Hitting The Links: 11/16/25
Lots and lots of links, sunlit Birdy, the dread of the calendar, at-home podcastery, and more
The Virtual Memories Show News
A 2x/week email about a podcast about books & life
Dating Myself
A few nights ago, I opened up The Great Spreadsheet That Knows All, went to the Calendar worksheet, and labeled rows for every Tuesday in 2026, so I can start planning next year’s podcast schedule. I could have just done the first quarter or half of the year, but decided to go All The Way so I could experience the utter dread of seeing all 52 slots that need to be filled. (Okay, probably 50, as I’ll take a week or two off during the year.)
I put in a bunch of tentative guests, based on pub-dates, and there’s another worksheet with a big list of People I Need/Have Been Meaning To Get To. I know from more than a decade of experience that another year is doable, no matter how daunting all those empty lines look.
Yesterday, Glenn Kurtz came out to Virtual Memories HQ to record with me, and plotzed at the (chaotic) expanse of my library. He knew all the books had to go somewhere, but I think he figured I had some extradimensional storage space for it all. (I have that, too, but.)
He also saw The Stack, which is every (non-comics) book I finish during the year, climbing like Babel until the new year topples it, and tried to help as I lifted 3/4ths of it to show him Nevermore, a book from this spring.
Glenn told me how he used to host a monthly literary interview series at McNally Jackson Books in NYC, and how tough it was to stay on top of that. He marveled over my ability to do the podcast every week.
I made my usual joke — no social life, no booze, no kids — and then we talked for 85 minutes and I filled one more line in the spreadsheet.
Over the course of the afternoon, I think he came to understand the desperation that fuels this engine.
Also, he got to pet Birdy, who was excessively needy during our pod-session.
Birdy Of The Week
She’s one radiant girl.
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And now, let’s hit the links!
Links & Such
Recent Virtual Memories Show podcasts: Jennifer Hayden • Rian Hughes • Josh Neufeld • Dean Haspiel & Whitney Matheson • Ron Rosenbaum • Lance Richardson • Tom Tomorrow
RIP Lenny Wilkens . . . RIP Micheal “Sugar” Ray Richardson . . . RIP Richie Adubato . . . Bad week for the NBA . . . RIP Sharon Camp . . . RIP Alice Wong . . . RIP Todd Snider . . . RIP David Bellos . . . RIP Sally Kirkland . . . RIP Tatsuya Nakadai . . . RIP Jim Avila . . . RIP Cleto Escobedo III . . . RIP Kenny Easley . . . RIP Paul Tagliabue . . . RIP Ken Parker . . .
I dug this takedown of the left’s “reclaim masculinity” BS, but I still think the New Yorker missed out by not calling it the Broösphere. (Incl. a shout-out to Glenn Kurtz, who’s got a new book you need to read.)
Me & Glenn yesterday David Denby wrote about Sid Caesar, so that’s a guaranteed good read.
Go read Howard Chaykin on Gore Vidal, empire, and streaming.
Watched Aguirre, The Wrath of God last night, because a bunch of you got on my ass about never watching any Herzog films. For some reason, it put me in mind of that time I got transfixed at the Prado by the disdain Velazquez captured in Portrait of Sebastián de Morra.
Also, it turned out to have nothing to do with Mark Aguirre or the Pistons’ back-to-back NBA Championships, so that was disappointing.
Tom Spurgeon would have laughed at that joke, and that’s all that matters to me.
Here’s a NYer review of that movie about Peter Hujar that I mentioned last Sunday.
Here’s a 2021 piece about David Wojnarowicz’ photos of Hujar in the moments after his death from AIDS in 1987.
Here’s another review of the movie by Andrew Durbin in NYRB. He has a biography coming out next year about Hujar and Paul Thek. The publisher hit me up about it, so maybe I’ll get to record with the author.
Like I said in the intro; there are moments when the notion of continuing My Whole Thing into next year fills me with dread. (My Whole Thing = podcasts, newsletters, etc., not Life Itself.) And I know that another year is doable, but sometimes I don’t know how. Not continuing would be rougher.
Semi-speaking of, I talked about retirement with a work-pal this week. Don’t know what it would look like for me, if it ever happens, but this is a good starting point.
Jeff Goldblum talks personal style. (Also, I think he forgot his mantra.)
Did I ever post this last year? If not, enjoy Josh Brolin on his formative books. This month, Criterion Channel had him as the guest for its Adventures in Moviegoing series, and he gave some pretty fascinating remarks.
Ross Benjamin wrote about what’s lost in (instant) translation.
This is a pretty neat (and long) interview with Richard Moore, who recently retired from leading MI6.
It was recently the 50th anniversary of an episode of Barney Miller that portrayed a gay couple, the first time such a thing had been shown on American TV. A few years ago, Amy & I watched the entirety of the series, and it’s an absolute marvel. (One of my favorite moments is the monologue where Fish finally accepts that he has to retire; it’s like something out of Shakespeare.)
Along the lines of that gay couple episode, there’s another one where a man gets arrested for beating up an undertaker and stealing the body of his roommate, a man with whom he’s been living for decades. He can’t afford the burial, so he wants to bury his friend himself. That the two roommates were gay is never said, but it sure feels like that’s the relationship. Don’t sleep on Barney Miller, friends.
Sure, Joyce Carol Oates is on my no-fly list because of her signing that PEN America boycott of the Charlie Hebdo survivors, but she did rock the shit with this tweet that seems to have driven Elon Musk insane:
So curious that such a wealthy man never posts anything that indicates that he enjoys or is even aware of what virtually everyone appreciates — scenes from nature, pet dog or cat, praise for a movie, music, a book (but doubt that he reads); pride in a friend’s or relative’s accomplishment; condolences for someone who has died; pleasure in sports, acclaim for a favorite team; references to history. In fact he seems totally uneducated, uncultured. The poorest persons on Twitter may have access to more beauty & meaning in life than the ‘most wealthy person in the world.’
🔥🔥🔥
And here’s Dave Weigel writing about a technical change that made Twitter and social media discourse even stupider.
I came by my anhedonia the old-fashioned way — trauma, burnout and grief — but kids today just want to get there without making the effort.
Current/Recent Reading
Men At Work: The Empire State Building and the Untold Story of the Craftsmen who Built It - Glenn Kurtz
The Magic Mountain - Thomas Mann (tr. John E. Woods)
(Which means it’s time to start) The Master of Contradictions: Thomas Mann and the Making of The Magic Mountain - Morten Hoi Jensen
+ the mourner’s Kaddish every morning, in Aramaic
Sound Body, Fractured Mind
I was starting to get my act together, doing yoga-weights-yoga Tuesday-Thursday, but derailed on Friday & yesterday, and now feel like a grotesque, bloated piece of crap, so I’ve got that going for me. Haven’t meditated often enough either, which should be obvious.
What particularly sucks is that I came across a post-workout pic from less than a year ago where my body looked absolutely phenomenal. (I’d post it, but you’d plotz.) (Okay; if you ask nice, I’ll send it.) What will it take to get my act together? Tune in next week for more self-laceration!
Until Next Time
Thanks for reading this far! I’ll back on Wednesday, with a new episode, a new Instax, and maybe some art. On Sunday I’ll be back with links, books, & workout craziness, & maybe a little profundity or something.
History repeats the old conceits / The glib replies, the same defeats,