Hitting The Links: 10/19/25
Lots & lots of great links, + thoughts on alchemy, some classic cars, BIRDY! & her eyelashes, & more
The Virtual Memories Show News
A 2x/week email about a podcast about books & life
Things Have Changed
“And now I have to summon all my faculties and try to remember what alchemy was more or less about. Alchemy—making gold, the philosopher’s stone, aurum potabile—”
“Yes, that’s the popular understanding. Put more academically, it is the purification, mutation, and refinement of matter, its transubstantiation to something higher, its enhancement, as it were.”[. . .]
“The primary symbol of alchemistic transmutation,” Naphta went on, “was the crypt.”
“The grave?”
“Yes, the scene of corruption. It is the epitome of all hermetism — nothing less than the vessel, the carefully safeguarded crystal retort, in which matter is forced toward its final mutation and purification.”
It took 500 pages for Mann’s The Magic Mountain (tr. Woods) to get to secret societies and alchemy, but here we are.
I continue to wonder about the nature of change, and whether it can consist of mutation AND purification, or can only be one. Because for most people, “change” means getting rid of detritus and the accumulated crud of life and finding some core to return to. In other words, purification. Which I get, and have benefited from in my own way. Yet I struggle with the notion of the cirumscribedness of being.
I was corresponding with a friend last week. We both lost our fathers this year, and I told you guys recently how I didn’t feel too much during the Yizkor prayer for the dead during Yom Kippur. I told him about my musings from that day:
I thought about how I didn’t feel my Jewishness even though it’s part of my DNA. And then I thought about how my DNA itself has gotten fucked in recent years and I’m not exactly the person I started out as, so that’s okay, if you get me.
So yeah: mutate or purify? Or is it and, not or?
Lucky for me, Benoit Denizet-Lewis started following me on IG after I posted my new ep. w/Lance Richardson, and when I looked him up & saw the title of his upcoming book — You’ve Changed: The Promise and Price of Self-Transformation — I figured we should plan to record a conversation and hash that out. So now I’ve got another thing to look forward to next year.
Meantime, I’m heading into NYC soon to record a show with Ron Rosenbaum about Bob Dylan, an artist who maybe embodies that question of mine. I’ll let you know how it goes. (Order Ron’s new biography/meditation on Dylan!)
Birdy Of The Week
Birdy & I spent some time yesterday sharing the sofa while I read and she made eyes.
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And now, let’s hit the links!
Links & Such
Recent Virtual Memories Show podcasts: Lance Richardson • Tom Tomorrow • Kayla E • Hunter Prosper • M.L. Rio • David Leopold • Dmitry Samarov • Ask Me Anything
RIP D’Angelo . . . RIP Drew Struzan . . . RIP Ace Frehley The Spaceman . . . RIP Derek Rose The Pajama King . . . RIP Kanchha Sherpa . . . RIP Baek Sehee . . . RIP Samantha Eggar . . . RIP Susan Stamberg . . . RIP Jeffrey Meldrum . . . RIP Raila Odinga . . .
Here are some tributes to Diane Keaton from Matt Zoller-Seitz and Hilton Als, while past-guest Rhonda Garelick wrote a good piece about her style.
Hilton Als also wrote about The Philosophy of Andy Warhol.
Christopher Brown visits Marfa, meets chupacabra.
It was inevitable that Chris would write about leaf-blowers, and that day has come.
This Alec Nevala-Lee investigation into Saul Bellow’s domestic abuse is pretty horrifying.
Your regular reminder that tech-bros are fucking insane and terrified of death.
Speaking of monuments to wealth.
And speaking of monuments, you should read this incredible piece on the CIA’s Kryptos sculpture.
The new NYRB has Darryl Pinckney reviewing the new James Baldwin biography, a piece on the letters of Guy Davenport, which you KNOW I am HERE for, Ben Lerner on his open-heart surgery, and also a piece on don’t worry MAGA has NOTHING to do with TRUE conservative policies nuh-uh it’s ACTUALLY a reaction to Democrats from the ‘60s but DON’T BLAME CONSERVATIVE POLICIES.
“More TikTok than Vasari” is a good line.
Marc Maron did a What I’ve Learned for Esquire, and it’s pretty good.
Keep on Cybertrukkkin’. Also, what even is the Cybertrukkk?
Current/Recent Reading
Bob Dylan: Things Have Changed - Ron Rosenbaum (2013, 2014, 2023)
Shadow Ticket - Thomas Pynchon
The Magic Mountain - Thomas Mann (tr. John E. Woods)
“[I]llness meant an overemphasis on the physical, sent a person back to his own body, cast him back totally upon it, as it were, detracted from the worthiness and dignity of man to the point of annihilation by reducing man to mere body. Illness, therefore, was inhuman.”
+ the mourner’s Kaddish every morning, in Aramaic
Sound Body, Fractured Mind
I got in a 5k run on Tuesday and weights on Wednesday, but nothing since (except for my 15-min. routine every morning before coffee). Not a lot of meditation time, either.
I’m still having trouble getting back into a routine, which I’ll blame on my whole depressive spiral. But me being me, I’ll blame my whole depressive spiral on myself. Maybe I need to talk to someone, but biz/travel for the next 2 weeks means that’s not gonna happen.
At least I joined The Guys for a 4-mi. walk this morning. Our route took us to a classic car show.
It reminded me of the time in the mid-‘90s when I was in San Antonio for a trade show — I was an associate editor for a car wash trade magazine, Auto Laundry News — and my editor & I took a side-trip to a low-rider show, which was A-W-E-S-O-M-E.
Until Next Time
Thanks for reading this far! I’ll back on Wednesday, with a new episode, maybe an Instax, and maybe some art. On Sunday I’ll be back with links, books, & workout craziness, & maybe a little profundity or something.
Resting in the fields, far from the turbulent space / Half asleep ‘neath the stars with a small dog licking your face,
I’m only 30 pages into The Magic Mountain and rereading what I started reading years before, but I’m thinking is it really necessary that the reader know that his grandfather’s house had five stairs leading up to the front door? I’m a tradesman attorney who only includes material facts in my briefs. It’s possible that my knowledge of Hamburg architectural style is lacking or that there will be a payoff later in the book. I should probably get a copy of it in German and it will all seem sensible. Enjoy your emails.