Hitting The Links: 11/17/24
We've got some strange resonances & travel dominoes, lots of links, a bourbon tasting, a dog who can flex, & more!
The Virtual Memories Show News
A 2x/week email about a podcast about books & life
Magnetic Resonance
I had a semi-elaborate plan on Thursday to get me from a morning client event in Lexington, KY to Labyrinth Books in Princeton, NJ in time for a 6pm live interview/podcast with Ken Krimstein for his new graphic novel, Einstein in Kafkaland, about the 15 months Einstein spent in Prague in 1911-12, and how he & Kafka both made major breakthroughs during that span.
All the dominoes fell in line — panel & presentation done by 10:30am, then car service to CVG, then flight to EWR, then drive to Princeton, arriving 90 min. before the interview, which gave me time to pick up some shirts I’d ordered at Hiltons — but none of my planning took into account the secret resonances of the world.
At the airport, I passed an elderly man as we approached the TSA line. He was in jeans, flannel, vest, short ponytail, somewhat hunched over with age, and not walking too quickly. We went through the scanner as our baggage rolled past in their trays.
On the other side, my tray rolled through and I reclaimed my bags & shoes (client’s travel agent didn’t have my Pre-Check info), and the old man’s followed suit. He’d placed a book inside and ME BEING ME I recognized its pink & red cover immediately: Also A Poet, the memoir by Ada Calhoun about Frank O’Hara and her late father, New Yorker art critic Peter Schjeldahl.
I blurted out, “Do you know Ada?”, pointing to the book. “The author, I mean.”
“No,” he replied, “but I knew her father.”
“🤯,” I think I said, before adding, “I interviewed him, about a year before he died.”
“I sure miss his pieces in the New Yorker,” he said, slowly walking away.
I was floored by the notion that this guy had some affiliation with Peter. Maybe he just meant that he “knew” him because he’d read his reviews, or maybe they were friends, or maybe he was an artist I should have known. And I marveled that all of my careful planning and travel arrangements placed me in this moment where we could have a tiny moment of connection.
That evening, Ken Krimstein & I sat on the little stage in the bookstore 15 minutes before our interview was scheduled to start, shooting the breeze about my latest doings. (I try not to let guests talk too much before the mics are on.)
Ken’s book includes scenes at a Prague salon organized by a woman named Berta Fanta, and he uses that as a springboard to bring Einstein and Kafka together, to explore the leaps each would take in changing the 20th century.
As we pre-chatted, an older woman who’d been sitting in the audience came up to introduce herself. She gave her name and said, “I’m Berta Fanta’s great-granddaughter.”
This time, Ken was 🤯, while I lunged for my phone and captured the moment.
They talked a few minutes while I thought about the connections we don’t know we’re making, that are plotted out in invisible threads, and the ones that all these conversations have made for me, waiting to be revealed by merest coincidence, by Einstein’s gravity and the magnetism of art and culture.
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And now, let’s hit the links!
Links & Such
Recent Virtual Memories Show podcasts: Roland Allen • Eric Drooker • Simon Critchley • Doug Brod • Sven Birkerts • Christopher Brown • Dmitry Samarov
RIP Roy Haynes . . . RIP Frank Auerbach . . . RIP Timothy West . . . RIP Bobby Allison . . .
Also, Ted Olson and Bela Karolyi died.
KICKSTARTERY! Jonathan Baylis and Dean Haspiel both have Kickstarters going, so go support So Buttons and CHEST FACE, respectively!
Steven Heller (2018, 2019, 2022) interviewed James Sturm about Art & Courage: A Guide to Sustaining a Creative Path.
Brett Martin profiled John Mulaney. The life-changingness of getting sober and becoming a father seem much more honest here than in Mullaney’s comedy special about same.
Turning to books to cope with This Whole Situation? Michael Dirda (2012, 2014, 2015) has some recommendations.
David Marchese interviewed Ellen Wiebe, a provider of and advocate for Medical Aid In Dying. I used to post more of Marchese’s conversations, but since moving to a new format at the New York Times, his pieces have involved more celebrities and I’ve found them largely uninteresting.
Christopher Brown (2018, 2019, 2020, 2023, 2024) reminds us to walk when the moon is full. Go get his new book, A Natural History of Empty Lots; it’s a wonder.
If you’re making the migration to the Bluesky platform, you can find me at vmspod.
Current/Recent Reading
Tell Me A Story Where The Bad Girl Wins: The Life and Art of Barbara Shermund - Caitlin McGurk
Hunger - Knut Hamsun (tr. Robert Bly)
Sound Body, Fractured Mind
Work travel screwed up my workout schedule, but I’m doing okay. No weights-yoga on Wednesday-Thursday, but got them in Friday & Saturday, & hope to do my weights routine later this morning, before I head up to Boston for a trade show where I’m speaking tomorrow. I did get in 30 min. on the treadmill on Tuesday evening after arriving at the hotel for my client event, and 20 min. on Wednesday afternoon after a full day (starting 7am) of presentations and facility tours. That was the brief window before we left for the offsite event: a tour of the amazing Castle & Key Distillery followed by a bourbon tasting and dinner. I figured, “When in Kentucky,” and partook.
For those keeping score at home, I quit drinking one day in mid-2012 on advice from my urologist, but my 2024 now includes one glass of champagne (Japanese co. at a trade show wanted to celebrate joining my association & it would’ve been rude to say no), one beer (celebrating the conclusion of the Catskills Fire Tower Hike Challenge with my friend), and 3 of these little smaller-than-a-shot bourbons. It’s certainly been A Year.
I don’t feel like being looked at just now, so here’s a pic of Bendico flexing like his old man.
Until Next Time
Thanks for reading this far! I’ll be back on Wednesday with a new episode, maybe some art, a throwback Instax pix, and on Sunday with links, books, & workout craziness, & maybe a little profundity or something.
The lonely people, empty rooms / And all the pointless violence, silent tombs / Could it be that we shall be together again?,