Kravitz @peterkravitz.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

Life, a user’s manual at Paddington Station this morning…

Printed words on steps at Paddington Station saying
Please take care
One step at a time
don’t rush
No mobiles

0204

Peter Kravitz @peterkravitz.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

Comment on yesterday’s By-Election from The Children of Light by Jean Pleyers, albeit made in the early 1980s. Just translated for @nyrb-imprints.bsky.social from the French by @lukevburns.bsky.social

Orange circle with tail and yellow insides surrounded by white line and yellow wavy shape, the whole of which is coming through a gap in the black sky, pressing through green circles of atmosphere into the planet underneath.

011

Peter Kravitz @peterkravitz.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

A tender piece on a superb artist. This is her ‘I Say Nothing’:

A semicircle of silhouettes of men and women printed on tracing or glassine paper with illumination in the middle shining through them.

130

Peter Kravitz @peterkravitz.bsky.social · 30/07/2026

A table at Feltrinelli Firenze Santa Maria:

Table of books at Feltrinelli bookshop at Florence station with most covers having faces of women

131

Peter Kravitz @peterkravitz.bsky.social · 30/07/2026

All of Dorothy Hughes worth reading. She’s fully classic in our out of genre. Has there been a biography? Megan Abbot’s intro to the NYRB In A Lonely Place is so acute:

At the hard-boiled story’s end, the good girl must be rejected (or recuse herself) and the femme fatale must be sent to prison (The Maltese Falcon, The Big Sleep) or die (Farewell, My Lovely). Her defeat heralds the hero’s regaining of control or mastery of himself. In the more fatalistic tales, such as Cain’s Double Indemnity and The Postman Always Rings Twice and, later, countless Jim Thompson and David Goodis novels of the more nihilistic 1940s and ’50s, the protagonist goes down with her.

Yet, in Hughes’s dexterous hands, In a Lonely Place reverses and upturns all these conventions. Her Dix Steele (whom Hughes, winkingly, has pose as a mystery novelist) views women with even more wariness than Chandler’s Philip Marlowe and more cynicism than Hammett’s Sam Spade. Soon enough, Dix faces both genre staples: a putative femme fatale in the glamorous, morally questionable, sexually independent Laurel, and a good girl—Brub’s wife, Sylvia. But Dix is no slightly tarnished knight nor is he a simple sap; he’s an amoral hustler, a liar, and much, much worse. As the story unfolds, we gradually understand that the danger is not without but within. And it is Laurel and Sylvia who prove to be the real detectives here, the hard-boiled “dicks” uncovering Dix’s secrets, while Dix himself is the threat, the contaminant. The femme fatale turns out to be an homme, leading us to wonder if, perhaps, he always was.

In so doing, Hughes doesn’t merely overturn a genre. She also presciently dissects a cultural movement that is just getting under way: as she was writing In a Lonely Place, critics were beginning to talk about what they called film noir, a dark, fatalistic cycle of movies that emerged as the war ended, many of which were adaptations of hard-boiled novels of the prior decade. The psychological richness of the movies made them stand out to French critics, who would come to view them as a response to the traumas of the war. But it would not be until decades later that film critics and scholars would pinpoint what Hughes understood implicitly: how such trauma connects to gender and a dangerously beset masculinity—and how it can explode into sexual violence.

In recent decades, the prevailing theory is that noir emerged from a cultural crisis following World War II. Returning soldiers came home to a changed world where the girls next door they left behind became the women who took their jobs and (potentially) their agency. The result was a dark current of books and films about men facing a world over which they have no control. The system—organized crime, police, government, fate, all of the above—is out to get them, but it usually takes the form of a woman. And whether it’s Barbara Stanwyck’s Phyllis (Double Indemnity) or Jane Greer’s Kathie (Out of the Past) or Ava Gardner’s Kitty (The Killers), women are revealed to be duplicitous, treacherous, annihilating.

This is certainly Dix’s view. “They were all alike, cheats, liars, whores,” he reflects. “Even the pious ones were only waiting for a chance to cheat and lie and whore.” Hughes’s trick, however, is to situate the narrative impulses that drive noir in the mind of a man whom she is painting, inch by inch, as a violent and mentally ill criminal. With each passing chapter, we come to doubt or utterly reject Dix’s characterizations of both others and himself. For instance, the moment Dix sees the life his wartime buddy Brub, now a cop, has made for himself—home, hearth, and domesticity embodied in his new wife, Sylvia—he feels a rage he cannot understand or control. Brub, to Dix, has been “made different by being chained to a woman.” Pussy-whipped. The warm, homosocial world of the war is gone forever and in its place is only isolation and paranoia. In the expressionistic world of film noir, such paranoia is justified and universal. For Hughes, however, it is specific, personal, unglamorous, ugly, even ridiculous. By the novel’s final stretch, an increasingly out-of-control Dix determines that the cleaning lady and her “hideous siren” of a vacuum cleaner are out to get him.

