Rotterdammerung
New episode with Vauhini Vara, new Instax pix, my biz-trip to Rotterdam, and flowers, bridges, self-loathing and a naked coffee machine
The Virtual Memories Show News
A 2x/week email about a podcast about books & life
Podcastery
This week, I posted Episode 637 of The Virtual Memories Show, where tech writer Vauhini Vara celebrates her new boko SEARCHES: Selfhood in the Digital Age (Pantheon), and explores how our sense of self has been co-opted, quantified, and exploited by big tech as a way of selling us more stuff or selling us to third parties. We talk about what we talk about when we talk about our Google searches (& Amazon purchases, Twitter subject preferences, etc.), the interface of exploitation and self-expression, what selfhood means to tech companies vs. what it means to us, and what she learned when she fed chapters of her book into ChatGPT. We get into agency vs. coercion, how the promise of tech so often gets inverted, how ChatGPT tried & failed to express her grief from her sister’s death from cancer, why she brought memoir into SEARCHES alongside its other experimental modes, how her husband serves as a low-tech foil in the book, and whether or not we have a say in how the online era plays out. We also discuss how the book’s multiplicity of voices offsets the corporate voice of ChatGPT, what she got out of Bill Gates’ biography, the importance of non-VC-funded technology to help us escape exploitative models of information, whether an essayist ever really changes over the course of an essay, and more. Give it a listen! And go read SEARCHES!
Last week I posted Episode 636, in which artist Craig Thompson joins the show at long last to celebrate his new book, GINSENG ROOTS: A Memoir (Pantheon). We talk about how he spent 10 summers of his childhood helping farm ginseng, how that herb connects rural Wisconsin with China and South Korea, how he balanced history, journalism, economics, and memoir in the pages of his book, and why he chose to make Ginseng Roots as a serial comic rather than a standalone book. We get into how the book serves as a sort of midlife revision of his breakthrough book, Blankets, how the last chapter of the book had to happen in near-real-time, how a degenerative condition in his hands became a unifying theme to the book while almost derailing it, how he found the design language of the book and obsessed over a two-color process (to amazing results), and whether this is his swansong for comics (spoiler: it’s not!). We also discuss what home means to himwhat it was like discovering that he had a global audience, his ongoing relationship with his evangelical Christian upbringing, his editor’s concerns that Ginseng Roots could open him up to accusations of cultural insensitivity (and how he got over it), all while we geek out over our fave cartoonists from the ’90s indy period (go, Dylan Horrocks!), and more. Give it a listen! And go read GINSENG ROOTS!
Recent episodes: Ari Richter • Dan Nadel • See Hear Speak • Peter Trachtenberg • David Shields • Meeting Across the River • Elon Green • Vanda Krefft
Rötterdämmerung
Meanwhile at my day job/career, I’m in Rotterdam for the inaugural in-person CDMO LIVE conference. I spoke on a panel was this morning and that went well. I’ll be giving a solo presentation tomorrow.
On the way up to the room just now, I saw the hotel lobby’s coffeemaker in a state of undress, which was disturbing and weirdly captivating. Probably been watching too much Cronenberg. (Cosmopolis during the redeye flight here, which was, um.)
Between bouts of work yesterday I went for a walk around the city so I could stay awake, as I was operating on 30 min. of sleep. I crossed some weird bridges (literal, figurative) over 4-5 miles.
I saw some beautiful flowers once I turned off the main street and got my flaneur on.
And somewhere over the Atlantic on Monday night, my iPod Touch shuffled up a song by a woman I was with more than 20 years ago, and I thought about how cruel I’d been to her and how cruel I am to myself.
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Instaxery
Here are a couple from last Saturday: 1 from a podcast, 2 more from Joe Coleman’s CARNIVAL exhibition opening.
Artistry
Didn’t draw anything, but brought a small sketchpad & Micron 01 with me. You should go to the Flickr album of most of the art I’ve made & find something you like. Maybe I’ll draw this guy from outside the venue.
Postcardery
Let me know if you want to be on my postcard-a-day list. (Financial supporters of the podcast get a hand-drawn or painted postcard as a thank-you.)
Until Next Time
Thanks for reading this far. I’ll be back on Sunday with links, books, & workout-/meditation-craziness, and on Wednesday with a new episode, and maybe some art, and an Instax or two.
All I ever wanted was an explanation / Of life and the universe and why it's here and / Why we are here upon this earth wanting and needing / Love love love love love love love love,