Roulette
This one's got a new episode about Keith Haring with his biographer, my latest oncology check-in/white blood cell roulette, a backyard visitor, and a birthday card.
The Virtual Memories Show News
A 2x/week email about a podcast about books & life
Podcastery
This week, I posted Episode 579 of The Virtual Memories Show, feat. Brad Gooch and his wonderful new biography, RADIANT: The Life and Line of Keith Haring (Harper). We get into the impact of Keith Haring’s art and how it’s grown in the 3+ decades since Haring’s early death from AIDS, the parallels between this book and Brad’s biography of Rumi, how fatherhood helped him better understand Haring, and his surprise at discovering what a serious artist Haring was. We talk about why Haring’s work makes more sense now than in the ’80s, what he would have made of social media, the fire that drove Haring to make more than 10,000 pieces of art in his decade-plus career, the relationship of Haring to artists of color (among other race issues), and what the younger gay population doesn’t know about the AIDS crisis. We also discuss the incredible memorial of Keith and Howard Brookner at a recent Madonna concert, why 60 is a great age to start having kids, how Instagram reminds him of ’80s social life, the parallels between the AIDS crisis and the early months of COVID, why Barbra Streisand’s memoir reminds him of Karl Ove Knausgaard’s My Struggle (!), and more. Give it a listen (and go listen to our 2015 and 2017 conversations) and go read RADIANT!
Last week, I posted Episode 578 of The Virtual Memories Show, feat. . . . Gil Roth! No guest this week, so you get me in conversation with some virtual memories of my own! On the occasion of my going to the movies for the first time since 2018, to see Wim Wenders’ amazing new film Perfect Days, I reflect on a cusp-of-pandemic trip to Japan, and prattle on about Keith Haring & Koji Yakusho, a misplaced fortune, The Tokyo Toilet, an empty parking lot, Country & Western, a special 5K run, a big bag of Kit-Kats, and more, so give it a listen! And go watch Perfect Days!
Recent episodes: Scott Guild • Aaron Lange • Donald J. Robertson • Elizabeth Flock • David Thomson • Sammy Harkham • Ed Subitzky
Roulette
This morning I gasped with delight at the height of the daffodils in my dead neighbor’s yard. No blooms yet, but they’ll be here in days. I’m pregnant with Spring, bursting with it even while I contemplate my decline and rot.
Monday morning was my 3-month check-in at the oncology clinic. I had been on a 6-month schedule, but after last December’s 40% jump in my White Blood Cell count — the key biomarker for whether my CLL has progressed to the point where I (may) need treatment — they said we should up it to 3 months.
It went fine. The combo of December and March only amount to a 66% increase in my WBC count over 6 months; the threshold of concern is a 100% jump in a 6-month span, which would mean out-of-control growth of my shitty mutant lymphocytes. So I’m on the hook for another 3 months.
This time, I had a nurse practitioner instead of my oncologist, and after she gave me the not-bad news, I thought I’d prod and see if her message was any different than the doctor’s, in terms of risk factors for progression.
She held to the same line: CLL progresses on its own, regardless of what I do, eat, take, etc., and the important thing is that I stay in shape so that I’ll better handle treatment when/if that day comes.
I talked about this in the intro to this week’s episode, but I know nobody actually listens to that, so: Almost 3 years post-diagnosis, I find myself feeling less relief at the news. I’m not sure why, beyond fatalism or maybe depression (winter hasn’t helped), but it’s like White Blood Cell Roulette, and each spin-and-pull-and-empty-chamber has numbed me to What Comes After.
What Comes After? On Saturday I’ll go to a seminar for the St. John’s College Alumni Association’s NYC chapter. My favorite tutor from Annapolis will be leading the conversation, and we’ll be discussing Montaigne’s essay, That to philosophize is to learn to die. The day after that I’ll have a remote conversation for the podcast with Edith Hall about her new book, Facing Down the Furies: Suicide, the Ancient Greeks, and Me.
Okay, fine, I’m not doing myself any favors, exactly. Maybe the universe was giving me notes when this guy landed in my backyard this morning —
— but Amy & I managed to celebrate her birthday this weekend, as well as Benny’s 7th Gotcha Day on Monday — he decided we needed an impromptu mini-hike on his morning walkies — and despite this occasional malaise, life goes on. I’m pregnant with Spring.
Art
I didn’t make much art this week; the only thing scan-worthy was my birthday card for Amy, Yet Another Japanese White Eye. I’ll try to draw more this week. Maybe I’ll try to draw that turkey vulture. I will say that this week’s oncology check-in — finding out whether my blood will let me keep going — got me thinking about Keith Haring, subject of this week’s show, and his response to his AIDS diagnosis (and the years leading up to it). Specifically about the fire that drove him to make art almost non-stop even before he got the news he knew was coming, as well as his drive to keep going until his final days. Despite what some of you think about how much stuff I make — podcast, emails, art, alongside The Day Job — I don’t have that fire. (I’m also 20+ years older than Haring was when he died.) Two years ago, I tried a tribute drawing on his deathiversary. 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.)
Until Next Time
Thanks for reading this far! I’ll be back on Sunday with links, books, & somatic craziness, and Wednesday with a new episode, maybe some art, & who knows maybe a little profundity or something.
I think about this and I think about personal history / Better take care / I breathe so deep when the movie gets real,