PODCAST

This week I posted Episode 674 of my Virtual Memories Show! Pull up a chair, enjoy a kasha varnishke, and listen to me and Josh Alan Friedman talk about his kaleidoscopic novel, ALL ROADS LEAD TO GREAT NECK (Wyatt Doyle Books/New Texture)! We talk about the momentous years he spent in Great Neck as a kid and why he set his novel in 1970, the ne’er-do-wells and drug addicts he knew (and emulated) in school, how Great Neck has changed since his “glory days,” and the larger-than-life Yiddishkeit ghost who haunts the novel. We get into how he managed to weave Irving Berlin, Floyd Patterson, and Leslie West into the story, how his wife got him to finish the book by putting up post-it notes in their kitchen about each chapter, and how he reconstructed 1970 Great Neck from his collection of the notes girls used to pass in schools and the letters his friends sent him from reform school. We also discuss life after losing his dad, Bruce Jay Friedman, in 2020, how he used to take his 14-year-old pals to see showings of Bruce Jay’s play Steambath so they could catch the nude scene, how it felt to see pieces of his childhood transformed in his dad’s stories (incl. a visit to Las Vegas), what’s left of the New York of his heyday and why he misses Joe Franklin, the play he’s writing about his chauffeur days, his retirement from his lifelong guitar career after a carpal tunnel diagnosis, and more. Give it a listen! And go read ALL ROADS LEAD TO GREAT NECK!

(Oh, and go listen to our 2014 talk!)

Last week I posted Episode 673, feat. a conversation with Andrew Durbin about his amazing new book, THE WONDERFUL WORLD THAT ALMOST WAS: A Life of Peter Hujar and Paul Thek (FSG). Give it a listen!

Recent podcast episodes: Dean Haspiel & Doug Latino • Rachel Tzvia Back • Sven Birkerts • Indefinite Hiatus monologue • The Guest List • Jonathan Sandler • Morten Høi Jensen

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

BIRDY!

Here’s BIRDY! making some side-eye on our impromptu hike on Friday morning:

BEHIND THE CVS

Scavengers alight on dead trees.

LINKS

• Celia Paul has a gallery exhibition in NYC! I plan to attend the opening on Tuesday (April 28); if you’re in town, I hope to see you there!

• Listen, I feel terrible about all the animal deaths, BUT: after 30+ years I finally get to break out what may be my greatest (but most obscure) pun: ET IN ACEDIA EGO.

• His company’s clothes are way beyond my price range (I have an ethnic stereotype to live up to), but I enjoyed the heck out of this interview with Brunello Cucinelli.

• Celebrity video “podcasts” = non-union talk shows.

• Christopher Benfey wrote a lovely piece about Hampshire College, its birth, and its demise. Someone suggested I record with Hampshire alumni from over the decades, and I might do that this summer.

• I hadn’t seen a Jerry Saltz review or byline in NY Mag this year, and was concerned that he was among their recent layoffs. Turns out he was working on A Great Big Piece about the NYC art scene in the 1990s.

• Mark Wunderlich visited Thankful Snow.

• Maybe I’ll visit the Embassy Of The Free Mind when I’m in Amsterdam next month.

• FTR, I bought a navy Baracuta G9 Harrington because when I tried it on I felt like Steve McQueen (not the director).

  

KICKSTARTER

The Kickstarter campaign for REAL LIFE COMIX: ONLY IN NEW YORK is going strong! This anthology from Cosmic Lion Productions features 51 New York City-centered comics from a ton of creative folks, including ~20 of my past pod-guests — like Roz Chast, Drew Friedman, Jonathan Ames, Karl Stevens, Jennifer Hayden, Ben Katchor, and Moby — and a ton of other great cartoonists! (Also, I’ve got a 2-page comic in it.) It’s 11 days from the deadline, and we’re 75% of the way to the $20,000 goal, so support the Kickstarter by May 8 to get yourself a copy and some higher-tier rewards!

INSTAX

Here’s a pair of Instax pix I took during Monday’s pod-session:

I wrote a piece for my book yesterday morning in a coffee shop. I haven’t made much progress lately, but that one went in a direction I wasn’t expecting and I let it run free.

NON-PODCAST READING

• Light Years - James Salter (tried a dozen years ago, didn’t get into it, figure I’m an old man now and will give it another try)

• Autobiography of Red - Anne Carson

• Selected Poems - Donald Hall

• The Art of Dying: Writings, 2019-2022 - Peter Schjeldahl (never thought to add this to my list of Books Written By The Dying, but there you are)

• Austerlitz - WG Sebald (reread)

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.

Strength is not the same as anger / Put the taste back into hunger,