Hitting The Links: 9/1/24
A question of influence, a whole ton of great links for your reading pleasure, an old drawing of Nick Cave, my pod-guest-turn, + some fitness-mania & a pic of me in a nice suit
The Virtual Memories Show News
A 2x/week email about a podcast about books & life
Influencer
It’s Labor Day weekend in the US, and I figure no one’s waiting expectantly for a Gil-sermonette, so instead I thought I’d go for a little self-aggrandizement & egotism.
Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve had a couple instances where listeners/readers have mentioned via their social media platforms or newsletters that they’re reading books by my recent guests. Another discovered Pilobolus because of my conversation about that & went to see them in NYC. Also, I recently learned that a past guest is making his way through Knausgaard’s My Struggle, though I didn’t ask him if he’d been inspired to do that from my newsletter-entries.
All of which has me wondering: Are you people actually buying/reading/watching things because of me? Am I . . . an INFLUENCER?
I mean, sure, the goal of my podcast & newsletter is to promote culture (& my monstrous ego), but it’d be nice to get a handle on whether I’m having any effect. Are you buying (or going to your library to pick up) books or other projects I talk about with my guests? I’d love to hear about that, esp. if they’ve turned you on to other reading.
So go to the web-version of this email and leave a comment about this, or just hit Reply & write me directly (you can always send a postcard, too; my address is at the bottom of the email), or leave a message on my Google Voice #: 973-869-9659. (As I always say, “That goes directly to voice mail, so you don’t have to worry about getting stuck in an awkward conversation with me.”)
Which is to say: Keep the conversation going.
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And now, let’s hit the links!
Links & Such
Recent Virtual Memories Show podcasts: Dash Shaw • Jess Ruliffson • Joe Coleman • Anita Kunz • Shalom Auslander • Maurice Vellekoop • Laura Beers • Robert Pranzatelli
RIP Leonard Riggio . . . RIP the other Sid Vicious . . . RIP Rudy Franchi . . . RIP Sven-Göran Eriksson . . . RIP Hvaldimir . . .
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds’ new record, Wild God, came out this week! Hayley Campbell got to sit down with Cave for an interview, so GO READ THAT!
Here’s my Sept. 2022 drawing of Cave, which taught me the importance of using lots of black:
A little like a Mark Ulriksen on the worst drawing day of his life; I like what I did with the collar, though Aaron Lange put together a big-ol’ piece on cartoonists in movies (as in, characters who are involved in comics somehow), and it’s a great read.
Neat NYT profile of translators Richard Pevear & Larissa Volokhonsky, whose first work, The Brothers Karamazov, is on that secret website I started of Books That Arrived In My Life At The Right Time.
I was a Marvel kid, but I enjoyed the story of The Three-Ring Binder of DC Lore.
Marina Warner wrote a neat review/appreciation of Rikki Ducornet in the NYRB.
Daphne Merkin wrote an amazing piece in Air Mail about revisiting her experience interviewing Alice Munro in 2004 in light of the recent revelation of Munro’s husband’s abuse of her daughter.
New Great Works In Focus piece by Sebastian Smee on Chirico.
Speaking of art critics, check out this Jerry Saltz review of Abigail Goodman’s recent show of Die-o-ramas at Hashimoto.
Re last week’s Hunger Artist poem, here’s Jeanette Winterson from last February writing about her annual 10-day fast (!), which is not something I’m interested in trying out.
In another life, I’d take this 2,000-mile Amtrak from Chicago to Seattle.
Or go 3,400 miles from CA to NYC. (This one’s pretty neat, in terms of text & graphics interplay.)
I guess I need to add a ton of new exercises to my regimen if I want Bruce Lee Forearms.
Fascinating piece on Kate Spade, both the person & the brand.
Here’s a New Yorker piece on Ruben Bolling and the challenges of political satire this past decade.
Not that anyone on this side of my life would be interested, but here’s a Pharma-podcast I guested on, hosted by past Virtual Memories guest Raman Sehgal. He’s a pal, and I had some fun on this one.
I guess I should promote myself as a potential pod-guest more, for non-pharma shows. If you want me on your podcast, hit me up and we’ll see.
Current/Recent Reading
Salinger’s Soul - Stephen Shepard
Mysticism - Simon Critchley
“Reading texts written in the decades leading up to World War II is like reading the legislation of a former society whose laws no longer apply.”
Also
“My basic feeling is that of the world disappearing, that our lives are being filled with images of the world, and that these images are inserting themselves between us and the world, making the world around us lighter and lighter and less and less binding.”
—Karl Ove Knausgaard (tr. Don Bartlett, Martin Aitken), My Struggle: Book 6
(FYI, if you’re considering tackling My Struggle, there are two points I want to share with you, as I did with that past guest who I discovered is reading it: 1) the final volume, Book 6, is 1,200 pages, or 1/3rd of the length of the whole shebang, and 2) in the midst of that book, there’s a 400-page essay that is much denser reading than the narrative that may have swept you along the first ~2,800 pages of this series. I just finished that part, and now it’s like downhill biking.)
Sound Body, Fractured Mind
I didn’t get to exercise as much the previous week because of work/travel, but I got back in my groove this week. Weights today will finish a 5-day weights-yoga workout cycle, so yay. I hadn’t gone out for a run since my Boston trip the previous week, due to work, eye exam, humidity, laziness, but I got a 4-miler in on Saturday, and hope to go longer on Monday. Dropping ~10 lbs. in recent weeks should help a little with stress on the joints, etc. As ever, I’d include a post-workout picture, but don’t want to scandalize you/burn your eyes out. (If you ask nice, maybe.) Instead, you get me moderating that biotech panel in Boston, with a silly look, & my legs in a funny position to hold my notepad.
Until Next Time
Thanks for reading this far! I’ll be back on Wednesday with a new episode + art & maybe an Instax pix, and on Sunday with links, books, & workout craziness, & maybe a little profundity or something.
I saw Matt Dillon in black and white / There ain’t no color in memories / He rode his brother’s Harley across the TV / While I was laughing at Dom DeLuise,
You heard me! Leave a comment!