Hitting The Links: 9/8/24
All aboard the Undiscovered Country Regional! This one's got some good links for your reading pleasure, a little art, the 30th anniversary of MUTTS, the Hunger Artist gone overboard, a Boxer At Rest, and making time to listen to the music.
The Virtual Memories Show News
A 2x/week email about a podcast about books & life
Undiscovered Country Regional
I’m on a train to Charlottesville, VA. I got up at 3 a.m. to get to Newark Penn Station for a 4:37, and if all goes according to plan, I’ll be in my bed tonight/tomorrow around 2:45 a.m. But if things went according to plan, I wouldn’t be going to Charlottesville.
I’m headed there for a memorial for my friend John, whose death I wrote about in late July. On Feb. 12, 2023, we talked on the phone about his upcoming knee surgery, which would allow him to get back to playing in his over-70 softball league in the spring. Two days later, he was diagnosed with a brain tumor, and ~17 months later, he was dead.
The memorial’s going to be held at a local baseball field, and the invite stressed CASUAL ATTIRE, so I’ll wear a Yankees jersey (our fave team) and sneakers, not a suit; John saw me in those often enough over the years, and he’d appreciate my dressing down this time.
Also, given how most of our in-person sessions came during FDA meetings for which I had to take 5 a.m. trains, he’d have appreciated today’s travel arrangements. Maybe I’ll write more about it for Wednesday’s email, if I make it through today in one (physical) piece.
As is, I expect to feel less grief and more celebration & sharing of his life. John & I had time to talk during his dying, time to share what our friendship meant, time for him to talk about what he was feeling in any moment, be it terror, tedium, acceptance, rage. Getting to meet his family today, hear stories from them & his friends & teammates, and share their love should be enough. If I cry, I cry.
The train’s approaching Washington, DC. I’ve been on this NE corridor route so many times, I could pick out the landmarks even in the morning darkness. But after Union Station, it’ll be new territory for me, and my friend is in the undiscovered country.
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I took last Thursday off work, so I could record a pair of podcasts with Stephen Shepard and Simon Critchley and attend the party to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Patrick McDonnell’s MUTTS comic strip and the release of his new book, Breaking The Chain: The Guard Dog Story. Both sessions were wonderful — you’ll get to hear ‘em in the weeks ahead — and I had a wonderful time at the party: got to make some new friends, and hung out with a bunch of past guest-friends (in addition to Patrick & Karen O’Connell, our guests of honor): Tom Tomorrow, Ruben Bolling, & Joe Coleman & Whitney Ward.
In my conversation with Simon Critchley (coming end of October, when his new book, Mysticism, is out in the US), we talked about how aesthetic experience, esp. music, has stood in for religious transcendence in this era. And I lamented not being able to just sit and listen to an album like I used to*, because I always have to be Doing Something. I told him how I’d yet to listen to the new records from Nick Cave, Gillian Welch & David Rawlings, and Iron & Wine in their entirety, how I need to give myself time again.
But I’ve got ~13 hours of train travel today, an iPod Mini loaded with all that music, a pair of headphones, and the understanding that no one is desperately trying to reach me on a Sunday morning and there is nothing I need to know online, so if you’ll excuse me, it’s time to lie back, close my eyes, and lose myself in the music.
* The only album I’ve sat with in recent years is Bob Dylan’s Rough and Rowdy Ways (2020). I played it a week or two ago when drawing, and once Murder Most Foul started, I put everything down, sat in my lounge chair, closed my eyes, and joined Dylan’s reverie for 17 minutes.
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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 Bernie Miraeult . . . RIP Michael Lerner . . . RIP James Darren . . . RIP King of the Māoris . . . RIP Frozen Custard King . . .
Okay piece in Air Mail about Ralph Steadman, occasioned by the big new traveling exhibition of his art debuting in DC. (“self-imposed demise by Smith & Wesson” is a weird phrasing for Hunter S. Thompson’s suicide, though)
Cassandra Khaw wrote some heavy thoughts about suicide & potentiality as she approached her 40th birthday. It made me think of when I was waiting for my first oncology consult and spent 10 days assuming I’d be dead in 6 months. I remember trying to take the totality of that in, and accepting that what I’d made in this world — the podcast particularly — was enough, that it’d outlast me & that I’d live through those archives. Of course, then I got The Best Bad News and learned I’d actually have to go forward and live for another 20-30-40 years.