Likewise, we increasingly doubt Dix’s insistence on Laurel’s treachery. “He’d known what she was the first time he’d looked at her,” he asserts. “Known he couldn’t trust her … Known he couldn’t hurt her and she couldn’t hurt him. Because neither of them gave a damn about anyone or anything except their own skins.” It is telling that the woman he repeatedly frames as a femme fatale is also the person with whom he most identifies. “I knew you before I ever saw you,” he tells her soon after they meet. It seems only right, as it is Dix who is the true shape-shifter, the masquerader, the fatal combination of sex and death.

140

Peter Kravitz @peterkravitz.bsky.social · 11/07/2026

Looking forward to heading from Edinburgh up to Pitlochry for Maureen Beattie as King Lear

Photo of Maureen Beattie as King Lear, pointing her finger at one of her three daughters

030

Peter Kravitz @peterkravitz.bsky.social · 09/07/2026

And this drawing by Iris Murdoch from a letter to Raymond Queneau…

Iris Murdoch draws a picture of herself calling to a cartoon of Raymond Queneau busy writing at a desk.

1175

Peter Kravitz @peterkravitz.bsky.social · 05/07/2026

Overnight appearance at the back door of Edinburgh College of Art

A black doorway set into old red sandstone. In the middle of the black door is a tall narrow graffiti figure in yellow with its eyes looking down and the words sad man forming most of the body.

030

Peter Kravitz @peterkravitz.bsky.social · 27/06/2026

Last weekend for this show in Edinburgh: “I very often find I'll take my paints to a certain place that has moved me and I'll begin to paint there and I find perhaps by the end of the summer I haven't moved from that place - my paintings are still there and I've worn a kind of mark in the ground”

Joan Eardley with her easel on a cliff top at Catterline just south of Aberdeen. Behind her is a washing line with two towels or maybe a towel and a pillowcase drying.

Black pen drawing by Joan Eardley of fishing nets on poles, annotated with what colours she plans to use when making it into a painting. The bottom right has the phrase ‘very few patches of light.

1111

Peter Kravitz @peterkravitz.bsky.social · 23/06/2026

What a list✔️ @lighthousebks.bsky.social is my local in Edinburgh. They follow in the proud steps of former supremely lovely bookshops like Elaine & Tarlochan’s Wordpower (where Lighthouse is now) & First of May (that was in Candlemaker Row).

Photo of the front of Lighthouse Books in Edinburgh

1123

Peter Kravitz @peterkravitz.bsky.social · 21/06/2026

Happy Birthday Anne Carson. This, her picture of Martin Heidegger through the eyes of Paul Celan, from Wrong Norma:

Cartoon like drawing of Martin Heidegger as seen through the eyes of Paul Celan, with the words ‘The philosopher was unashamed…He kept whistling’.

072

Peter Kravitz @peterkravitz.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

And there was also the late, great Acres of Books in Long Beach.

Front of the bookshop Acres of Books with the motto ‘Travel Around the World with Bertrand Smith’s Acres of Books’

080

Peter Kravitz @peterkravitz.bsky.social · 16/06/2026

RIP Abdullah Ibrahim This is a fine interview by Graham Lock, from 1984 in The Wire: leguesswho.com/news/lgw22-a...

Photo of Abdullah Ibrahim against backdrop of grass, tree and mountain.

Abdullah Ibrahim talks about how children immediately get into the music of Thelonius Monk.

173

Peter Kravitz @peterkravitz.bsky.social · 13/06/2026

A characteristically sharp yet fair piece from @edwinheathcote.bsky.social The architects might have been better taking a leaf out of the book of the new Bob Dylan Center in Tulsa. Or even the stunning Cookfox designed Bruce Springsteen Center for American Music which opens its doors today in NJ.

Description of how the new Obama centre looks like something from a science fiction film, and how the money spent on it could have rejuvenated this part of Chicago’s South Side.

How the presidential papers can only be accessed digitally. Also the writer of the article is reluctant to criticise the project but nevertheless sees it as hubristic.

