Hitting The Links: 4/14/24
Lots of links, and the end of the world
The Virtual Memories Show News
A 2x/week email about a podcast about books & life
Unregretted Attrition In Place
I picked the wrong day to start watching the director’s cut of UNTIL THE END OF THE WORLD. I screened a VHS of the theatrical version back in college (1992), and just got the Criterion Blu-Ray of Wenders’ 4:45-long version last week, so with Amy away for a couple of hours, I thought I’d start it.
I didn’t remember too much of the movie — esp. with 2 more hours of it than I saw in 1992 — but OMG THAT SOUNDTRACK has been part of my life for 30+ years, and those songs brought me back to some younger self. (But it took older Gil to realize that the guy Claire wakes up next to and tries to slap into wakefulness is Nick Cave.)
I was half an hour into the movie when I got my first text about the Iran missile/drone attack on Israel. I paused the DVD, found out what I could in the news, understood that there was nothing I could do about it but worry, hoped that my family members in Israel have access to shelters, and went back to a quad-continental road movie from 1991-92 set in 1999 against the menace of a tumbling nuclear satellite.
It’s always the end of the world, and the future’s never what it used to be.
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And now, let’s hit the links!
Links & Such
Recent Virtual Memories Show podcasts: Emily Raboteau • Trillian Stars/Kyle Cassidy (bonus ep.) • Leela Corman • Keith Mayerson • Edith Hall • David Small • Brad Gooch
RIP Trina Robbins . . . RIP Faith Ringgold . . . RIP Frogman . . . RIP Don Wright . . . RIP Robert MacNeil . . . RIP Roberto Cavalli . . . RIP Eleanor Coppola . . . RIP Rico Wade . . .
Also, OJ died.
Trina Robbins & I talked about recording a podcast, but the one time we had things lined up for a remote session in late Dec. 2021, I got KTFO by COVID. I never reconnected with her to reschedule, but I did see her at a festival in 2022, where I did something nice for her (move her boxes of comics & GNs at her table), and we chatted for a few minutes, with the promise of recording next time I was out in San Francisco. That never happened. This seems to be a pattern for me as far as legendary U.S. women cartoonists go, because I also never followed up/scheduled Aline Kominsky-Crumb or Diane Noomin when I had the chance. I'm thankful I got together with Joyce Farmer.
Here’s an obit for Ed Piskor in TCJ by Katie Skelly.
Here’s Errol Morris’ acceptance speech for the Hitchens Prize. We talked about recording an episode once upon a time, but it also fell through. I oughtta try again.
NJ: The Diner State.
ICYMI: Trillian Stars & Kyle Cassidy (2012, 2017, 2020) have a neat new Kickstarter running until May 4; we did a bonus episode about it last week, so go listen and then pledge!
I’ve got an idea for an art-book that I plan to run a Kickstarter for later this year. More details on that when I can, but I will ask you guys for some advice on the project.
Speaking of pre-ordering art books, Dmitry Samarov (2022) has a new one coming out in August/September: Making Pictures is How I Talk to the World.
My knee-jerk reaction to this headline is not printable.
They must’ve thought 3.5” floppies were only a fad.
I’m no shill for Six Sigma or the glory days of the Sheinhardt Wig Company, but selling off the GE corporate retreat because “Executives can now easily train staffers via videoconference or through off-site events held in hotels or other venues, management specialists say” sounds pretty bad.
Almost as bad this Amazon spokesman: “It doesn’t do stack ranking, he said, but admitted that Amazon currently has a percentage goal for what Amazon calls unregretted attrition in place.”
Maris Kreizman says there are too many books coming out from big publishers. Anecdotally, I’ll add that I’ve seen an increase in in-house publicists writing me about a new book/author for a podcast, then failing to send a review copy or otherwise follow up when I write back to say I’m interested in the book/author.
On the flip side, a review copy for the new memoir by Shalom Auslander showed up in yesterday’s mail with no warning; I wrote to the publicist & hope to get a show lined up with him for this summer’s release.
Speaking of literary quantity, I just came across this 8,000+-word 2023 LRB essay on David Foster Wallace and spent way too much time on it before giving up, and I pray that was the author’s meta-point.
Lovely piece by Steven Heller (2018, 2019, 2022) about the calligraphy of Arthur Szyk. (Go listen to my Szyk-episode with Irvin Ungar!)
Current/Recent Reading
There’s Going To Be Trouble - Jen Silverman
“I was familiar with most of the words, but what they described seemed to be constantly beyond my reach, as though they were about an unknown world which the language of the old world was not equipped to approach.”
—Karl Ove Knausgaard (tr. Don Bartlett), My Struggle: Book 4
Fractured Body, Fractured Mind
I put off exercise for a couple days last week, due to laziness & travel, but decided to start my weights-yoga cycle a day early to accommodate next week’s travel. So I’ve got 3 sessions in since Thursday — yoga-weights-yoga — and hope to get all 5 days in. Starting to get my body back a little, not that you’ll get to see it. I also got in a 4.7-mi. walk with one of The Guys this morning.
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, & workout craziness, & who knows maybe a little profundity or something.
You see me in a foreign face / In ships that sink without trace,