Something Broken About You
This one's got a new monologue-podcast, some cute deer, an Instax, and why I'm going up to Readercon even though I don't have any guests lined up
The Virtual Memories Show News
A 2x/week email about a podcast about books & life
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This week, I posted Episode 646 of my Virtual Memories Show. There’s no conversation, unless you count me talking to myself as I share some thoughts and memories about my father, who died last week at the age of 88 — or 87, depending on who he was lying to — along with the eulogy I gave at his funeral. I also tell the story of the time he handed me a shotgun before a business deal and told me to wait in a side room “in case anything happens. . . .” Give it a listen.
Recent episodes: Rachel Cockerell • Paul Karasik • Kate Maruyama • David Denby • Peter Stothard • Cecile Wajsbrot • Keiler Roberts
Something Broken About You
I talked about how I’m doing in this week’s monologue, so forgive me if I don’t have much to add here.
I don’t know I there’ll be a new episode next week. I’m going up to Massachusetts for Readercon Friday-Sunday, but I haven’t booked any guests and don’t have time/focus to crash-read someone’s book before I head up. I’d hoped to record with Harry Bliss on Friday as part of this trip, but for obvious reasons I didn’t get that confirmed.
I’ll have my recording gear with me, but I’m more likely to just have catch-up conversations with friends, along with my annual dinner with an old (girl)friend from college. I’m not looking forward to the drive, but maybe it’ll be good for me to talk to pals.
A lot of friends and acquaintances and even tangential social media followers have written or left comments or called. Some of you have sent me poems or other pieces of writing that have helped in moments like these. I appreciate it all.
For now, in this strange state I’m in, I find myself returning to a little of the letter to Georges de Lauris that I quoted from Barthes’ Mourning Diary a few newsletters ago: “Let yourself be inert, wait till the incomprehensible power (. . .) that has broken you restores you a little, I say a little, for henceforth you will always keep something broken about you.”
And now, a bunch of deer getting a drink on top of the pool cover at Dad’s house.
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Instaxery
Here’s one I took a few days before he died. He’d have liked the composition and the lighting, but probably would have wanted me to crop it.
I carried the binder of 2024 Instax for the book with me each day to the hospital, along with laptop, chargers, notebook and other stuff, in a tote bag I picked up at the American Book Center in Amsterdam in May. I thought I might write some pieces fro the book while I sat with him in the hospital, and I also thought that if he got more coherent during the stay, I’d finally show him some of the pictures I’d taken. But that never happened, and he’ll never see the pictures or the book. I’d already planned to pull a Pynchon and dedicate the book “For my mother and father,” though maybe more Laurie Anderson and "To Mom and Dad.”
Artistry
I haven’t drawn anything since last Thursday in the ICU after Dad died. I’ll get back to it. 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 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 maybe a new episode, and maybe some art an probably an Instax.
Hello? Is anybody home? / Well, you don’t know me, but I know you / And I’ve got a message to give to you,