Hitting The Links: 2/2/25
This one's got the prosthesis that makes me complete, an unwitting Long Run, lots of links, and plenty more
The Virtual Memories Show News
A 2x/week email about a podcast about books & life
Daimon With a Black Hand
Like I mentioned earlier this week, I spent a bunch of hours keeping my dad company in the hospital. We sprung him on Friday, although that was an ordeal, as the nurses couldn’t be bothered to tell me WHICH lobby the transport guys were bringing Dad to. I was already stressed — from wanting to ease his trip, and from all the time spent doing nothing but waiting, and because Birdy had been sick the past 2 nights, which meant I was up with her and sleeping on the living room sofa (she’s fine as of this morning) — so standing around like an idiot in the main lobby with my car hazard-lighting away for 10 wasted minutes caused me to blow my top.
When I was finally directed to the right place, I stormed in and grabbed Dad — lined up with 4 other wheelchair-bound patients, who were also likely awaiting pickup by people who didn’t know where to go — and was told by an attendant that she had to roll him out. We did that and while I was brusque with her, I also apologized in the same tone for being an asshole, telling her, “I’m not directing this at you; I’m just very angry right now.” She told me she understood, and when Dad & I were driving out finally, he asked me if I gave her a tip.
But in the lobby, as we were wheeling him out, something happened that I saw but didn’t see, not until a day later.
There was a guy standing by the admission desk: late 20s/early 30s, white, decent shape, with a matte-black metal prosthesis replacing his right forearm and hand. The fingers were articulated and it made the hand look like a gauntlet. I noticed it all, right down to thinking he looked former-military, which made the whole thing feasible, but I hurried on to get Dad home.
A day later, after some rest, a subsided headache, a long run (see below) and everything else that washes away the grime of existence, I started thinking of the hand.
That is, I thought about losing my shit with the security guy in the main lobby the day before, and my pounding headache, and my irritation & frustration, and the useless delays, and all the follow-up appointments we have to make and how Dad will gripe about having to leave the house again, and on and on, and then I thought about this man losing everything below the elbow.
What was my headache? What suffering had I undergone that was anything more than inconvenience? What was any of it compared to what that guy had gone through in the moment of the injury, in the rehab, the refitting, the daily reminder, the gauntlet?
In about an hour, I’ll be recording my first new podcast-conversation in more than 6 weeks. I think I can use the companionship.
Here’s the sunrise this morning
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And now, let’s hit the links!
Links & Such
Recent Virtual Memories Show podcasts: Fred Kaplan • Mia Wolff • Damion Searls • 2024 Recap • The Guest List • Benjamin Swett • Ken Krimstein • Eddie Campbell
RIP Pableaux Johnson . . . RIP Marianne Faithfull . . . RIP Graham Nickson . . . RIP Dick Button . . . RIP Wolfgang Zwiener . . .
After getting home from the hospital one evening this week, I found out that Joseph Monninger, who I recorded with in mid-2023 about his memoir, died a few weeks ago.
Karl Ove Knausgaard wrote a profile/appreciation of Celia Paul (2020, 2022) in The New Yorker; you know I am HERE for that. (Tr. Ingvild Burkey) (“HERE,” in this case, meant the ER of a hospital on Monday, while I was waiting out the hours for my dad’s testing to get done and for him to get admitted.)
I’m not part of the BookTok or whatever world, but if it gets people into bookstores, B&N or otherwise, it’s fine by me.
Speaking of bookstores, here’s a profile of Sarah McNally of McNally Jackson Booksellers.
A friend of Miranda July’s came for advice about whether to blow up her life. Advice ensued.
Liana Finck has some thoughts on that, too.
Go read Matt Ruff (2017, 2020, 2023) on his Big South America Trip.
Glad I got to see those umbrella pines in Rome before they’re gone.
Current/Recent Reading
Karma Doll - Jonathan Ames
The Book of Disquiet - Fernando Pessoa
“I am, for the most part, the very prose that I write. I shape myself in periods and paragraphs, I punctuate myself and, in the unleashed chain of images, I make myself king, as children do, with a crown made from a sheet of newspaper or, in finding rhythms in mere strings of words, I garland myself, as madmen do, with dried flowers that in my dreams still live.”
