PODCAST

I posted Episode 679 of my Virtual Memories Show this weekend! “A letter is a joy of Earth — It is denied the Gods —,” sez Emily Dickinson (#1672), and THE MAN WHO READ EVERYTHING: The Literary Letters of Harold Bloom (Yale University Press) proves it! Heather Cass White rejoins the show to talk about editing Harold Bloom‘s letters for the book, her history with him and what she learned about him over the course of the project, and how the letters revealed a less determined Bloom and how she empathized with the struggles he went through in his career. We get into the people whose correspondence she included — Alvin Feinman, Northrop Frye, AR Ammons, John Hollander, John Ashbery, James Merrill, Henri Cole, and Ursula K Le Guin — and all the writers and critics she wishes she could have included, the books and projects Bloom proposed but never completed (or started) over the years, the fun she had writing the footnotes, the one person Bloom was intimidated to meet, Bloom’s role in the Canon Wars 30-40 years ago (and my practice of checking off books from The List at the end of The Western Canon), where he fell on Ashbery vs. Ammons, and whether marriage is the true subject of literature. We also discuss how her next book on the correspondence of Elizabeth Bishop and Marianne Moore is the opposite of this one, her go-to books to teach American fiction, why she dropped out of Knausgaard before the finish line, how students have & haven’t changed over a quarter century of teaching, her late arrival to Surfjan Stevens’ music, how I solved her long-standing question about a moment from Bloom’s memorial, and a lot more. (Also, I talk about the Knicks A LOT in the intro; jump to 14:20 go to right to the conversation.) Give it a listen! And go read THE MAN WHO READ EVERYTHING!

Recent podcast episodes: Paul Gravett • Luis Mendo • Benoit Denizet-Lewis • Clare Carlisle • Josh Alan Friedman • Andrew Durbin • Dean Haspiel & Doug Latino

Every book (non-comics) that I’ve finished since 1989.

BIRDY!

The belly rub that dare not speak its name

THE HAMPSHIRE PROJECT

I’m starting a new project, because I clearly don’t have enough on my plate. My alma mater, Hampshire College, will shut down after the fall semester, so I’ve decided to start recording segments with Hampshire alumni, professors, and other associated folks to talk about what it meant to them, how they felt when they got the news of its closure, and anything else they want to share about Hampshire.

The plan is to record segments of 5 to 15 minutes that will be appended to regular episodes of The Virtual Memories Show, then compile them into a big standalone episode for the end of the year, to commemorate/mourn Hampshire closing its doors for good.

I’ve reached out to a bunch of folks from my time at Hampshire (1990-1993), as well as some famous alumni like Ken Burns and Jon Krakauer, but I’m looking for more people from different eras of the school. So if you’re a Hampshire grad, or know one, please send along my info or ask them to contact me. The segments will be audio only, and likely recorded remotely.

I hope we manage to assemble a great archive of memories and thoughts about this unique place.

COMMONPLACE

From my commonplace book/page:

“People conjecture the first play may have depicted an aggressive and lascivious Phaidra, rather like Potiphar’s wife in Genesis or Stheneboia in Greek legend, while the second tries to balance good and evil, moving Aphrodite into position as pivot of everybody’s downfall. Pivot but not cause. Phaidra’s victimization by the goddess of love has a domino effect on the other characters, as all are swept along in Aphrodite’s revenge, yet each chooses and commits actions that collaborate with the divine plan and destroy another human. A large question of free will and determinism comes to mind. Euripides seems inclined to lead us into the middle of this question and leave us there. It makes me think of a hardboiled egg. Cut it open, you see an exquisite design — the yellow circle perfectly suspended within the white oval. The two shapes are disjunct and dissimilar yet construct one form. They do not contradict or cancel out, they interexist. Can you say one is prior? Circle as distorted oval? Oval as imperfect circle? Rather they each follow the other in a perfect system called egg.”
—Anne Carson, Grief Lessons, preface to Hippolytos

“Well that’s why I’m doing this, actually — to find out how people fill up their days, because I myself feel like I don’t do anything much all day.”
—Linda Rosenkrantz, Peter Hujar’s Day

HITTING THE LINKS

Here are a couple of links for you

• RIP David Hockney (tribute last year from Simon Schama) . . . RIP Jerry Moriarty (that’s just a link to our 2018 podcast; there’ll be a full obit soon, and I’ll repost about him there) . . . RIP Stacey King . . . RIP Gene Shalit . . . RIP Nigel Cabourn . . . RIP Gordon Wood . . .

  . . . Who read Proust in his 90s.

• In this week’s episode’s LONG intro, I talk about going to a World Cup match on Saturday and making it home in time for the 4th quarter of the Knicks’ championship-clinching game, and how sports can build unlikely communities (which is how I segue into a discussion about Harold Bloom). To that end, I plan to attend the parade on Thursday.

• A Knicks beat writer wrote about his anxiety issues and how Jalen Brunson unwittingly helped him through.

• My father would have loved the way this team played, although he would have made racist comments about the players.

• You might dig this thoughtful interview with Seth Rogen. And Hayley Campbell interviewed Idris Elba, so give that a read.

• Speaking of Harold Bloom & canons, Steven Heller wrote about The Graphic Canon.

• And here’s a pic from the intro to that World Cup match, bet. Brazil & Morocco. The latter fans were WAY outnumbered, by extremely vocal. Also, I think FIFA banned vuvuzelas, so yay. Dad would’ve been glad I went to the match, even though my soccer fandom ended in 1978 with the Cosmos.

  

WHAT I’M READING

• A Past Without Pictures - Jonathan Ames

• Heaven - Katie Skelly

• Grief Lessons - Anne Carson

• The Unbearable Lightness of Being - Milan Kundera - I read this a bunch of times in college, but that was 30 years ago; there was a Kindle deal ($1.99!) on it, so last night I started reading it, to see how different it is in my 50s. Will report back.

POSTCARD

I mail out a postcard every day, so let me know if you want to be on my list. Yesterday, I caught up on the 10-day backlog from my May trip, along with the dailies since I got back. Some mornings I just don’t have it in me.

EXPENSES

If you want to help out with Virtual Memories Show expenses — this email runs $29/month, podcast-hosting is $25/month, and the remote recording account is $20/month — or otherwise Contribute To The Cause, you can make a one-time contribution of any size via Stripe, or a recurring one via Patreon. Or maybe save your money for when I launch the Kickstarter for my Instax book.

NEXT TIME

Thanks for reading this far. See you next time, I hope.

Go, New York, go,