Big Man Harmonies
New episode with Jennifer Hayden, a new Instax, and some resonances from my recent business travels.
The Virtual Memories Show News
A 2x/week email about a podcast about books & life
Podcastery
This week, I posted Episode 663 of my Virtual Memories Show, where we learn that olive oil makes head lice sleepy, and Jennifer Hayden rejoins the show to celebrate her new graphic memoir/anti-cookbook, WHERE THERE’S SMOKE, THERE’S DINNER: Confessions of a Cartoonist Cook (Top Shelf), share comedic tales of domestic mess, and rebel against the expectations of wife/motherhood. We talk about the lifetime of bad cooking that led to this new book, the revenge of turning her bad experiences into comedy, how she found a unique form to tell her story, and how a youthful reading of Babar left her with a lifelong phobia of mushrooms. We get into how she was reverse-inspired by Lucy Knisley’s Relish, how watercolors gave her a color toolbox for her comics, what this book taught her about storytelling, and how her daughter diagnosed her as “expectation-allergic.” We also discuss how she’s been cheating on comics with spoken word storytelling, what life after memoir is like, how her breast-cancer memoir doubled as a last will & testament for her family, the process of finding a new creative process and narrative voice, her shamanic experience attending The Moth, the significance of the tarot card she repeatedly draws when she’s hard at work on a book, why the folk names of herbs are like edible emotion, and more. Give it a listen! And go read WHERE THERE’S SMOKE, THERE’S DINNER!
Last week I posted Episode 662, with multi-hyphenate Rian Hughes rejoining the show to celebrate his new Kickstarter, TYPERACTIVE: Thirty Years of Device Fonts (closing November 20, 2025)! We talked about designing and publishing a catalog-collection of every font he ever designed for his foundry, how the Kickstarter has proved a lot more successful than he was expecting, the joy of seeing one of his fonts showing up on Poker Face, and how typography means designing a form without content. We got into the history of type design and how he approaches new design with respect for his precursors, the serendipity that led to one of his best-known fonts, the artist’s trajectory from inspired amateur to spent expert, how he knows when one of his fonts has been ripped off, and his take on AI in illustration and type design. We also discussed his new novel and how it fits with XX and The Black Locomotive, designing the new EC Horror comics, the next Kickstarter he’s considering, how he used to keep three different portfolios until he realized it was All Rian and integrated them into one, why his creative mind leaves him with zero interest in meditation, and more. Give it a listen! And go support TYPERACTIVE!
Recent episodes: Josh Neufeld • Dean Haspiel & Whitney Matheson • Ron Rosenbaum • Lance Richardson • Tom Tomorrow • Kayla E • Hunter Prosper
Big Man Harmonies
I’ve got a virtual negotiating session with FDA and some other industry groups this morning, so I’m kinda preoccupied. (Yes, yes: everything’s a negotiation.)
For now, I’ll leave you with a couple of Big Men I saw in Frankfurt and Baltimore on my recent travels. I try/tend to keep my eyes open, and find resonances and echoes where I can.
Let’s hope I’m a little more focused for Sunday’s newsletter.
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Instaxery
Took a pic of Saraswati at Jennifer’s place before we recorded. In the intro to this week’s episode, I talked about how I got restarted on writing the Instax book this weekend; I hope to continue and finish the writing by year-end. Then I’ll get to production quotes, crowdfunding, etc.
Artistry
Didn’t draw anything, sorry. 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 or painted postcard as a thank-you.)
Until Next Time
Thanks for reading this far. I’ll be back on Sunday with links, books, & workout-/meditation-craziness, and on Wednesday with a new episode, and maybe some art & a new Instax.
There’s an eyeball staring at me / And I know I’ve met my match / Do I eat or am I eaten? / It's a new adventure,