iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Summer Brennan @summerbrennan.bsky.social · 08/07/2026

This got a big reaction. Listen, I am not willing to stop using em dashes or correct grammar or even, yes, occasionally, to say that something was not X, it was Y.

0314

Summer Brennan @summerbrennan.bsky.social · 05/07/2026

Lack of thought and logic behind imagery and sentences. Too much repetition of certain syntax. Human writing comes from the body, mimics speech and breath; the shape & length of arguments match human thought. AI has no body, no breath, no thought, and does things that run counter to bodily writing.

2295

Reposted by Summer Brennan

Greg Pak @gregpak.net · 05/07/2026

The entire consumer-facing "A.i." industry is a fucking scam. Ban it from all your businesses and institutions.

1998205

Summer Brennan @summerbrennan.bsky.social · 05/07/2026

I had not thought of the more vulnerable writer who is afraid their human writing could be mistaken for AI and thus PAY an AI to "humanize" their human writing...thus, ironically, rendering it tainted by AI after all. (I would basically challenge anyone to a dual who suggested my writing was AI.)

1196

Summer Brennan @summerbrennan.bsky.social · 05/07/2026

I think the best AI detectors are PEOPLE, who can tell that something is not right, that there is no THERE there.

1415

Summer Brennan @summerbrennan.bsky.social · 05/07/2026

I ran an absolutely 100% human, zero AI-involvement at any stage passage of my writing through an "AI detector," curious if it could really tell human from AI work, and it said my own writing was "84% AI written" then asked I wanted to pay to have it "humanized." So there's that to keep in mind.

10654071528

Reposted by Summer Brennan

Elizabeth McCracken @elizmccrack.bsky.social · 01/07/2026

Do I know anybody here with advice/knowledge about good ferries (small & large) in the west of England, Cornwall to Liverpool? I am researching myself but figured I would ask.

0108

Summer Brennan @summerbrennan.bsky.social · 30/06/2026

English speakers should go back to using "good morning" and "good afternoon" to mean goodbye as well as hello.

1312

Summer Brennan @summerbrennan.bsky.social · 29/06/2026

Not ideal to take ten years to write a book but sometimes it just works out that way.

9721

Summer Brennan @summerbrennan.bsky.social · 26/06/2026

Waking up in this heat, once you actually manage to fall asleep at all, is like coming to after general anesthesia.

2172

Reposted by Summer Brennan

Michael Erard @michaelerard.bsky.social · 26/06/2026

"We publish micro-fiction in the format of the Research Abstract, to encourage imaginative writing in the academy, entirely for fun."

journalofimaginaryresearch.home.blog

Journal of Imaginary Research Volume Eleven (2026)

Volume 11Download

12515

Reposted by Summer Brennan

Kyle Griffin @kylegriffin1.bsky.social · 26/06/2026

BREAKING NYT: A New York City panel just voted to freeze rents for nearly one million rent-stabilized apartments — fulfilling one of Mayor Zohran Mamdani's key campaign promises and handing the mayor a major policy win six months into his tenure.

nytimes.com

Mamdani’s Rent Freeze Is Approved by New York City Board

10078271701

Reposted by Summer Brennan

Dana Stevens @thehighsign.bsky.social · 25/06/2026

Buster Keaton didn't stand still while a two-ton housefront collapsed on top of him with a window cut out to barely clear his shoulders on each side so you could tell me that AI is "inevitable."

1258801524

Reposted by Summer Brennan

Gretchen von Tongeln @metalligretch.bsky.social · 25/06/2026

I'd like a show that's just an hour of TV cops typing, maybe they eat a danish every once and awhile.

23712

Reposted by Summer Brennan

Melissa Gira Grant @melissagiragrant.com · 24/06/2026

"When I visited her in the Wichita Falls jail in May, her spirits were bright despite her circumstances. I wanted to ask her about what she’s been reading, but wondered if she was scared to answer. 'It’s crazy that we live in a world where it’s not safe to ask what books you’re reading,' she said."

theguardian.com

‘This is injustice’: how leftist zines were used to sentence anti-ICE protesters to decades in prison

Advocates sound alarm after zines were used as evidence to convict protesters of terrorism charges tied to 2025 protest at Texas ICE facility

022183

Reposted by Summer Brennan

Jadzia Axelrod 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @planetx.bsky.social · 25/06/2026

Lynda Barry did not squeeze your heart and simultaneously explain the point of all art with the barest of line drawings so you could tell me that AI is "inevitable."

HOW TO LOOK AT ART by Lynda Barry

In the first panel, a dog-headed woman, a mother, looks at a painting in the "Madonna with Baby Jesus" vein. A small blobby child is standing next to her.