Semi-speaking of, I had a good talk with an old friend on Friday. He told me about a big promotion he got, and how his mental health has improved as a result of starting SSRIs & cognitive behavioral therapy. He talked pretty in-depth about what led him to that point, what he’s been doing wrong throughout his adult life, how it turned around so quickly, why he wishes he took this path 20+ years ago, and why he may not have been ready for it then. We talked about my challenges, too, and how I paper all of them with frantic activity that leaves you all thinking I have my shit together. One of the best things he brought up is that this approach isn’t about ID-ing the root causes in his past but about changing his behavior & responses now. That is, not about looking back, but forward. I admitted that, as much as I’ve improved aspects of my life and relationships, part of me is still a crippled, rage-filled wreck, and that bit occasionally has its say. So maybe that’ll be my 2025 project hahaha.
Break glass for handy reader’s guide to Julian Barnes.
I checked out this ranking of all of Tom Hanks’ live-action films just to see where they put Bachelor Party. It did surprisingly well, & the writer agrees with me that it’s Hanks’ funniest performance. (Surprised that Joe Vs. The Volcano ranked even higher, but hey.)
I met the cartoonist Jason Chatfield at the Mutts 30th Anniversary party this week, and he sent me this neat piece about a transformational conversation he had with Ed Sorel.
“Dickinson’s response [to an invitation to meet IRL] suggested that she preferred a state of slight unreality: ‘A Letter always feels to me like immortality because it is the mind alone without corporeal friend.’ . . . She once responded to a social invitation from Sue by writing simply, ‘We meet no Stranger but Ourself.’” So I guess maybe when I finish my slow ride through Emily Dickinson’s poems, I could start on her letters.
Current/Recent Reading
Upside Dawn - Jason
“[T]ake for instance the bronze bearded boxer sitting on his own with cuts to his arms and legs and a broken nose, apparently at rest after a boxing match, his head cocked, looking to his right, scowling almost or a little aggressive, as though his peace has just been disrupted by a call or a sarcastic remark. He looks slightly stupid, but the strength and latent brutality of his body seem to eclipse that, stupidity is not what defines him. Here, in this statue, made by one Apollonius in the last century before Christ, there is nothing that points to anything beyond this particular moment, what we see is everything, nothing is hidden, neither death nor the divine, nor man as an idea or ideal, this is the world as it is, no more, no less. But is it art?
“What is art?”
—Karl Ove Knausgaard (tr. Don Bartlett, Martin Aitken), My Struggle: Book 6
Speaking of the Boxer At Rest, I hope to see the sculpture in person at last when I’m in Rome for a few days next month.
Sound Body, Fractured Mind
I didn’t get in all the exercise I wanted this week, due to some work & podcast demands, & conversations with friends, and I’m pretty sure I will not be getting a weights workout in after John’s memorial today, but I did get a run in Tuesday afternoon, which is good. Ye Olde Hunger Artist kept up with this rewired, unsnacking mind, which led to Friday morning’s weigh-in and the discovery that I’d dipped under 170 lbs. I’d been unable to get there for years, after I stopped the 30 mi./week running, so I was pretty surprised at this result. When I started trying to get fit again in 2021, I used sub-170 as my goal for when I’d order a pizza again — I’ve had pizza maybe 3x since 2021, because of friend/family stuff — but all the weights and other stuff meant that I was adding muscle, and that was offsetting the fat I was losing, so I stayed in the 172-182 range for years. Anyway, I had to figure out lunch Friday, having this 168.8 weigh-in in my back pocket, and I thought, “I could get a pizza, but then I’d feel like crap after, so let’s just skip it.” So that’s where I am.
Also, here’s a pic in the mirror from that morning:
Until Next Time
Thanks for reading this far! I’ll be back on Wednesday with a new episode + art & a couple of Instax pix, and on Sunday with links, books, & workout craziness, & maybe a little profundity or something.
Which lover are you, Jack of Diamonds?,