iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Art Kavanagh @www.artkavanagh.ie · 07/10/2026

Presumably he heard the expression “budgie smugglers” and interpreted it literally.

Art Kavanagh @www.artkavanagh.ie · 04/10/2026

Sunbathing in the rain: Bridget O'Connor, After a Dance: letter.talkaboutbooks.net/2026/10/0… The praise that was heaped on Bridget O’Connor’s After a Dance raised unrealistic expectations. Not unusually for a selection of short stories, it’s uneven; b...

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Art Kavanagh @www.artkavanagh.ie · 23/09/2026

I’m celebrating Coltrane’s centenary in a highly unorthodox way: listening to Christian Sands, Thomas Fonnesbæk and Rasmus Kihlberg play “A Giant Leaves (Giant Steps/Autumn Leaves) — for Alex Riel” from Between Then & Now 🎶

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Art Kavanagh @www.artkavanagh.ie · 22/09/2026

I didn’t know about the BBC series. Think of a Number was also adapted a for film as The Silent Partner (1978) with Elliott Gould and Christopher Plummer. I enjoyed it a lot at the time; I’ve no idea how it would stand up now but I’d love to see it again. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sil...

en.wikipedia.org

The Silent Partner (1978 film) - Wikipedia

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Art Kavanagh @www.artkavanagh.ie · 20/09/2026

I feel exactly the same way about New York in, for example, Law & Order.

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Art Kavanagh @www.artkavanagh.ie · 19/09/2026

Sinking in the bog: Sarah Moss, Ghost Wall: letter.talkaboutbooks.net/2026/09/1… Sarah Moss’s sixth novel, Ghost Wall, centres on an “experiential archeology” trip to Northumberland, cuulminating in the reenactment of the Iron Age sacrifice of a young woman.

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Art Kavanagh @www.artkavanagh.ie · 18/09/2026

I ordered a CD from Denmark a little over 2 weeks ago. It’s “estimated to arrive no later than” 13 October. Maybe they meant “no earlier than”. According to Postnord’s tracking site, it arrived in Ireland over a week ago (10 Sep). How does it take a week to deliver a CD in Ireland?

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Art Kavanagh @www.artkavanagh.ie · 18/09/2026

"‘If you really believed AI was going to kill us all why would you participate?’ was a common question to Amodei this week." Kathleen Stock,Unherd. I still think the answer to that is Roko’s basilisk.

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Art Kavanagh @www.artkavanagh.ie · 17/09/2026

I read this fairly recently. I don’t think it can be Cronin, Dead As Doornails, but I can’t think of anybody else I read recently that it might be.

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Art Kavanagh @www.artkavanagh.ie · 10/09/2026

Didn’t Robin Cook saying something similar?

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Art Kavanagh @www.artkavanagh.ie · 10/09/2026

Altman and tech “leaders” who rush ahead with AI while simultaneously warning of the risks of catastrophe probably take so-called Roko’s basilisk seriously. They feel compelled to press ahead while pleading with the rest of us to save them from the consequences of their cowardly credulity 😜

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Art Kavanagh @www.artkavanagh.ie · 09/09/2026

I’d have sworn Sandy Denny had died earlier than 1978. I saw Fairport (for the second time) in Theatre L, UCD after she had died, and I finished in UCD in 1978, so it must have been very shortly after her death. No wonder an acquaintance of mine was getting very upset. Where the time went 🎶

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Art Kavanagh @www.artkavanagh.ie · 05/09/2026

“The sort of queer stuff they look for in a story these days”: Flann O’Brien, At Swim-Two-Birds and The Third Policeman: letter.talkaboutbooks.net/2026/09/0… What was meant to be a post about Anthony Cronin’s treatment of the novels of Flann O’Brien in Cronin...

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Art Kavanagh @www.artkavanagh.ie · 05/09/2026

I’m pretty sure I’ve had to do that sometimes.

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Art Kavanagh @www.artkavanagh.ie · 04/09/2026

I’m well over 50 and as far as I can remember I’ve *never* done it.