1112

Peter Kravitz @peterkravitz.bsky.social · 30/05/2026

Agnes Varda frames a car transporter in her Les Glaneurs et la glaneuse

Agnes Varda frames a car transporter with a circle made from her index finger and thumb

080

Peter Kravitz @peterkravitz.bsky.social · 19/05/2026

Chastening reporting from Sanket Jain: “In June 2023, he planted sugarcane… In October 2024, he sowed sorghum… Now, he’s trying beets.”

Description of how one Indian farmer is having to alter what he sows because of the increasingly erratic monsoons.

011

Peter Kravitz @peterkravitz.bsky.social · 16/05/2026

We’re in a weekend of lists. When in doubt I consult the back page of Classics Illustrated. The Man Who Laughs by Victor Hugo - besides being the inspiration for The Joker in Batman - is a book about right now.

Picture of people gathered around back of a horse drawn cart showing an impresario presenting the boy who never stops smiling. The cover of the classics illustrated the man who laughs.

A list of further titles at the back of a Classics Illustrated comic, which includes Silas Marner, Typee, Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde and many others.

030

Peter Kravitz @peterkravitz.bsky.social · 15/05/2026

Standing over one of the tables yesterday I picked up this elegant Julian Rothenstein (pre-Redstone Press) comb bound book and the man next to me said ‘It’s terrible, terrible what happened to Mandelstam.’

Woodcut of a man in bed gazing out of window into hills and tree

Woodcut of silhouette of persons faces and clouds and sun and date 1932 from the original edition of Journey to Armenia

020

Peter Kravitz @peterkravitz.bsky.social · 15/05/2026

In other news, here in Edinburgh the colossal annual book sale at St George’s Church on George Street has its final day today. Here is how things are distributed over the pews…

Diagram of locations of where different types of book are located in the church book sale at St George’s Church on George Street Edinburgh

261

Peter Kravitz @peterkravitz.bsky.social · 09/05/2026

Talking of heaps and piles. This from the kitchen at my work yesterday. (Check the notice)

Picture of Tupperware on kitchen table with sign saying that you have to claim yours back or it’s going into the recycle

020

Peter Kravitz @peterkravitz.bsky.social · 29/04/2026

Farina and Sahar have been doing their pop up meals as Parveen’s at Agile City for a couple of years. Today they’ve launched their campaign towards opening an actual place of their own on the Southside of Glasgow… www.kickstarter.com/projects/par...

A picture of the two sisters sitting at a table looking at the camera and smiling and looking forward to starting their restaurant.

000

Peter Kravitz @peterkravitz.bsky.social · 23/04/2026

“I made a vow to myself then I was not going to change my accent, even though it caused enormous problems both down there and up here. The assumption is that if you speak the way I do, you can’t speak any other way.” He also popped up in Get Carter, and voiced Zoltan Chivay in The Witcher games:

Picture of the dwarf Zoltan wearing a green waistcoat and pointing his Hawking glove upwards and sporting a little ginger Mohican haircut

010

Peter Kravitz @peterkravitz.bsky.social · 05/04/2026

And Virginia Woolf could be pretty brutal too - this from the first page proofs of To The Lighthouse:

Page 289 from the first page proofs of Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse. Proof marks remove the whole page.

141

Peter Kravitz @peterkravitz.bsky.social · 03/04/2026

Ursula K. Le Guin’s blog, like her poetry, deserves more attention. She began it at 81, inspired by José Saramago, who wrote his at 85 & 86. She wrote this in response to a questionnaire sent on the 60th anniversary of the graduation of her Radcliffe/Harvard class of 1951:

She is responding to a question about what she does in her spare time and she goes through the list of multiple choice options such as racketball and golf that they offer her and none seem to fit. She also reflects on those who have no spare time because they have to work.

071

Peter Kravitz @peterkravitz.bsky.social · 30/03/2026

Alas, Agnes Owens never had a Paris Review interview. However, this one comes pretty close. journals.openedition.org/etudesecossa...

Agnes Owens describes how she feels more comfortable writing about people who fail than those who succeed.

Agnes Owens on how she’s interested in everyday treacheries.

144

Peter Kravitz @peterkravitz.bsky.social · 30/03/2026

RIP Glen Baxter This from Comics Journal: ‘man wearing a trench coat leans against a tall building. New York cop walked by, tapping his billy club “Hey waddya think you’re doing, holding the building up? Scram!” The figure immediately obeys and the building falls down. My hero was Harpo”

Interview from comics journal where he explains his early experience of surrealism watching a Marx Brothers movie with Harper leaning against the building and a policeman saying “what do you think you’re doing holding the building up?”And Harpo walks away in the building falls down.

