Silence & After RESEND
The Virtual Memories Show News
A 2x/week email about a podcast about books & life
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Podcastery
This week, I posted Episode 569 of The Virtual Memories Show! It's our 50th & final episode of 2023, and my guest is . . . nobody! Instead, I close out the year with the story I've wanted to tell for while, of a week of transformations in October 2022: This one’s got a Yom Kippur fast gone trippy and a bathroom-door-induced concussion, a lightning-bolt realization that I never really mourned losing my closest friend, a secret mission at a comics festival in Ohio, the Book of Life & the books of the dying, a pharma conference, Tom The Emotional Support Dancing Bug, crying eyes and deaf ears and a mess of signs & portents, plus a dwarf, a salamander, David Koechner and a lot more. But seriously, it’s about coming to terms with the loss of a dear friend, and what it means to know you’re not alone. This one's important to me, so please give it a listen.
Last week, I posted Episode 568 of The Virtual Memories Show, featuring our annual Guest List show! Seventeen of this year’s podcast-guests tell us about the favorite books they read in 2023 and the books they hope to get to in 2024! Participants include Ho Che Anderson, Josh Bayer, Howard Fishman, Priscilla Gilman, Bill Griffith, Dean Haspiel, Sara Lippmann, Patrick McDonnell, James McMullan, Lisa Morton, Jonathan Papernick, Andrew Porter, Dawn Raffel, Paul B. Rainey, Peter Rostovsky, Scott Samuelson, and Karl Stevens (+ me!), so give it a listen and READ MORE BOOKS IN 2024!
Recent episodes: Jarrett Earnest • Christian Wiman • Danny Fingeroth • Matt Bors • Phillip Lopate • Leslie Stein
Notes on Silence
I’m sorry everything’s late this week, but that’s the holidays for you. I was in Louisiana for Christmas with my in-laws, first time since 2019. I had a good time, ate abusively, caught up with some of Amy’s family, watched a couple movies on my laptop in the evenings (Godzilla (2014), The Quick And The Dead), and thought about how we’ve all changed these past few years.
I feel a little lighter or more hopeful than I have recently. I think it’s because I finally told/recorded/posted the big story that comprises this week’s podcast. I’m happy it’s done, although I could have improved the telling and given it a more literary sheen if I was just willing to put it off forever. But now I’ve posted it, so this whole shebang is part of GPC (Gil Podcast Canon).
So far, there’s only one correction I have to issue: CXC wasn’t cancelled in 2020; they did a virtual slate of programming that year.
I told this story to a couple people in the weeks after it happened in 2022, and want to apologize to Woodrow Phoenix, Celia Paul, and a few non-pod-guests who were subjected to a more sprawling version of it. I was gratified that this telling only came out to an hour, and I bet they wish it had been shorter back when I was still struggling to relate what had happened.
Also, I have to thank my friend John Castro for coincidentally writing me in the middle of it all. When I wrote back, “I’d fill you in on My Whole Thing, but I can’t begin to explain it,” he replied, “Try to explain,” and that compelled me to capture a lot of in-the-moment stuff.
This is the second monologue episode I’ve posted this year. The previous one was occasioned by finding that week’s pod-guest dead in his apartment, so let’s hope it’s interviews-only in 2024, and less of me Going Long like this.
As much as I deprecate my efforts, this one’s important to me, so I hope you listen and get something out of it.
In Sunday’s email, I’ll try to write more about the New Year, maybe offer up some resolutions and/or what I’ve learned/unlearned from 2023.
Art
I only made one piece worth sharing this week. It’s a postcard sketch of the shed/barn in my in-laws’ backyard. I guess I’ll go over it with a brush, see what happens. I was hoping to use a couple of pocket-brushes to draw some trees w/Spanish moss, but didn’t get around to it. You should go to the Flickr album of most of the art I’ve made & find something you like.
Until Next Time
Thanks for reading this far! I’ll be back on Sunday with links, books, & workout craziness, and Wednesday with a new episode, maybe some art, & who knows maybe a little profundity or something.
Ring a bell that’s broken / That sound is loud inside us / Flowing farther away, far away,