Mother: IM NOT SURE HOW TO LOOK AT ART.
Child: WHATS SPOSTA HAPPEN?

In the second panel the dog-headed mother holds up her hands (paws?) trying to explain to the child.

Mother: SOMETHING BIG. A REVELATION.
SUDDENLY YOU JUST UNDERSTAND.

In the third panel dog-headed mother goes back to looking at the painting. The child holds up their arms to be lifted.

Mother: NOT SURE HOW TO MAKE IT HAPPEN
Child: HOW BOUT LIFT ME UP SO I CAN SEE BETTER

In the last panel, the dog-headed mother is holding the child, their position mirrored by the Madonna and baby Jesus in the painting.

695942896

Summer Brennan @summerbrennan.bsky.social · 25/06/2026

Currently enjoying that brief stretch of the "cooler" two hours when it is 80 degrees instead of 105 degrees. Time to open all the windows and let in the "cool" air. 🫠

3231

Reposted by Summer Brennan

Elizabeth Kolbert @elizkolbert.bsky.social · 23/06/2026

I realize we are way beyond wake-up calls. But if we weren't, this would be one:

nytimes.com

Europe Is Sweltering in an Extreme Heat Wave. Here’s the Latest.

0448

Summer Brennan @summerbrennan.bsky.social · 23/06/2026

Another phrase to add to your "AI was used" warning radar: "That's pattern recognition." Especially, of course, if preceded by "That's not just X..."

0122

Summer Brennan @summerbrennan.bsky.social · 23/06/2026

Expected to be 41 degrees (105 degrees F!) in the shade today. We'll have a few hours of temps in the 70s and they are now (gone by 8am) so I'm up to try and get some air into the apartment. Almost no one has AC here. Not a great time to be sick as well. Brutal. abcnews.com/Internationa...

abcnews.com

France sizzles in a week of punishing heat that is already causing deaths

France is facing a grueling heat wave with temperatures soaring above 40 degrees Celsius, or 104 Fahrenheit

1122

Summer Brennan @summerbrennan.bsky.social · 23/06/2026

I don't personally believe in heaven or hell, but if there *is* in any way such a thing, then anyone associated with this kind of bullshit doled out to cancer patients is going straight to the Bad Place.

1146

Reposted by Summer Brennan

Abby Sliva @abbysliva.bsky.social · 22/06/2026

It’s a really sad day at my job. Consider donating, please. Help give my esteemed colleagues some security while they navigate this precarious journalism job market.

05745

Summer Brennan @summerbrennan.bsky.social · 22/06/2026

It's 80 degrees and this is the coolest it is going to be all day BY FAR.

060

Reposted by Summer Brennan

Greg Pak @gregpak.net · 21/06/2026

Hey, "A.i." haters in NYC! Here's a big one - this coming Wednesday at noon, the @aimoratoriumnyc.bsky.social coalition is rallying at City Hall - and then testifying before the City Council to call for NO "A.I." IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS! Come join, come join! actionnetwork.org/events/rally...

actionnetwork.org

AI Moratorium City Hall Rally

Come join us at City Hall to tell the mayor no AI in our schools!

114672

Summer Brennan @summerbrennan.bsky.social · 22/06/2026

Controversial take perhaps but Fête de la musique is the absolute worst day of the year in Paris. Sorry. It's always a thousand degrees, bass finds you and keeps you up all night wherever you live, and you can't even enjoy any of the music anyway 'cause it's just 10,000 songs played at once.

280

Summer Brennan @summerbrennan.bsky.social · 21/06/2026

Writers of narrative nonfiction: how strict are you about details used to set scenes? I am extremely strict and will use only details that have documentation, sources, otherwise it cannot be stated as fact. However it seems not everyone works like this?

481

Reposted by Summer Brennan

Summer Brennan @summerbrennan.bsky.social · 21/06/2026

Here's a fun game. What do you think that is, the thing behind her ear? It's usually referred to as a flower, but is it? And if so, what type? (Of course this is a detail of Olympia by Manet. I'm not interested in what scholars have said—I already know all about that. I'm curious what you think.)

8121

Summer Brennan @summerbrennan.bsky.social · 21/06/2026

I watched his video for "Bob" yesterday and I can't get the phrase "May a moody baby doom a yam?", sung as Bob Dylan, out of my head.

1150

Summer Brennan @summerbrennan.bsky.social · 21/06/2026

AI should be more like Weird Al (Yankovic)—ask permission from original creators, actually do a good job, pay royalties.

