Inertia and Ignorance
This one's got my latest podcast, a new friend in DC, the Saraswati Mantra, and more
The Virtual Memories Show News
A 2x/week email about a podcast about books & life
Podcastery
This week I posted Episode 592 of The Virtual Memories Show feat. author & illustrator Swan Huntley as we celebrate her two new books, I WANT YOU MORE (Zibby Books), and YOU’RE GROUNDED: An Anti-Self-Help Book to Calm You the F*ck Down (Tarcherperigee). We talk about how ghostwriting a memoir for a Real Housewife of New York led her to write I Want You More, a thriller of a novel about fame, identity, and murder, why she uses the first person in fiction and loves the challenge of lying to the reader, how we’re seen by others and how we want to be seen, and the fun of writing thrillers and melding character with a big plot. We also talk about how You’re Grounded took shape as a melding of words and drawings, how she settled on “anti-self-help”, the ways her various addictions shaped her identity and what it meant to be herself as she overcame (some of) them, how taking up drawing in a writing lull helped bring out different voices, and the need to calm the f*ck down. We also discuss the creation of identity vs. the discovery of identity, why she biked the El Camino pilgrimage solo, the memoir she’s working on, the nature of celebrity & our reactions around famous people (& her upcoming essay, “My Best Friend Is Famous”), how she found her place in Los Angeles, and more. Give it a listen! And go get I WANT YOU MORE and YOU’RE GROUNDED
Last week I posted Episode 591 of The Virtual Memories Show with legendary cartoonist & artist Stan Mack! Stan pioneered documentary comics and bought New York’s multitudes to life every week with Stan Mack’s Real Life Funnies (RLF) in the Village Voice, and now he joins the show to celebrate the publication of STAN MACK’S REAL LIFE FUNNIES: The Collected Conceits, Delusions, and Hijinks of New Yorkers from 1974 to 1995 (Fantagraphics)! We talk about winnowing down 1,000+ RLF strips to 275 for this book, the comic’s secret origin and how we share some Milton Glaser conceptual DNA, what he learned about cartooning and storytelling, the creeping realization that people were actually reading his comics, and how he and RLF grew over 20+ years. We get into whether Real Life Funnies and its snippets of street dialogue could work today when everybody just stares at their phones, how his pre-Voice stint as art director at the New York Herald Tribune made an editor out of him, how he became an activist and used RLF to highlight the squatters’ rights movement, how important the Village Voice was to NYC and America and why we need to bring it out of the pre-digital memory hole, Stan’s failure as a backup dancer for Lionel Richie, and a lot more. Give it a listen! And go get STAN MACK’S REAL LIFE FUNNIES: 1974-1995
Recent episodes: Jim Moske • Adam Moss • Randy Fertel • D.W. Young • Jen Silverman • Leonard Barkan • Emily Raboteau
Inertia and Ignorance
Another day-late email, on the heels of a two-day-late podcast; man, am I slipping. In my defense, there’s some heavy-duty stuff going on in my professional life, plus I’ve gradually reconciled myself to the fact that nobody will really notice/care if any of this is late. You’ve all got enough on your plate.
On a hot-as-balls evening in Washington, DC on Monday, I had dinner and then meandered around The Dupont Circle neighborhood with a friend I’d never talked to. That is, Mike Rhode & I exchanged banter at Small Press Expo, and emailed a little, but when he read in my newsletter that I was coming to DC for biz, he asked if I’d like to get together for dinner. I decided that “Gil explores The Void Of His Soul while sitting in his hotel room” maybe didn’t sound so good, so I took him up on it.
We had a blast talking comics, my podcast, politics, legacy (duh), Those Kids Today™, archiving, and all sorts of other stuff over the course of 3 hours, at the restaurant, at nearby Fantom Comics, and walking in the swamp-ass heat.
We sweated. A lot. (At least I’d changed from my Business Slovenly into sweat-shorts, sneakers, and a short-sleeved shirt for dinner.)
Eventually, he led me to one of his favorite attractions in the neighborhood: the statue of Dewi Saraswati, outside the Indonesian embassy. The white statue/sculpture, a Hindu God standing on a swan standing on a lotus, with three children reading a book below them, was gorgeous and weird and out of place. Mike pointed out that one of the children is a young Barack Obama, who spent some childhood years in Indonesia.
Saraswati’s a Hindu god of learning and wisdom. The plaque nearby has the Saraswati Mantra:
May you remove my inertia and ignorance and bless me with the light of knowledge.
Which even through the sweat and the running-myself-ragged of recent months felt like a pretty admirable sentiment.
Art
I didn’t do any drawing-painting at all last week. I’d like to paint some of the tiger lilies in the yard before the deer eat them. You should go to the Flickr album of most of the art I’ve made & find something you like.
Postcardery
Let me know if you want to be on my postcard-a-day list. (Financial supporters of the podcast get a hand-drawn/painted postcard as a thank-you.)
Kickstartery
I did record with someone last weekend and took some Instax pix but I don’t know which one I’m going to use for my 2024 art-book: sorry!
And, on repeat: I’m going to make a book that I plan on launching via Kickstarter. If you’ve got ideas about what sort of rewards I should make for different tiers of donors — like, things you’d love to receive if you contributed, say, $30, $40, $50 OR A WHOLE LOT MORE to this project — let me know.
Until Next Time
Thanks for reading this far! I’ll be back on Sunday with links, books, & workouts, and on Wednesday with a new episode, and maybe some art & more Instax.
Waiting for the time when Earth shall be as one,