Hitting The Links: 1/14/24
The Virtual Memories Show News
A 2x/week email about a podcast about books & life
Now Is Next
So, THAT was a week. I flew Sunday to SFO, presented at an event Monday, had meetings through Wednesday, flew to LAX that night, thought I’d celebrate my birthday on my own Thursday, had three very different encounters on Friday, took a redeye home and got in the door Saturday morning, and just got back from a 2.5-mi. hike with our greyhound pals through some washed out trails.
Now I guess it’s back to the virtual life for me!
The birthday. It was great (by my standards). I picked up my rental car that morning and drove up to the Getty Center. I’d managed not to go every time I’ve been out here (5-6 trips), but every time I drove past those majestic, modern buildings on the hill, I thought, "Oh, yeah, next time I'm here . . ."
So this was a gift to myself: no other plans for the day, just see the collection, take in the architecture, and not worry about work or meeting up with friends or anything that put a demand on my time.
I wound up spending almost 3 hours there, reveling in those amazing Richard Meier buildings under the clear, sharp morning sun. I enjoyed the art on display, knowing it wouldn’t be Frick or Met level, but meeting it on its terms. There were plenty of surprises, and some pieces just left me transfixed and confused/aporetic, like Orazio Gentileschi’s Danaë and the Shower of Gold, in which the photorealism of the bedding is offset by or in tension with the black background of the upper half, and Rembrandt’s Saint Bartholomew, which looks SO much more recent than 1661, and feels like a master painter straining against his time, and not just age.
There were other paintings I really grooved on, and I’m glad I finally got to see a Messerschmidt sculpture in the flesh, as it were. I also dug this double-headed sculpture and tried sketching it a few times the next night while I was bored in the airport. (I took my drawing stuff with me to the Getty, but wound up only taking photos.)
After a few hours, I took the tram back to my car, with no clear destination in mind. I tried to get to an In-N-Out near UCLA for lunch, but couldn’t find parking, then on to a Fred Segal shop in West Hollywood, where I couldn’t find any clothes that wouldn’t have been embarrassing a newly 53-year-old guy, then hit Golden Apple Comics on Melrose, which I’d heard about for decades, but never visited. I parked on a side street, took note of nearby coffeeshops, and walked in.
At which point I bumped into a guy I’ve known since we were in Hebrew school together at 6 or 7 years old.
Now, I knew Jeff lived in LA — we got together for dinner when I was there in 2017 — but as I wrote in last Thursday’s email, I didn’t tell ANYONE I was coming here, because I’d feel bad about not getting together with a bazillion other people I ‘should have’ gotten in touch with, between pod-guests and high school friends and Hebrew school ne’er-do-wells.
Instead, there’s Jeff in a comic shop, and here’s us gabbing for 45 minutes, along with the pal who brought him there. I filled them in on the day’s circumstances, and they agreed that it was okay for us to meet coincidentally, as that wouldn’t make me more of a heel to all the people I didn’t connect with. We had a great time catching up, reminiscing about our not-so-sordid youth, and talking about the great pizza joints of NJ.
Once he left, I gabbed with the store’s owner for a bit about working with collectors to help them bequeath their comics, books, and original art to universities, then drove back to the hotel.
Traffic was so interminable, and the day had already been so satisfying, that I gave up on my tentative plan to watch the Suns-Lakers game and finally see LeBron James in person, and instead took it easy in my room.
THAT SAID, when I told you I didn’t let my friends know I was coming to LA, that doesn’t mean I didn’t make any plans. The main reason I came down here was because the artist Celia Paul was flying in for a few days to help set up & celebrate her new exhibition.
We’ve become friends over the course of two podcasts (2020, 2022), correspondence (email, postcards), and a visit I made to her home in London in October 2022 during a business trip, and since I don’t know when I’ll be in London again, I figured I could just append LA to the SF biz-trip and spend 2 days here so we could get together.
And then I started figuring out potential pod-guests, which is how I wound up at Sammy Harkham’s home on Friday morning, recording the show that’ll air this week. Great conversation on and off mic, fun comics anecdotes, cute dog, etc.: you’ll hear about that next week.
From Sammy’s, I went on to the Vielmetter Los Angeles, where Celia and I got to catch up for a little while, as she walked me through the gallery and we took in/talked about her paintings. Speaking of, the exhibition opened yesterday and runs through March 9, so if you’re in/around LA, GO SEE IT!
