Hitting The Links: 3/9/25
This one's got an inscription to be remembered, a meditation on The Hanged Boy, a ton of great links, a new ep. feat. Vanda Krefft, an unhappy aussiedoodle, and more!
The Virtual Memories Show News
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Plenty of guests have inscribed books to me over the years. Some just write a thank-you, but others give me something more meaningful, like Clive James’ With thanks and admiration — I still feel like I earned that one — or Daniel Mendelsohn’s With many thanks for such a marvelous conversation.
And then there was yesterday’s guest, who wrote, To Gil — Who works harder than fuck, which might be the best thing anyone has ever said about me.
And now, your regular Birdy appearance, photo by Amy Roth:
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And now, let’s hit the links!
Links & Such
Recent Virtual Memories Show podcasts: Vanda Krefft • Seth Lorinczi • Martin Mittelmeier • Jonathan Ames • Witold Rybczynski • Matt Madden • Fred Kaplan • Mia Wolff
RIP James Harrison . . . RIP Hal Hirshorn, the Analog Kid . . . RIP Carl Dean . . . RIP DJ Funk . . . RIP D’Wayne Wiggins . . . RIP George Lowe . . . RIP Angie Stone . . . RIP Roy Ayers . . . RIP Khalil Fong . . . RIP Jack Vettriano . . . RIP Ricardo Scofidio . . . RIP Martin E. Marty . . . RIP Juan Hamilton . . .
Great piece by W. David Marx on the challenges of writing a contemporary cultural history. I can’t wait for that book to come out, and hope to get him back on the show for it. As someone who sorta started to divorce himself from contemporary culture 30 years ago — I couldn’t keep up even before the internet, & saw no point in trying — I wonder if I’ll feel like I’m reading an anthropological study of another world (yes yes I know there’s no real divorce from one’s times).
Speaking of anthropological studies of another world that’s actually ours, there’s a screening of David Shields’ new doc, How We Got Here, at the Roxy in NYC on March 22! With a Q&A with Penny Lane! I’ll be outta town for it, but you should go. The companion book is fantastic (we’re recording a podcast about the book & movie this month, I hope, to accompany our 3 previous ones: 2019a, 2019b, 2020).
Some . . . thoughts on the Iowa Writers’ Workshop by Neo-Passéism (& others), with art by Aaron Lange.
Michael Dirda (2012, 2014, 2015) was my first real podcast Get, way back when I was starting out. That episode got me to check out The Good Soldier, by Ford Madox Ford, which turned out to be A-W-E-S-O-M-E (go read it!). Here’s a new piece by Michael about Ford.
Langdon Hammer wrote about Elizabeth Bishop & the family Bible & a lot more.
This WSJ article about advances in hard drive disks reminded me of Chris Parnell’s monologue about AM radio in Hot Rod.
This Errol Morris doc about the Manson murders (and our fixation on them) sounds . . . interesting (or at least of a piece with WORMWOOD and My Psychedelic Love Story). I oughtta try again to get him on the show.
Namwali Serpell writes about the plague of literalism in the movies (and culture in general).
As ever, I am HERE for stories about Neom going off the rails.
Current/Recent Reading
The Twilight of Bohemia: Westbeth and the Last Artists in New York - Peter Trachtenberg
Crumb: A Cartoonist’s Life - Dan Nadel
Ugliness - Moshtari Hillal (tr. Elisabeth Lauffer)
To The Lighthouse - Virginia Woolf
The Man Without Qualities - Robert Musil (tr. Wilkins/Pike) • This has been my morning ritual, one chapter a day.
It began to dawn on him that being the husband of a distinguished woman was a painful affliction that had to be carefully hidden from the world, much like an accidental castration.
Sound Body, Fractured Mind
I didn’t get much exercise in this week, after finishing a 5-day weights/yoga cycle last week. Between brain-crushing headache, work, podcast-travel, etc., I only got in yoga on Thursday, but at least the late afternoon light was good. Maybe I’ll do a weekday cycle to try to make up for it all. Weather should be mild enough that I might rejoin The Guys for some weekday-morning running, too.
I’ve been keeping up with daily meditation, and had some interesting trips while corpse-posing out for 15 minutes. During one of my sessions this week, I regained a memory. I was maybe 11-12, on a school overnight trip to some sort of outdoors camp. There was a climbing wall challenge: a wall of planks with blocks for hand/footholds. I was a fat, unathletic kid, couldn’t get anywhere, and wound up falling off a few blocks up and dangling in the harness they put us in. I was so frustrated and sore from the harness that I helplessly cried while hanging there. In this revisitation, my classmates were silent, not even laughing at me in my humiliation.
I hadn’t thought about that moment in so many decades. I don’t think either of my parents ever heard about what happened; my old man had already moved out and don’t recall talking about it with my mother. And so that shame all went inside, where 2025’s miner could uncover it.
In that moment of discovery, I didn’t flinch or burn with shame. I reached out to that poor kid instead, to let him know that someone should have been there for him, and that I am here for him, 40+ years later. I felt suffused by love.
Also, I thought maybe I should find an indoor climbing-wall class around here.
Until Next Time
Thanks for reading this far! I’ll be back on Wednesday with a new episode, some Instax throwbax, & maybe some art, and on Sunday with links, books, & workout craziness, & maybe a little profundity or something.
I’m awaiting for ignition, I’m looking for a spark / Any chance collision and I light up in the dark / There you stand before me, all that fur and all that hair / Oh, do I dare?,