Americano
Some ruminations from Milan, a couple of Instax, some art, no new podcast (sob!); it's all part of The Gil Show!
The Virtual Memories Show News
A 2x/week email about a podcast about books & life
Podcastery
No new podcast this week! I’m in Milan for a trade show and decided not to carry my mics with me, nor pre-record an intro and set everything up before I left, because I had too much work to do. As penance, I’ll probably post 2 episodes a week a couple of times in October/November to make up for it, depending on how my schedule works out.
Last week I posted Episode 607 of The Virtual Memories Show, with Christopher Brown returning to celebrate his phenomenal new book, A NATURAL HISTORY OF EMPTY LOTS: Field Notes from Urban Edgelands, Back Alleys and Other Wild Places (Timber Press). We talk about his shift from fiction to a nature-writing/memoir/nonfiction hybrid, the eco-cosmos of East Austin, TX, the years of observation that opened him to the hidden pockets of wildness in urban environments, why solitude in nature is a myth, what we have to gain from taking a long walk, Long Time vs. the short presence of Anglos in Texas, how Lockdown turned off global capitalism and showed how society might truly change, and how this book mutated from when we talked about it at Readercon 2023. We get into Bruce Sterling’s unforgettable critique of his writing, how he turned a narrative of colonization into one of decolonization, why he (begrudgingly) brought the personal/memoiristic into the book and how it helped him come to terms with himself, and what a workshop with horror writers taught him about the truth-telling power of non-redemptive storytelling. We also discuss how his readers in different regions respond to his FIELD NOTES newsletter, the nature of mysticism and writing a narrative about transcending the self, hiking a Massachusetts marsh in summer with Jeff VanderMeer, and plenty more. Give it a listen, and go get A NATURAL HISTORY OF EMPTY LOTS!
(And go listen to our 2018, 2019, lockdown, 2020, and 2023 conversations!)
Recent episodes: Dmitry Samarov • Stephen B. Shepard • Benjamin Dreyer • Nicholas Delbanco • Dash Shaw • Jess Ruliffson • Joe Coleman
Americano
Here’s a haiku for/from business travelers
Black boars run in hills
Seatmate reading Exit, Ghost
Bullet train from Rome
As mentioned at the top, I’m in Milan for a trade show this week. We flew in to Rome Saturday morning, spent a couple jet-lagged days taking in some of the sights, then took the high-speed train on Monday afternoon to Milano Centrale & got a cab up to the hotel. It’s right next to the Fiera, which means a) I only have a 300’ walk to the trade show, and b) there is absolutely nothing nearby, so Amy takes the metro into town for tourist stuff while I’m working.
For various reasons, including the hotel room not having A/C, I was a bleary mess going into day 1 of the conference yesterday, but the great thing about being me is that once I’m in Showtime mode, I can run with it for 9-10 hours before keeling over.
So at 9am I got rolling, had 7 meetings in the next 2 hours, managed to be entertaining & informative on a panel after that, raced over to a press conference where I was same, then got back to meetings and impromptu conversations with my member companies and other folks.
Around 4pm, I figured it was high time I ate something, did, then had another 2 hours of conversations. Knowing I only had a short walk back to the hotel — most of the other attendees would have an hour-plus to get back to theirs, if they could even find a cab — made me feel better about choosing this place.
I don’t have time to go into our Rome highlights here, esp. the wonderful tour we did Monday of the Colosseum, Palatine Hill, & Roman Forum, but I hope to get around to it soon. For now, day 2 (of 3) awaits: time to shower, put on my suit (of armor), and start another performance of The Gil Show.
And okay, fine, here’s one pic from the tour on Monday, because I’m a vain monster
Instaxery
I shot an Instax with last Thursday’s pod-guest in NYC (it feels like 2 months ago, but has only been 6 days), then visited a past guest to shoot one at his place. He & I wound up gabbing for an hour or two, and I talked about some of the tough stuff and psychic hangover of recent months/years, but not very well; I think he would have wanted to help if I knew how to ask. But just talking to a friend does help, so hey. Anyway, here are a couple more Instax for GUEST/HOST:
Artistry
Like I wrote on Sunday, I did a lot of drawing when I was at the Palazzo Massimo with the Boxer At Rest. If you click here, you’ll see the first one and can go ogle the rest. I’ve also been doing super-quick sketches in a graph-notebook every day of this trip. Here’s one of a Vespa I sketched Monday while we were waiting near the Colosseum for our tour. I’ll post some others after I’m home. You should go to the Flickr album of most of the art I’ve made & find something you like.
Postcardery
Let me know if you want to be on my postcard-a-day list. (Financial supporters of the podcast get a hand-drawn/painted postcard as a thank-you.)
Until Next Time
Thanks for reading this far! I’ll be back on Sunday with links, books, & workouts, and on Wednesday with a new episode, and maybe some art, but probably no Instax.
About a sad man knocking on a chapel door / And a burned-out boat called Trial by Fire / And the mouth of the river is wide,