It was lovely seeing Celia, but our conversation’s private and her art affects me in subtle ways, so I won’t blab here about what was said & seen. Nyeh! But this was us:
And then? WELL, and then was One Last Thing.
See, years ago, I recorded a podcast with the cartoonist Graham Chaffee at his tattoo parlor, Purple Panther. And last May, when I posted this brush-drawing of Bendico flipped over on his sofa, Graham commented that it would make a great tattoo. And, well, it occurred to me on the BART train to OAK on Wednesday that he might be right, and one thing led to another and on Friday afternoon Graham drew Benny on me:
Which, along with a blue Baracuta G9 Harrington jacket, a Lamy LX fountain pen, a couple of books & postcards at the Getty, and well, this whole trip, comprises the extent of Gil’s birthday gifts.
Except for the pistachio chocolate chip cookies Amy made for me on Saturday morning as I was blearily driving home.
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There’s much more to tell, like the dive-ish bar that Graham sent me to for dinner that last night, but not much more that I’m interested in going on about right now.
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And now, let's hit the links!
Links & Such
Recent Virtual Memories Show podcasts: Ed Subitzky • Chris Silverman • Silence (monologue) • The Guest List • Jarrett Earnest • Christian Wiman
RIP Joan Acocella . . . RIP Terry Bisson. . . RIP Franz Beckenbauer . . . RIP Brian McConnachie . . . RIP Bill Hayes . . . RIP Tom Shales . . .
We used to watch Beckenbauer when he was with the Cosmos in the late ’70s, along with Chinaglia, Eskandarian, and Birkenmeier (my brother got to see Pele play in ’77, but I didn’t)
Here’s a tribute to the late Robert Andrew Parker from Steven Heller.
Forgot to post this last month, but Steven Heller interviewed the great Victor Moscoso. Here’s Steven’s intro & a link to the session itself.
Speaking of Steven Heller, I was undecided about picking up Stephen Ellcock’s Underworlds when I saw it in the gift shop of the Getty Center on Thursday. I mean, it looked great, but I didn’t want to carry Yet More Books back with me, and I was kinda committed to the 30th anniversary luxe edition of Dave Hickey’s The Invisible Dragon that I came across a minute earlier. But then I saw that Underworlds had a blurb from Steven, so I went for it. It was my birthday, after all. (I managed to consolidate the books in the outer pocket of my rolling carry-on without displacing stuff too much.)
The animation in this Coffee vs. Tea match beats the taco vs. grilled cheese fight from Hot Rod.
Holy crap, go read this Geoff Edgers WP story about a guy who spent his life trying to build the greatest home audio system in the world.
I dug this list of RSS feeds that Warren Ellis subscribes to, and have added a bunch to my RSS reader. He posted a few times recently about the “return to blogging” and getting away from social media. I’m thinking of doing something along those lines, because I’m clearly not putting enough personal expression into the world, what with
the weekly podcast,
this 2x/week email,
the daily postcard,
drawing/painting, and
[SECRET ART PROJECT, which I made progress on during this trip]
Ah, the ongoing saga to get faster Amtrak trains on the Northeast Corridor. I looked at taking a train from San Francisco to Los Angeles rather than flying; seems I would have had to take a bus from SF for anywhere from 1 to 8 hours, and THEN board a train to LA. I flew from OAK instead.
Current/Recent Reading
The Lover – Marguerite Duras
Blood Of The Virgin – Sammy Harkham
Underworlds - Stephen Ellcock
In Love - Amy Bloom
Sound Body, Fractured Mind
Don’t ask. Last weekend, I got in Friday weights & Saturday yoga, then shoveled snow on Sunday before heading out to SF. I got lots of walking in during the trip, but no workouts of any kind since the 6th, except for a 5.3km treadmill run to kick off my 53rd birthday on Thursday. I haven’t even gotten in my morning 15-min. routine since last Sunday, because I refuse to touch hotel floors that extensively. And since my new tattoo is on my forearm, I’ve been advised not to do any weights for a week, lest I get Popeye-swole and it disperses the ink before it gets to settle under the skin. I suspect my yoga workouts also do a number on my forearms, so I’m just going to put everything on hiatus until next Friday, which’ll be an almost 2-week gap. Maybe I’ll join The Guys for a run or two before then, just to get some exercise in.
Until Next Time
Thanks for reading this far! I’ll be back on Wednesday with a new episode, maybe some art, and on Sunday with links, books, & workout craziness, & who knows maybe a little profundity or something.
They can't tell me / What they can't see / How it feels here,