Black Sails and a Missing Rhombus
A new episode about Shakespeare & identity, some accidental beauty on the Hudson, a little art, & more
The Virtual Memories Show News
A 2x/week email about a podcast about books & life
Podcastery
This week, I posted Episode 585 of The Virtual Memories Show, feat. professor Leonard Barkan as we celebrate the paperback release of READING SHAKESPEARE READING ME (Fordham), which blends memoir and deep reading of Shakespeare’s greatest plays to explore his lifelong relationship with literature and the way(s) we use art to construct our identities. We get into what it means to read, hear, perform, direct, teach Shakespeare, why it took him a lifetime to get to this book, how he contrasts himself with a radically naive reader (and why it’s important to try to capture our naïveté), the gayness of Shakespeare’s two Antonios, the stories he couldn’t tell until his folks were gone, and the role Shakespeare played in Leonard’s gay coming of age. We also talk about his next book (about the loss of 434 paintings by the Great Masters (!) at the end of WWII), the on-stage therapy session he held at his career-celebration, and his stint as a theater director and what it taught him about teaching. Plus we discuss the strangeness of King Lear’s opening scene, the eerie humor of Hamlet, how it felt to see his book The Hungry Eye on a bookshelf in The Bear, and a lot more. Give it a listen, and go read Reading Shakespeare Reading Me!
Last week, I posted Episode 584 of The Virtual Memories Show, feat. Emily Raboteau as we celebrate her new essay collection, LESSONS FOR SURVIVAL: Mothering Against “The Apocalypse” (Holt). We talk about her sparkbird and the Audubon Mural Project that center the book, her transformation into a climate activist, the joy of the flaneuse-scavenger hunt for Justin Brice Guariglia‘s environmental art, and the idea of pain with a purpose. We also get into the differences between mothering & motherhood, the reason she put “the Apocalypse” in quotes in her subtitle, and how COVID lockdown made her realize her kids’ lives had been overscheduled. Plus we discuss her dream of interviewing Vivian Gornick, the need to overcome pandemic-amnesia, the place her children really want to visit, how she’s changed as a writer since we last talked, what the difference is between surviving and living, and a lot more. Give it a listen, and go read LESSONS FOR SURVIVAL
Last week, I also posted a Bonus Episode feat. a talk with actor and model Trillian Stars and photographer and writer Kyle Cassidy about their new Kickstarter, THIS IS ONLY EARTH, MY DEAR – POEMS & PHOTOS (closing May 4, 2024)! We talk about their inspiration to combine the poems of Pre-Raphaelite muse-model-artist Elizabeth Eleanor Siddal with photos of Trillian (in Pre-Raphaelite mode), and how a vacation is never a vacation. Give it a listen, and GO PLEDGE!
Recent episodes: Leela Corman • Keith Mayerson • Edith Hall • David Small • Brad Gooch • Japan, a monologue • Scott Guild • Aaron Lange
Black Sails and a Missing Rhombus
It’s another week of biz-travel for me, a 3-day trade show at the Javits Center in NYC. As is my wont, I’m staying a hotel in Weehawken, NJ, across the river, next to the ferry. It’s quiet & inexpensive, and the ferry drops you off about 5-6 minutes’ walk from the Javits. And you get the view of the Hudson & the Manhattan skyline.
When I checked in Monday evening, I was in a shit mood. It had been a long day, with frustrating work, a traffic-laden drive to the hotel, and other stuff that I won’t go into because I don’t actually tell you about the real things in my life in this space.
But when I got to my room, I dropped my bags on the bed, opened the curtains to see the city, and noticed a sailboat on the river, a big black sail against the blue water. It was passing VIA 57 West, the slanted-pyramid-with-a-rhombus-carved-out apartment building. I lunged for my phone and took a few pictures before the boat moved too far along the river.
I thought about all the delays and frustrations of the day, and how sheer accident can give you a moment of strange beauty.
Here’s a bonus from this morning, by the ferry terminal:
Art
I only made a couple of sketches in the past week; nothing substantial. I did get around to adding some branches to the forsythia postcard, along with a couple of green leaves. Gotta figure out the ground and the trees behind them. All for some tiny postcard that I'll just drop in the mail to someone after it's done. 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.)
Kickstartery
I took a neat Instax photo for my art book yesterday while visiting a past pod-guest. Maybe I’ll visit someone else this evening and get another one in. Later this summer, once I figure out the production pricing, I hope to launch a Kickstarter for it, so I can find new avenues of crushing disappointment for my artistic endeavors. What I’m planning is a book of Instax photos + text, similar in format to Valid Until Sunset by Jarrett Earnest (photo on left page, text on right). If you’ve got ideas about what sort of rewards I should make for different tiers of donors — like, things you’d love to receive if you contributed, say, $50 to this project — let me know.
Until Next Time
Thanks for reading this far! I’ll be back on Sunday with links, books, & somatic craziness, and Wednesday with a new episode, maybe some art, & who knows maybe a little profundity or something.
Your fake name is not for everyone / It's good enough for me,