Hitting The Links: 1/21/24
Lots of links, some thoughts on memory and a last date, getting back in the workout routine, recent readings, and a sleeping dog
The Virtual Memories Show News
A 2x/week email about a podcast about books & life
The Wrecker and the Stranger
I’ve got two podcasts to record today, including one 45 minutes from now, so I’ll try to keep this intro brief.
I read In Love this week, Amy Bloom’s memoir about her husband’s assisted/accompanied suicide in 2020, following his Alzheimer’s diagnosis. Yes, that’s a recurring theme in my past few emails, no, it’s nothing for you to worry about.
It’s a lovely and obviously sad book, and I found myself gripped with . . . horror? . . . over her sections of his final days, when they were in Zurich for his appointment with Dignitas. What got to me wasn’t the moral issue of choosing suicide, but the question of what to do in those last days. Tourism? Shopping? A fine dinner? How does a couple spend a final trip when only one of them will be on the return flight home, when the other one’s memories are already slipping away? I was haunted.
A few days ago, I walked around a comic shop after a supermarket run next door. It’s a superhero store, so there was nothing in there to appeal to me: just shelf after shelf of bright costumes and unreal poses. But then I noticed that the top row had decades-old comics from my childhood, issues I read as a kid of the X-Men, Daredevil, Iron Man, and Jack Kirby’s Thor stories from before I was born. The Wrecker. The Stranger. The Stilt-Man.
I remembered them fondly, but without nostalgia.
Time for the next show. Have a Bendico-at-rest to keep you company:
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And now, let's hit the links!
Links & Such
Recent Virtual Memories Show podcasts: Sammy Harkham • Ed Subitzky • Chris Silverman • Silence (monologue) • The Guest List • Jarrett Earnest
RIP Howard Waldrop . . . RIP Trixie . . . RIP Mary Weiss . . . RIP David Kunzle . . . RIP Dejan Milojevic . . . RIP P.D.Q. Bach . . .
The latest installment of the FIELD NOTES newsletter from Christopher Brown (2018, 2019, 2020, 2023) has tributes to Waldrop & Bach (who was actually Peter Schickele), and some wonderful/gorgeous edgeland observations (not sure if we were in LA at the same time), so go read that.
Happy Days at 50 and the Group Text; that is all.
William Deresiewicz and Zena Hitz are both involved in launching the Matthew Strother Center for the Examined Life, which sounds interesting.
NJ and Pizza: perfect together.
“If I know Clive Warren, and I think I do . . .”
Some (mostly) sedate menswear looks on the streets during Pitti Uomo, in case you like to ogle/aspire.
Lovely and sad piece by Cassandra Khaw about depression & Hadestown.
Maybe next year they can issue SCFTs (Sunk Cost Fallacy Tokens).
Neat follow(find)-the-money piece about The Manhattan Project.
Kurt Andersen wrote a pretty entertaining literary/metafictional take on the whole Bill Ackman/Streisand Effect craziness.
Current/Recent Reading
Underworlds - Stephen Ellcock
In Love - Amy Bloom
Marcus Aurelius: The Stoic Emperor - Donald J. Robertson
Sound Body, Fractured Mind
After a 2-week layoff due to travel & tattoo-recovery, I got back to weights on Friday. I discovered that hammer curls aggravate the tattoo area (left inner forearm), so I swapped those out for more regular dumbbell curls, and I didn't do left-hand wrist curls, but did fine. The layoff meant that my glutes were sore as heck the next day, but I did my yoga workout on Saturday and hope to get in weights later today, between pod-sessions. Didn't get out to run with The Guys at all, for various reasons: busy, lazy, too damn cold.
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.
Are you receiving me?,