Hitting The Links: 9/29/24
Lots of links, my traipse through the minefield, some workout-craziness, whether I should be worried about not feeling bad, & more
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Unaccompanied Minors & Firearms
Another 2 weeks, and I should be past the minefield of a calendar that I laid for myself. For now, I’m wondering whether the mild reaction I’m having to yesterday’s flu & COVID vaccines is a good sign or a bad one. (Bad as in, if my immune system isn’t giving too much of a crap, that may be a sign that my CLL is getting worse.) (But it’s probably nothing, just a vagary of vax-response.) (And it’s not like I feel great, just not so bad.) (Also, just a few days after I make it through aforementioned minefield, I go for my regular oncology check-in.)
Most of the craziness I’m dealing with has just been work-related, and I can’t do anything about that: A customer really wanted me to come out to their sales/leadership team meeting in San Diego a few days after my own conference, to do a 2-hour performance of The Gil Show (a.k.a. “CDMOs: Challenges & Opportunities”), and the following day was a big schmoozefest trade show in NJ that I can’t miss.
At least I’m willing to concede that I can’t do everything; I skipped two comics festivals I love to attend this month, and even postponed today’s remote pod-session because I just didn’t have time to prep and didn’t want to half-ass it with them.
Now, if you’re wondering exactly how I end up in messes like this, let me tell you what happened on Tuesday’s late-morning flight to San Diego. I paid for wifi, instead of just chilling out with music, my Kindle, and a sketchpad. What shows up in my email? An invite to interview [PAST GUEST] for a live event at Labyrinth Books in Princeton in mid-November. I wanted to record with this person again anyway, and this would be better than a remote session.
But I checked the date in my calendar and realized that I’ll be speaking in Lexington, KY that same morning for a client’s advisory board meeting. What does this super-genius do? He checks with the client to see if they’ve got him speaking early enough in the morning that he can get out for an hour-plus drive to CVG or SDF for a flight that’ll get to Newark by 3pm, giving him time to drive down to Princeton and host the event. (He also looks at flights into Philadelphia, figuring he could take a Lyft to Princeton, then train up to Newark to get his car & drive home.)
The client agrees to flip him to an earlier time-slot on the agenda, and then this super-genius confirms with Labyrinth that he’s on for that evening. (I told them that I’d zap over a list of questions in advance, in case things go sideways w/travel.)
Relaying this to a pal, they asked me why I compulsively engage in complicated, frantic activity, and what I’m running away from. They speculated it’s my lifelong feeling of Not Being Good Enough, which is probably right. I like to think that I’m also trying to make other people feel bad for not compulsively engaging in complicated, frantic activity as much as I do.
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At the trade show on Thursday, I caught up with my former publisher from the trade magazine we launched in 1999. He’s retiring this year (he left the magazine a few years ago, but stuck around to help with this annual conference since). We reminisced about our time together, and talked family, and Getting Old, and our first CPHI Milan trip in 2000 (I’m going back next week), and all the other things people talk about when they can look back.
I wasn’t the first choice to be Founding Editor, but by accident I wound up in that role. We built something lasting, and those ~15 years led me into launching my trade association. I can't imagine where my life would have led without it, but I'm awfully glad I can thank the people who helped make it possible.
That said, I think he was a little freaked out when I said we should take a picture, because I was never the sentimental type when he knew me.
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And now, let’s hit the links!
Links & Such
Recent Virtual Memories Show podcasts: Dmitry Samarov • Stephen B. Shepard • Benjamin Dreyer • Nicholas Delbanco • Dash Shaw • Jess Ruliffson • Joe Coleman • Anita Kunz
RIP Maggie Smith (lovely tribute by Rebecca Mead) . . . RIP Fredric Jameson . . . RIP Clarice Rivers . . . RIP Cat Glover (fwiw, Sign ‘O’ The Times is one of my fave concert movies, and that version of I Could Never Take The Place Of Your Man is one of my fave Prince songs)
Also Hassan Nasrallah died.
I drink mine black, but you do you, lifehackers.
Steven Heller (2018, 2019, 2022) did a wonderful interview with Jules Feiffer around Jules’ new book, Amazing Grapes.
As a 13-year-old, I was TOTALLY ready for Body Double.
Per Shalom Auslander, first thought worst thought.
I do plan on making a book this year/early 2025, but that’s different than writing a book.
“This is how we’re going to live from now on – surrounded by the swirl of strange and terrible weather, never quite knowing when the great black wall of it will shift and slam into us.” Go read Warren Ellis’ 2012 review of Pynchon’s Against The Day, and then start reading Against the Day. You may never finish, but it’s a universe of its own (or several), and reading it was a life-shifting experience for me.
Current/Recent Reading
A Natural History of Empty Lots: Field Notes from Urban Edgelands, Back Alleys, and Other Wild Places - Christopher Brown
The Notebook: A History of Thinking on Paper - Roland Allen
Sound Body, Fractured Mind
My workout routine got all sorts of wrecked again by last week’s travel. I did get in an impromptu 30-min. treadmill run at the hotel in La Jolla on Tuesday, which I cautiously did shirtless, since I only brought one T-shirt on this mini-trip and wanted to be able to put it on and not stink up the joint, if necessary. (That is, I was the only person in the room, and when someone came in I asked if it was okay, but they were only there to fill their water bottle, and didn’t object.) I took that pic below after the run (and a NSFW one back in my room where I looked like a superhero; no, I will not be sharing).
Once I was back home from my travels, I got in weights on Friday and yoga on Saturday. We’ll see if yesterday’s double-vaccine keeps me from doing my weights routine today (again, feeling better than I expected). I overate quite a bit on Wednesday (travel day, 4 hours hanging out in the Presidents Club in SAN, first class redeye flight home that served dinner at 10:45pm) and Thursday (trade show eats), but my weight didn’t stray above my preferred range, and I reset my metabolism a little once I got home. We’ll see how next week in Italy treats me.
Until Next Time
Thanks for reading this far! I’ll be back on Wednesday with a new episode & maybe some art but no Instax pix, and on Sunday with links, books, & workout craziness, & maybe a little profundity or something.
She asked me if we could be friends / And I said, “Oh, honey baby, that’s a dead end / You know and I know that we wouldn’t be satisfied, no”,