Hitting The Links: 8/4/24
Books in the mail, lots of links, a green bear, Sunday unfunday, a new kitchen, & more!
The Virtual Memories Show News
A 2x/week email about a podcast about books & life
Mail Call
I got great new books in the mail this week from a bunch of my creative pals — John Porcellino, Dmitry Samarov, and Kyle Cassidy & Trillian Stars — so I feel like I’m letting the side down by not finishing the third issue of Haiku for Business Travelers.
(I also gotta get to work figuring out the print specs, production costs, etc. for making my 2024 Instax + words book, GUEST/HOST. And I haven’t really started on the words part of that equation.)
But then there’s next week’s podcast to edit, + cleaning the bathrooms, working out, finishing that Japanese White Eye watercolor I started yesterday morning, doing laundry, figuring out my travel for a European business trip in October, & maybe watching the Yankees a little while, so I guess I better get rolling, starting with this fershlugginer newsletter.
Speaking of (other people’s) fantastic creative work, here’s a topiary bear I saw recently, meandering over to his giraffe buddy:
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And now, let’s hit the links!
Links & Such
Recent Virtual Memories Show podcasts: Anita Kunz • Shalom Auslander • Maurice Vellekoop • Laura Beers • Robert Pranzatelli • Bob Fingerman • Swan Huntley • Stan Mack • Jim Moske
RIP Happy Traum . . . RIP Francine Pascal . . . RIP Edna O’Brien . . .
Also, William Calley died.
Christian Lorentzen wrote a lovely tribute to the late Lewis Lapham. Here’s the 2019 Paris Review Editors At Work interview with Lapham.
TCJ posted their big obit of Michael Zulli.
And here’s an obit for my friend John I told you about a few weeks ago.
Steven Heller (2018, 2019, 2022) has a neat interview with Drew Friedman (2013, 2014, 2022) around Drew’s new book, Schtick Figures.
W. David Marx has a good piece on the importance of cultural relics (centering on Rocky IV) and why so much contemporary art seems to play it safe.
Somehow, that should tie into the neo-afrofuturist Akon City never getting built.
This interview with the gay Supermarket Sweep couple is A-W-E-S-O-M-E.
The Criterion Channel is running a Philip Seymour Hoffman collection/festival this month, and coincidentally Shalom Auslander has just posted the never-before-released video of the pilot episode of Happyish, which PSH starred in.
Current/Recent Reading
Blurry - Dash Shaw
“The deep secrets of erotic life and the esoteric insights of poetry were meant for others, whereas I, constrained by the stupid thinness of my life, struggled to accept that life was just that, stupid and thin.”
Or I guess
“We need to be alert whenever events shape themselves into narratives, for narratives belong to literature and not to life, and occurrences of the past seep into and absorb expectations of the future, for the true present stands open and knows as yet no consequence.”
—Karl Ove Knausgaard (tr. Don Bartlett, Martin Aitken), My Struggle: Book 6
Sound Body, Fractured Mind
I went off the rails again. I got in weights & yoga on Wednesday & Thursday, but was too busy for weights on Friday, spent all day driving & podcasting on Saturday, and now feel like a useless, bloated piece of crap. I was also too busy to go out running with The Guys on any of their morning runs (Mon, Tue, Thu). TBF, Monday was the day after a big hike, so I wasn’t going to join them then. Tuesday was a morning work-call, and I’d planned to go with them on Thursday, but on Wednesday night we discovered a leak in the ceiling that resulted from a blocked drain for our central air unit, and mitigating that + anxiety overnight about fixing it for real left me in no shape to drive out to join their run. Plus, it’s hot & humid every goddamned morning. Anyway, I feel like my body’s falling into decay, so yay me. (Our A/C installer fixed the problem on Thursday morning, $450 later.)
Until Next Time
Thanks for reading this far! I’ll be back on Wednesday with a new episode + art & Instax pix, and on Sunday with links, books, & workout craziness, & sure maybe a little profundity or something.
The brightest ring around the moon / Will darken when I die,