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Art Kavanagh @www.artkavanagh.ie · 04/09/2026

"(For the record, I also thought Madeleine Peyroux sounded too much like Billie Holiday and Wallace Roney sounded too much like Miles Davis.)" Lovely parenthesis in the middle of a discussion of crime fiction by Ethan Iverson 🎶

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Art Kavanagh @www.artkavanagh.ie · 02/09/2026

You keep your oven in the attic?

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Art Kavanagh @www.artkavanagh.ie · 01/09/2026

Somebody mentioned that it’s John Coltrane’s centenary this month 🎶

Screenshot from iOS Health app showing 8 steps taken for a walking/running distance of 3 Km

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Art Kavanagh @www.artkavanagh.ie · 31/08/2026

Rachel Kushner, Creation Lake, on the blog “Elle Thinks”: letter.talkaboutbooks.net/2026/08/3…

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Art Kavanagh @www.artkavanagh.ie · 27/08/2026

It was a shock to read that Tim Curry had been 80; hard to imagine him as an old man. I rewatched part of The Ploughman’s Lunch (1983) on YouTube a few months ago, not having seen it since its original release. Time for a full rewatch, I think. www.youtube.com/watch?v=ir82...

youtube.com

The Ploughman's lunch FULL MOVIE | Drama Movies | Jonathan Pryce | Movies to Watch

YouTube video by Movies to Watch

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Art Kavanagh @www.artkavanagh.ie · 26/08/2026

Thanks, I’ll have a listen.

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Art Kavanagh @www.artkavanagh.ie · 26/08/2026

I love the title of that album, which I hadn’t heard of before.

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Art Kavanagh @www.artkavanagh.ie · 22/08/2026

No Talk about books post today, sorry: letter.talkaboutbooks.net/2026/08/2… Today’s post was supposed to be about Rachel Kushner’s Creation Lake but I’m sorry to say that I didn’t manage to write it. I intend to discuss Creation Lake eventually (probably in ...

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Art Kavanagh @www.artkavanagh.ie · 22/08/2026

So annoying when you get results that *don’t* include a term you’ve enclosed in double quote marks. What is the point?

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Art Kavanagh @www.artkavanagh.ie · 18/08/2026

Congratulations! You are very lucky never to have been so insulted.

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Art Kavanagh @www.artkavanagh.ie · 18/08/2026

"… who subscribe to a set of authoritarian ideas and plans for the future based on half-baked theories and an incomplete understanding of how the world works." Laura Miller in Slate, reviewing Gil Durán. Surely any “understanding of how the world works” is necessarily incomplete?

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Art Kavanagh @www.artkavanagh.ie · 17/08/2026

Today I couldn’t get my dinky little toy HP wireless printer (which I tend to use at least once most years) to connect to the wireless router and I discovered the previously unsuspected fact that I can connect to it straight from the Mac without going through a router. What’ll they think of next?

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Art Kavanagh @www.artkavanagh.ie · 13/08/2026

"the hard left will always pair a conceivably popular economic programme with a provably hated cultural one. The mystery is why." Janan Ganesh, FT No mystery. They’re terrified of having to implement the (conceivably popular) economic programme. Capitalism is how they get paid.

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Art Kavanagh @www.artkavanagh.ie · 10/08/2026

I’d love to see the film Quick Change again (and I don’t usually like Bill Murray; I probably saw if first before I realized that I don’t like him).

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Art Kavanagh @www.artkavanagh.ie · 09/08/2026

I like to remind myself every so often that Leopold Bloom was the same age (38) on 16 June 1904 as Cleopatra was in Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra.

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Art Kavanagh @www.artkavanagh.ie · 09/08/2026

“A small disturbance, quickly ironed out”: Helen Dunmore, Burning Bright: letter.talkaboutbooks.net/2026/08/0… In Helen Dunmore’s second novel, Burning Bright, the lives of two women, two generations apart, are intertwined with those of two pimps a...

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Art Kavanagh @www.artkavanagh.ie · 08/08/2026

According to this Guardian headline, Sam Neill filmed role in Legend of Zelda film adaptation before his death. A “dog bites man” story if ever I heard one. How often does an actor film a role **after his/her death?