Catching the Big Fish: Meditation, Consciousness, and Creativity - David Lynch
Plus my daily chapter of The Man Without Qualities (tr. Wilkins/Pike). Here’s a piece from this morning:
“The most peculiar of all the peculiarities of the word ‘soul,’ however, is that young people cannot pronounce it without laughing. Even Diotima and Arnheim were shy of using it without a modifier, for it is still possible to speak of having a great, noble, craven, daring, or debased soul, but to come right out with ‘my soul’ is something one simply cannot bring oneself to do. It is distinctly an older person’s word, and this can only be understood by assuming that in the course of life people become more and more aware of something for which they urgently need a name they cannot find until they finally resort, reluctantly, to the name they had originally despised.”
Sound Body, Fractured Mind
My workout routine was completely blown up by the hospital visits to attend to my dad this past week. I missed weights on Wednesday and Friday, but got yoga in on Thursday, at least. I also ate worse/more compulsively, due to anxiety around all that. I thought I’d get back on track on Saturday with yoga, but a funny thing happened.
One of The Guys texted us Friday to say he was going to do a rehab-walk that morning; he’s had an ongoing spine issue that’s kept him from running for a while. Then another of the guys, a marathoner who’s also rehabbing some injuries, said he’d join us and was hoping to do a rehab-run after. I signed on for all of it, figuring I could use the walk & the company, a run might be nice. As far as I knew, the runner was only doing 3-4 miles, so I could do that in the morning, yoga a little later, and bam!
Well, we froze our asses off on the 2.5-mi. walk in the cold & wind, but I doffed my coat and joined in on the rehab-run . . . WHICH TURNED INTO 8.4 MILES.
My marathon-running pal, after mile 3 (we were doing a slow mile, then a brief walk, then another mile, then walk, etc.), said, “I’m thinking of doing 5 more of these.” I, with nothing else to lose, said sure, and kept him company over 90 minutes. On the plus side, the sun came out, the wind died down in parts, and one of my mutant superpowers kicked in, where after 2 miles of running, my hands get warm enough that I don’t need gloves.
Anyway, after 10.9 miles of walking and then running, I went home and thought, “Maybe I don’t need to do yoga today.” My legs/joints aren’t sore this morning, so I must be doing something right.
That said, the Labors of Jerkules continued when I got a call from Dad’s wife that day at 5pm to say that he had fallen & couldn’t get back up. He wasn’t injured, so no return to the hospital, thankfully. Still, I got in the car, zoomed over to their place, assessed everything, then got him on his back, then sitting up a little, and then I got into a deep crouch, got my arms under his armpits, and lifted a ~200-lb. guy to his feet.
Still gotta get a real weights-workout in today, though, lest I turn into a total lardass.
Meanwhile, I’ve been keeping up with meditation every day for ~15 minutes, even in the hospital chapel, like this time
No music chapel corpse prayer mat muslim woman whispers subsonic prayers the shepherd is my lord linen carts a priest an imam a rabbi walk into an office in the hall he tells the ether that his mother has no will to live and his wife won’t come see her roll eyes back to deep blue her phone pings while she prays Sang’s funeral no monitors but hum of suffering see “yourself” as tendrils reaching out to others then realize there is no center and the tendrils reach out to each other feed on universe soil don’t think of the podcast the calls the future for “you” will be dead by then another “you” will wear the headphones
But this is getting too performative, corrupting the meditation itself, so maybe I won’t tell you about it much in future. But I should ask you, re yesterday’s session
Does the wind strain against the door, or does the door strain against the wind?
Until Next Time
Thanks for reading this far! I’ll be back on Wednesday with a new episode, some throwbax Instax, & maybe some art, and on Sunday with links, books, & workout craziness, & maybe a little profundity or something.
Histories of ages past / Unenlightened shadows cast / Down through all eternity / The crying of humanity,