Hitting The Links: 10/27/24
My fake persona got shattered, but I still bring you plenty of great links to check out, some workout craziness, some books I need to get to, and one that I've read a half-dozen times already
The Virtual Memories Show News
A 2x/week email about a podcast about books & life
Beware Of Pity / The Man Who Was, Thursday
About a year & a half ago, I wrote a newsletter that included this bit in a rant about AI:
[It] reminds me of the time a work-pal called to congratulate me when I turned 50, but I didn’t have his contact in my phone & I happened to be putting in my AirPods just in the moment he introduced himself, so I missed it.
But he talked for another minute, & I thought it would be rude to ask, “Who is this, again?”, so instead I FAKED IT. I made innocuous, witty conversation w/someone FOR THIRTY MINUTES without letting on that I didn’t know who I was talking to, even though he knew me personally.
[. . .] Around that 30-min. mark, I finally figured out who it was (his phone # was in my secondary Gmail), & mentioned his name once, in case he DID suspect I didn’t know who I was talking to.
When the call ended, I felt like I’d passed a reverse-Turing test, and that I’m going to be The Worst when dementia starts setting in, because I will ride this fake persona over a cliff before I let on that I’m falling apart.
What I’m saying is, ChatGPT has a long way to go before it can fake humanity as well as I can.
Two updates to that: I provided that guy a really good job-reference a few weeks ago, and I took my father to some medical appts. on Thursday and saw what “I will ride this fake persona over a cliff before I let on that I’m falling apart” really looks like.
The experience with Dad shattered my soul/psyche — my whole fake persona — but I’m not sure why. That is, there’s an array of standard reactions, any of which could be the root, but I suspect it’s not any of them, or that I’m so goddamned precious I refuse to acknowledge standard reactions and always look for something more subtle and pernicious.
That led to a tough couple of days, which included a meditation session scored to Bob Dylan’s Rough and Rowdy Ways, a podcast-postponement due to ‘existential hangover,’ an hour-long webinar I charmingly hosted about PUPSIT requirements, a text-exchange with my brother where I noted that cold rage is so much easier on/for me than pity (while reflexively lapsing back into rage), and a level of desperation that included reaching out to a friend to talk. (We wound up not talking, because I punted at the moment of truth. I did write a couple other friends about what’s going on.)
But now I’ve successfully reconstituted myself, fitting all the shards back into some slightly altered shape, tossing the pieces that don’t fit, and finding someone who resembles the Gil who was Thursday morning.
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And now, let’s hit the links!
Links & Such
Recent Virtual Memories Show podcasts: Doug Brod • Sven Birkerts • Christopher Brown • Dmitry Samarov • Stephen B. Shepard • Benjamin Dreyer • Nicholas Delbanco
RIP Fernando Valenzuela . . . RIP Phil Lesh . . . RIP John Kinsel, Sr. . . . RIP Gary Indiana . . . RIP Fethullah Gulen . . . RIP Mimi Hines . . . RIP Bruce Ames . . . RIP Ron Ely . . . RIP Jack Jones . . .
Here’s the Comics Journal obit for Bernie Mireault.
Hugh Ryan and Peppermint have launched a Queer History Book Club! Go check that out, and use the code PEPPERMINT to get 75% off the first month! (Gotta get Hugh back on the show sometime.)
I’m happy that Somebody Somewhere got a third season and I’m going to be sad when it’s over. Here’s a great profile of Bridget Everett.
I never read Susanna Clarke’s novel Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, but as I said in last year’s Guest List episode, her Piranesi blew my goddamned mind. Here’s a profile of Clarke, about the awful health issues she’s been dealing with the past 20 years, and how she’s managed to write anyway, which makes me feel even crappier about never finishing any real writing while my health is pretty much fine. (Yes, yes, I’ll go read Strange/Norrell sometime.)
Speaking of books I’m going to read, Jeff VanderMeer published Absolution, the prequel to his AREA X/Southern Reach series, and I want to get rolling on that soon. Here’s a good piece by him about the ephemerality of human habitation in the face of nature and an even better one on systems of derangement.
Fantastic excerpt from Lili Anolik’s book about Joan Didion & Eve Babitz, centering on Didion’s husband’s sexuality. (I’d like to read this one, too, & get Lili on the show.)
This Spanish spin-off of The Americans sounds wild.
Here some insights and life advice from my wife’s boyfriend, Stanley Tucci.
Josephine Riesman conducted the last interview with great comics writer/editor Denny O’Neil.
Eventually they won’t have any words left.
Current/Recent Reading
Everyman - Philip Roth, which I started rererererereading in prep for taking Dad to the doctor:
“He was overcome come with a feeling for his father that wasn’t antagonism but that his antagonism denied him the means to release.”
Kate Carew: America’s First Great Woman Cartoonist - Eddie Campbell
Sound Body, Fractured Mind
If I get in weights today, I’ll have done a full 5-day weights-yoga cycle. I skipped my 15-min. morning stretch-etc. today, because I slept terribly, got up late, and my hip is sore, so we’ll see how I do with that. This coming week’s got a DC lobbying trip that might derail my routine, but I’ll try to make it work. Despite the mental/emotional turmoil, my body’s feeling good. I’d post a workout pic, but frankly they’re all so hot you’d have to sign a waiver.
Until Next Time
Thanks for reading this far! I’ll be back on Wednesday with a new episode, maybe some art, and some Instax pix, and on Sunday with links, books, & workout craziness, & maybe a little profundity or something.
Can’t pretend that growing older never hurts,