PODCAST

I posted Episode 684 of my Virtual Memories Show this week, featuring a conversation with Ali Trotta about her brand-new debut poetry collection, OFFERINGS FOR ORDINARY GODS (Clash Books), and how it brings myth, magick, tarot, and ritual to bear on the eternal & primal struggle of women. We talk about those roots and how tarot and ancient myth inspired her work, where tarot began for her — ’90s, The Craft — and how past guest Katelan Foisy resparked her interest and showed her new depths in the cards, and her focus on revising ancient myths to retell the stories of wronged women like Persephone, Medusa, and Dido. We get into how she feels at seeing her work collected and how to look at her development as a poet without cringing at her younger selves, how everything is fair game and poetry can serve as exorcism, and how confession can be deeply coded in a poem. We also discuss the teacher who gave her the tools to read poetry deeply, her Very Online-ness and how she’s built relationships and writer communities online (and how it’s good to be part of the Group-Chat), her online #tinypoem flurries and how rockstar she felt when someone got a tattoo of one on their arm, the project(s) she’d love to write, and more. PLUS: She reads a few of her poems and gives me my second tarot reading of the summer! Give it a listen! And go read OFFERINGS FOR ORDINARY GODS!

Recent podcast episodes: R Sikoryak • Katie Skelly • Colin Asher • Kate Maruyama & Me • Heather Cass White • Paul Gravett • Luis Mendo

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

BIRDY!

I had to bring her to the vet last week for an ear infection (she’s a lot better now). She was so nervous she didn’t even bark or fly into a rage at the other two dogs in the lobby. But she nervous-smiled while we were waiting in the exam room, and they gave her lots of treats.

WHAT I’M READING (or have finished)

• The Black Notebook - Patrick Modiano (tr. Polizzotti)

• Carousel: An Essay on Seeing - Sarah Minor

• The Fire Agent - David Baerwald

• Paterson - William Carlos Williams

• Zona: A Book About A Film About A Journey To A Room - Geoff Dyer

HITTING THE LINKS

Here are some links for you:

• RIP Dave Kendall . . . RIP Jennifer Finch . . . RIP Plas Johnson . . . RIP Kaylee Hottle . . . RIP Sparky D . . .

• To paraphrase one of the greatest episodes of TV this century, “We guarantee our skin treatments are made from dead bodies.”

• Joke’s on them; I use semicolons

• Get thee to a museum.

• Latest reminder that AI sucks: AI companies are destroying pre-AI books in the process of training their models with them.

• Kinda fascinating piece about how the social media spread of some “fake” ailments — that is, people faking Tourette’s syndrome or Dissociative Identity Disorder — fits into historical patterns of hysteria as a response to social conditions. (I mean, there are moments where it felt like the psychologist in the Dark Knight Returns comics contending that the villains’ horrendous crimes and very existence is a response TO the existence of Batman, but I’m dating myself.)

• On the first anniversary of my dad’s death, I searched my photo library to figure out how many times I visited his grave in that year. I take a picture of the grave and the great tree behind it each time and text it to my brother each time, and it turns out there were 22 of those pix since the funeral. Besides taking that pic, I also recite the Kaddish and talk a little. I don’t know what’s normal or expected, but this psychologist thinks we should spend more time talking with our dead.

• Jonathan Sandler wrote about completing his family’s Jewish roots journey to Latvia.

• This video’s a good reminder not to try to make the art perfect before actually making the art.

• This week’s guest, Ali Trotta, has an essay on the Scalzis’ site about revisionist stories and giving voice to the voiceless.

• Along those lines, I’m sure I’ve said it in a newsletter before, but my idea of the perfect episode of Deadwood is one that’s all about Mr. Wu and the Chinese laborers in the town, and a whole plot line the white folks know nothing about. (For the sake of story mechanics, the Chinese people would all speak perfect English while the white people would be unintelligible.)

COMMONPLACE

Here’s one from my online commonplace book, as I’ve started reading WCW:

We sit and talk,
quietly, with long lapses of silence
and I am aware of the stream
that has no language, coursing
beneath the quiet heaven
of your eyes
—William Carlos Williams, Paterson

LONG ENOUGH

I think I’m going to get a haircut tomorrow, after 6.5 years. It has me thinking of Phillip Lopate’s amazing essay, Samson and Delilah and the Kids.

Here’s the last hair-down pic I took recently; we’ll see if I go through with it and find out how much I’ve been balding up top the last few years.

POSTCARD

I mail out a postcard every day, so let me know if you want to be on my list.

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.

As if September / Could erase the taste of spring / Though summer comes undone / It doesn't change a thing,