Mainliner & Redeye
This one's got a new podcast, a crazy work-travel schedule, MOAR DEERLINQUENTS, and a steady stream of my drug of choice
The Virtual Memories Show News
A 2x/week email about a podcast about books & life
Podcastery
This week I didn’t think I was going to post Episode 606 of The Virtual Memories Show, but artist, writer, and 327-time guest* Dmitry Samarov returned so we could explore his fantastic new book, MAKING PICTURES IS HOW I TALK TO THE WORLD, a survey of his art from the ’80s to today. We talk about the process of selecting pieces for the book, what artistic legacy means to him, finding roots of his work in his childhood, and why the notion of ‘progression’ doesn’t apply to his work. We get into the transformative experience of working at Tangible Books and how it’s inspiring his new ‘zine project, why he’s culling a lot of his library and how he’s deciding which books to keep, how his bookshelf paintings started to open him to abstraction, and why literary folks like Magritte but painters don’t. We also discuss our monastic devotion to art and Antonio López García’s devotion to painting his quince tree, why artistic memoirs tend to be no good but why not-great artists can be good critics, how moving some furniture can change one’s perspective, why he’s against starting art with An Idea, and plenty more. Give it a listen, and go get MAKING PICTURES IS HOW I TALK TO THE WORLD!
* Okay, he’s only been on 7 times. Go listen to our previous conversations: 2014, 2015, 2018, 2020, lockdown, 2021, and 2022!
Last week I posted Episode 605, feat. author and retired journalist/editor Stephen B. Shepard as we celebrated the release of Salinger’s Soul: His Personal & Religious Odyssey (Post Hill Press), exploring the life of JD Salinger and the hidden core of an author who became famous for avoiding fame. We get into why Stephen decided to chase this elusive ghost, why Salinger didn’t make it into his previous book about Jewish American writers, and whether he believes Salinger’s unpublished writing will see the light of day. We talk about Salinger’s WWII trauma, his rise to fame, search for privacy, abandonment of publishing, embrace of Vedanta & ego-death, and his pattern of pursuing young women, and how it all maybe ties together. We also discuss Stephen’s career as a journalist and how it influences his writing, what he learned in building a graduate program in journalism at CUNY, the ways we both started out in business-to-business magazines (he went a lot farther than I did, editing Newsweek and Business Week), how journalism has changed over the course of his career, the case of Philip Roth’s biography and what it means to separate the book from the writer, and a lot more. Give it a listen, and go read SALINGER’S SOUL!
Recent episodes: Benjamin Dreyer • Nicholas Delbanco • Dash Shaw • Jess Ruliffson • Joe Coleman • Mirana Comstock • Anita Kunz
Mainliner & Redeye
Last week I wrote this piece just before hitting road to MD for the annual conference for my trade association, and now I’m writing from La Jolla, CA, where I’ll spend ~36 hours so I can speak at a client’s leadership & sales team meeting before taking a redeye back to NJ, changing suits & shoes in the parking garage, and driving to New Brunswick for the annual trade show held by my old magazine.
I can’t recall ever pulling off a silly schedule quite like that, although I did once fly back from San Diego to Washington on a redeye so I could co-host a meeting with one of my member companies for ~50 Congressional staffers. That time I changed suits in the locker room/fitness center of the office building of the lobbying firm we use.
Of course, with enough caffeine AND A SMART DOSING SCHEDULE, anything’s possible for a couple days. We’ll see how the drive home is on Thursday from New Brunswick.
I went LONG in the last email and in the intro to this week’s show about some of what the past week has been like, and how the burnout of the last few months finally got to me. This trip is part of that minefield of a calendar, but again, I’ll rally and give a great presentation today.
None of this is easy for me, exactly, but I accustom myself to these periodic flurries of activity for work; there’s no way to space them out, based on trade show seasons, individual company needs, the exigencies of Congress and FDA, etc. Maybe I keep the regular-frequency things going all year — weekly podcast, 2x weekly newsletter, Friday work-newsletter — as a steady drip of anxiety, that being my drug of choice.
(And yes, if I didn’t have the trade show tomorrow, I’d probably turn this into an LA visit and try to get some podcasts in. Because I’m nuts.)
(And yes, I wrote this email in the hotel room before finalizing my slide deck, packing, showering, etc., just like I posted this week’s show before getting in the car to get to the airport yesterday, and made my work-newsletter at 6am last Friday morning before hosting my conference, even though I said the previous week that I’d skip that one due to the show. Because I’m nuts.)
Instaxery
No in-person podcasts last weekend, so no new Instax. This weekend will be a pair of remote ones, too, and the following weekend is travel, so nothing then, either! I sure hope I can go do a ton of in-person shows this fall and/or visit a ton of my past guests to shoot more of these for my GUEST/HOST book project.
Artistry
I was so busy/stressed that I didn’t draw anything this week, until I was on the flight to San Diego yesterday. I grabbed a sketchpad and a couple Microns just before I left the house, and during the flight I drew . . . more Deerlinquents! Given that this was a bumpy flight, and I had my contacts in, I’d say these guys came out pretty good. That said, I’m worried this will become My Thing, and I’ll become The Deerlinquent Guy. When I get settled, I still need to draw the 3-page comic that they’re supposed to be IN ONLY ONE PANEL OF. You should go to the Flickr album of most of the art I’ve made & find something you like.
The guy behind me in the coffee shop at 6am was working on a watercolor. But he also looked like he was on the nod when I walked in, so I didn’t go over to check out his art.
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.)
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 & an Instax.
I dream that I'm chemical / I become chemical / Ride into ocean of chemical,