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Art Kavanagh @www.artkavanagh.ie · 05/08/2026

If the cat was 20 years old and had kidney problems the death surely can’t come as a huge surprise to the owner.

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Reposted by Art Kavanagh

Tracy King @tracyking.bsky.social · 03/08/2026

Back when I had Twitter I used to offer free headshots for low-income authors, not sure I have much reach here but the offer is still there. London or Birmingham (although I’m in Glasgow and Edinburgh at the end of Aug and can fit in a session. Will have lights so can be indoors).

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Art Kavanagh @www.artkavanagh.ie · 01/08/2026

I’ve finally finished reading At Swim-Two-Birds. I first attempted it at least 56 years ago and didn’t return to it till earlier this year. I kind of hate it: it’s bleak and depressing, the humour sour when not merely silly. Heavy going for a mere 228 pages. I’ll reread soon in case I’m wrong 📚

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Art Kavanagh @www.artkavanagh.ie · 30/07/2026

For several years now, I’ve preferred to buy albums on CD. Elias Stemeseder and Thomas Morgan, Io Pur Respiro is available only as a download or on vinyl so I bought the download. Here’s Richard Williams’s review 🎶 🎹

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Art Kavanagh @www.artkavanagh.ie · 27/07/2026

Human subjects: Mick Herron, Down Cemetery Road and Smoke and Whispers: letter.talkaboutbooks.net/2026/07/2… Slow Horses author Mick Herron began is writing career with a series of crime novels featuring Oxford-based private detective, Zoë Boehm. The ...

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Art Kavanagh @www.artkavanagh.ie · 18/07/2026

I wouldn’t agree with the “alas”. I’ve liked most of his work from The Child in Time up to and including Sweet Tooth. I didn’t really get on with The Children Act and I haven’t yet read anything more recent of his.

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Art Kavanagh @www.artkavanagh.ie · 18/07/2026

That *could* apply to Ian McEwan. Too obvious?

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Art Kavanagh @www.artkavanagh.ie · 13/07/2026

“Verify your age” When I heard that Sam Neill had died my first thought was “Dead Calm” and my second “Reilly, Ace of Spies”.

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Art Kavanagh @www.artkavanagh.ie · 12/07/2026

An ever-increasing gloom: Susie Steiner’s Manon Bradshaw series: letter.talkaboutbooks.net/2026/07/1… Susie Steiner’s three Manon Bradshaw novels were published between 2016 and 2020, the last of them appearing just two years before Steiner’s d...

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Art Kavanagh @www.artkavanagh.ie · 09/07/2026

Farrago doesn’t “find comedy funny”. That’s all you need to know — though in fact we all know plenty more than that about him by now.

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Reposted by Art Kavanagh

bestoftimes.bsky.social @bestoftimes.bsky.social · 08/07/2026

Years ago I recorded a wren singing on my iPhone and used it as an alarm sound. Now my idiot brain will not allow me to sleep through that sound in the real world. Two days in a row now!

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Art Kavanagh @www.artkavanagh.ie · 03/07/2026

It’s been 14 years since I’ve been in London (or any part of the UK), so obviously I don’t keep up with what’s on in the theatre. When I wrote about Stoppard’s Arcadia a month ago, I didn’t know the play was about to be revived in the West End. My uncharacteristic timeliness was sheer accident 🎭

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Art Kavanagh @www.artkavanagh.ie · 02/07/2026

"Recommended Wynn Williams’s book [Careless People] to a friend, who bought it. A little poke in the eye for Facebook." So comments Charles Arthur, The Overspill

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Art Kavanagh @www.artkavanagh.ie · 29/06/2026

Especially when that advice is contradictory.

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Art Kavanagh @www.artkavanagh.ie · 28/06/2026

“Live long enough and you’ll see everything”: Scott Turow, The Last Trial and Presumed Guilty: letter.talkaboutbooks.net/2026/06/2… Two of Scott Turow’s three most recent novels feature the final criminal trials of two characters who appeared in his first ...

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