1185

Peter Kravitz @peterkravitz.bsky.social · 29/03/2026

RIP Alexander Kluge writer, filmmaker, collager “I’m a patriot of books because books are very patient” Talking here with Ben Lerner @parisreview.bsky.social tinyurl.com/3h6vf52v

040

Peter Kravitz @peterkravitz.bsky.social · 23/03/2026

It’s not every day that you get the mythic birds Simurgh of Persia and Anzû of Sumeria in song lyrics on a hat…

Mythical bird Simurgh has two people in its mouth flying above a person trying to g to pull it down to earth

A cartoon of the mythical birds Anzû as shown in an advert for an LA Japanese gourmet joint

010

Peter Kravitz @peterkravitz.bsky.social · 23/03/2026

And this too from the very same source substack.com/@hanaleegold...

How repetition, clean design and familiar source can persuade us to believe something that we maybe shouldn’t

010

Peter Kravitz @peterkravitz.bsky.social · 22/03/2026

“…but am led astray with opportunities for revision” From Alasdair Gray’s CV included in this short film below:

CV for Alastair Gray including his wishes to keep his work simple and with few lines, but his hard it can be to stick to this

010

Peter Kravitz @peterkravitz.bsky.social · 20/03/2026

Edinburgh Airport is at the forefront of civil society…

Picture of a sign at Edinburgh Airport that says Disruption Desk

061

Peter Kravitz @peterkravitz.bsky.social · 17/03/2026

RIP Len Deighton: “When I started writing I had rules. One was that violence must not solve the problem, and I cannot have the hero overcome violence with a counterweight of violence.” He also worked as an illustrator for six years, including a Penguin Iris Murdoch & a Deutsch Jack Kerouac

Man with French horn and rocking horse balanced on his shoulder as front of Under the Net by Iris Murdoch

Two men by a tree and policeman looks on as cover of first edition of On the Road by Jack Kerouac

424783

Peter Kravitz @peterkravitz.bsky.social · 14/03/2026

As funding for public libraries dwindles, today’s Financial Times, amongst the pieces on super super prime property, features a newish private library opened near Temple in London, by Jonah Freud, Sigmund’s great-great grandson. www.reference-point.uk

Floor plan of the reference point bookshop, library and café bar space in London

Peace and financial times on bookshop and library café space reference point where the cofounder explains that all the money they earn goes back into buying new books

Photograph of reference point café bookshop library space in London showing Books on table and on open display shelves

150

Peter Kravitz @peterkravitz.bsky.social · 12/03/2026

Stunning piece by John Darnielle of @themountaingoats.bsky.social on William Gass’s prescient novel The Tunnel, a forensic examination of how fascism can arise in any of us. Also chase down a crucial essay by Joy Williams on the @dalkeyarchive.bsky.social site

This piece by John Darnielle of The Mountain Goats on The Tunnel by William Gass, including how talk radio hosts receive the presidential medal of freedom for their ‘tireless work in the burgeoning field of yelling about things that annoy them’

130

Peter Kravitz @peterkravitz.bsky.social · 18/02/2026

Toni Morrison, born on this day in 1931. This, from her ‘The Source of Self-Regard’ collection:

Toni Morrison describes the paradox of neither dwelling too long in the past nor avoiding it, and how her narrative in Beloved became a pitched battle between remember forgetting.

041

Peter Kravitz @peterkravitz.bsky.social · 14/02/2026

“Freak maps”, utterly chilling…

An extract from the financial times that includes the phrase freak maps in response to a competition to redraw the map of Europe after the Great Wall

010

Peter Kravitz @peterkravitz.bsky.social · 12/02/2026

Poet, traveller, novelist but probably it’s his essays will live on and on…

Picture of the author with his head in his hands looking melancholic

021

Peter Kravitz @peterkravitz.bsky.social · 08/02/2026

@andotherstories.bsky.social are a properly decent, fine and determined publisher. They are bringing back into print A Chancer, The Busconductor Hines and Kieron Smith, boy. Here are some words from James Kelman:

James Kelman writing about returning to independent publishers

180

Peter Kravitz @peterkravitz.bsky.social · 08/02/2026

This portion of the play Sir Thomas More, is attributed to Shakespeare. It was written (but suppressed) around the time of the anti-immigrant riots in 1593 and the protests of a thousand English apprentices two years later against incoming workers:

Passage from the play Sir Thomas More describes the plight of immigrants in Shakespeare’s time

041