0212

Reposted by Summer Brennan

David Benedict @eggsbened.bsky.social · 20/06/2026

By the possibly slightly-less-than-entirely-heterosexual John Singer Sargent.

2322

Summer Brennan @summerbrennan.bsky.social · 21/06/2026

8121

Reposted by Summer Brennan

FEARsten @k-a-aitch.bsky.social · 20/06/2026

These girls still follow me in my memory

Two Laughing Girls (1880) by Pere Borrell del Caso

They're gazing directly at us, pointing and reaching out at us, the blond girl in green smiling while her elbow is hanging over the edge of the "oval portrait." They are utterly captivating, natural and vivid, caught in a camera-like moment of mirth and silliness

1153

Reposted by Summer Brennan

Benjamin Dreyer @bcdreyer.social · 20/06/2026

Post one (1) photo of a painting that you took with your very own hands. The photo, that is, not the painting. Go.

the Brontës at the National Portrait Gallery in London, taken from an angle so as to show other works reflected in the glass and a view of a portrait of another woman, I can't remember who it is

32226314

Reposted by Summer Brennan

Toby Miller @tobytram.bsky.social · 20/06/2026

On the water meadow; You’ll have to take my word for it as neither photographs well, but there’s a barn owl hunting (it screeched when it spotted me hiding in the long grass), and a thin paperback of a mist. Look at it merging with the cow parsley. Swallows showing off trying to reach the moon.

A corner of a water meadow. A flattened path leads through grass. A light milk moustache of a mist sits a few feet up.

08112

Summer Brennan @summerbrennan.bsky.social · 20/06/2026

Fun trick if you, like me, are a morning person and feel you can only really start certain kinds of work in the morning, but you have to start late: Lie to yourself. Close the curtains. Change the time zone on your computer. Make breakfast. Congratulations, it's morning! Get to work.

3160

Summer Brennan @summerbrennan.bsky.social · 17/06/2026

Name a TV show you’re positive no one remembers but you.

Image for the 1980s Canadian cartoon The Racoons featuring characters from the series.

9231

Summer Brennan @summerbrennan.bsky.social · 17/06/2026

Human lifespans are way too short. I find this to be bullshit. I am mad about this. Go ahead and print it in the paper that I am mad.

0231

Summer Brennan @summerbrennan.bsky.social · 17/06/2026

I don't know how you all have not been talking about Hockney. Please, watch his film about perspective in art, it is life changing. His late work is so beautiful and inspiring and revolutionary when you understand what he is doing. The view of landscapes using six different cameras. See it please.

1142

Summer Brennan @summerbrennan.bsky.social · 17/06/2026

Noooooo I am just learning about Hockney 😭😭😭😭 !!!! I have been semi off-grid and I missed this. I can't believe it. A visionary. A legend. Truly inspired and engaged with the present moment throughout his career. What an incredible artist. Devastated that I never got to hear him speak in person.

291

Summer Brennan @summerbrennan.bsky.social · 17/06/2026

In the spirit of "know thy enemy" (everyone kept saying this thing was coming for my job) I've tried to see how well different AI products work. But far from feeling "worthless" or obsolete in the face of it, I found none were capable of clearing even my lowest standards for writing or intellect.

1452

Reposted by Summer Brennan

Crystal Fleming is on sabbatical @alwaystheself.bsky.social · 17/06/2026

I'm attending a digital humanities event in Montreal. There was a keynote on AI and something about the talk made me wonder if it had been written by Claude. I said as much in the Q&A. As I posed the question, the speaker shifted, looking slightly uncomfortable. What he said next shocked the room +

7948191678

Reposted by Summer Brennan

Jeff Sharlet @jeffsharlet.bsky.social · 16/06/2026

I just learned that the term "carbon footprint" was developed by BP to offload responsibility for climate change onto individuals. Something like that's happening in higher ed with AI. Institutions capitulate or dodge; students are submitting; & they believe it's their individual failing. 7/

142940662

Reposted by Summer Brennan

Jeff Sharlet @jeffsharlet.bsky.social · 16/06/2026

At the end of the term I asked my college creative wriing students to submit anonymous thoughts on AI. No real surprises: Mood ranges from resignation to despair, capitulation from embittered erosion of standards to total, feelings of betrayal from deep to furious. 1/

7455241988

Reposted by Summer Brennan

Jaya Saxena @jayasaxena.com · 28/05/2026

As always, I'm the series editor and you should send me your food and travel writing from this calendar year at bestamericanfoodtravel@gmail.com. Full guidelines here media.sailthru.com/fss/flelv5/d...

0138