Hitting The Links: 3/31/24
The Virtual Memories Show News
A 2x/week email about a podcast about books & life
Rush
“It is the only effective use of the second person voice in years,” Salman Rushdie told me. He was talking about a novel, but I missed the title of it, because of all the traffic noise. We were trying to record a podcast, but he insisted we do it outside, and a passing truck meant the audio was going to be terrible.
That wasn’t the only problem. I was given no notice about it and had no time to prepare, being told on the spot that he was waiting to record a podcast with me for his new book, which I hadn’t read. I assumed the complete lack of notice was for security purposes, but in that case it didn’t make sense that he’d then want to record on a street corner. Trying to look at the license plates of passing traffic, I realized I didn't even know which city we were in.
Dreams can be funny that way. This one is a distant runner-up to my wittiest literary dream ever, which I had when I was only 19 years old. In it, I was in a bookstore and saw the forthcoming Thomas Pynchon novel, Vineland. I grabbed it off the display, and read the flap copy. The About the Author photo was of an empty room. I even laughed in the dream.
Anyway, the Rushdie dream was such a frustrating podcast-experience that my brain just kicked me out of it and into wakefulness. I still have no idea what novel Rushdie would have been referring to. I wrote a mutual friend of ours a postcard about it.
The rest of the half-week? Sheesh:
Political fundraiser/campaign event in Red Bank, NJ on Wednesday, where I talked with a Congressman about a bill my industry’s concerned about. I got in early to beat traffic, and visited the neat menswear store Garmany, which had these awesome shoes.
The next day I got my NYC-visiting niece to come out to NJ so we could surprise my old man with a visit. He was happy. She & I did a lot of talking as I drove her back to NYC that night.
Good Friday was Good because everyone in my industry took the day off, and I could catch up on some stuff. Benny got himself into a jam.
And Saturday I drove up to Providence, RI to record next week’s show, feat. Leela Corman. After, I visited my long-time friends Paul Di Filippo & Deb Newton, and we had a good talk for an hour. I picked up some coffee & a pastry & drove home. I hadn’t done a 400-mile day in a long time, and it was wearing.
I could go long about each of these, and in my head I already have. There’s so much I want to tell you and so much I want to hear from you. If you’re celebrating Easter today, I hope you have a good holiday.
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And now, let’s hit the links!
Links & Such
Recent Virtual Memories Show podcasts: Keith Mayerson • Edith Hall • David Small • Brad Gooch • Japan, a monologue • Scott Guild • Aaron Lange
RIP Richard Serra (tribute by Sebastian Smee and another by Jerry Saltz) . . . RIP Bob Moskowitz . . . RIP Louis Gossett, Jr. . . . RIP Daniel Kahneman . . . RIP Bob Beerbohm . . . RIP SPD . . .
Also, Joe Lieberman died.
After a breakup with a singer-songwriter, I was concerned that I & my terrible behavior might show up in a song/album at some point. Brett Martin’s journey into becoming a song subject was much stranger. This is one of the greatest stories of our time.
I missed the news a couple weeks ago: David Marchese has left the NYT Talk interview feature to co-launch a new NYT thang called The Interview. Jake Silverstein, who hired at him at the Times, did an exit interview with him. I’m in sync with a lot of what DM says, in terms of learning how to talk AND to listen, how it feels when a past guest dies, what it’s like to interview someone whose work you don’t necessarily dig, and how the interviewer changes over the years, the way the conversations are a sort of autobiography of the host. Anyway, GIVE IT A READ.
For many years, I have said, “Everything in New York City is a real estate scam,” but this one takes the cake.
I suppose there’s a modern corollary around, “Every male-fronted self-improvement pseudoscientific podcast is a nutritional supplement/boner pill scam and the host is a horndog.”
Mark Ulriksen offers up another great painting-process email, this one around a Great Pyrenees.
“I got clothing advice from Cary Grant” is something I’d be dining out on for the rest of my life.
Bird(ing) is the word, sez Ed Yong.
“Nest builders of the Worm Moon” sounds like a lost chapter of Yes’ Starship Troopers, but it’s also the title of this week’s FIELD NOTES from Christopher Brown (2018, 2019, 2020, 2023). (Go pre-order his upcoming book, A Natural History of Empty Lots!)
Current/Recent Reading
Victory Parade - Leela Corman
Unterzakhn - Leela Corman
You Are Not A Guest - Leela Corman
Lessons for Survival - Emily Raboteau
“I am alive, I have my own children, and with them I have tried to achieve only one aim: that they shouldn’t be afraid of their father. They aren’t. I know that.”
—Karl Ove Knausgaard (tr. Don Bartlett), My Struggle: Book 3
Fractured Body, Fractured Mind
I’m back to doing my morning routine, with a few rehab exercises swapped in. And last week I managed to get in 4 straight days of yoga-weights (alternating) workouts. I hoped to get in 5 straight days this week (Friday-Tuesday), but spent yesterday on that 400-mile round trip, & by the time I got home, I was in no mood/shape for a yoga workout. I did get in a 4-mile walk with one of my pals this morning, and hope to get in weights later today. So maybe I’ll still get 4-in-5-days done. Although my body’s kinda beat from all that stuff I mentioned at the top.
Here’s me at the campaign event on Wednesday.
Until Next Time
Thanks for reading this far! I’ll be back on Wednesday with a new episode and some art, and on Sunday with links, books, & non-workout craziness, & who knows maybe a little profundity or something.
This frail reminder of its giant, dreaming self,