Station To Station
This one's got a new episode about Einstein in Prague, outtakes from Rome, MOAR INSTAX, a little daily art, & more
The Virtual Memories Show News
A 2x/week email about a podcast about books & life
Podcastery
This week, I posted Episode 616 of The Virtual Memories Show, a live conversation from Labyrinth Books in Princeton, NJ with artist and vulgarizer of history (in the French sense) Ken Krimstein as we celebrate his new book, EINSTEIN IN KAFKALAND (Bloomsbury)! We talk about the mystery of the 15 months Einstein & Kafka overlapped in Prague, how the two of them invented the modern world, what Ken has learned about graphic storytelling after 3 books, how the theory of relativity bedeviled him since childhood, and how he managed to make a graphic novel about Jews in Prague and not include a golem. We get into all the research and rabbit-holes of this project, including his monthlong research-stay in Prague, as well as the chapter he had to cut on Kafka’s love of Yiddish theater, the challenges of portraying Einstein’s professional and personal struggles, and his discovery that readers would follow his phantasmagoric flights and surreal episodes. We also discuss Ken’s fixations on Mitteleuropa and scenes & salons, Sam Gross‘ observation about his art, Kenny Werner‘s concept of effortless mastery, why he wants to bring some joy to his next project, and more. Give it a listen, and go read EINSTEIN IN KAFKALAND!
Last week, I posted Episode 615 as cartoonist & historian Eddie Campbell returned to the show with his fantastic new book, KATE CAREW: America’s First Great Woman Cartoonist (Fantagraphics Underground), which explores turn-of-the-(20th)-century artist, cartoonist, illustrator, caricaturist, interviewer & journalist Kate Carew. We got into how Eddie discovered Kate’s work while researching The Goat-Getters, how Kate wound up interviewing the likes of Mark Twain, Picasso, the Wright Brothers, and other celebs (& non-celebs) of her time, how her self-caricatures serve as a sorta graphic autobiography (and precursor to the whole world of graphic memoir storytelling), and how I accidentally semi-sorta inspired Eddie to make this book. We also talked about how Kate’s story blows up every notion of sentimentality, how Eddie & Audrey Niffenegger formed the Digital Art Burglars firm, what he’s learned from exploring the early history of American cartooning, how he wound up writing the comics histories he wanted to read, and why he had to pull a page from this book due to a complaint from the printer. Plus we discussed his new graphic novel about how he met Audrey, how his comic strip of the Pajama Girl led to him working with Alan Moore on From Hell, his life-lessons about making every pitch & taking every job that was offered, and why Kate Carew was such an enormous outlier in the world of cartooning. Give it a listen, and go read KATE CAREW: America’s First Great Woman Cartoonist!
Recent episodes: Caitlin McGurk • Frances Jetter • Roland Allen • Eric Drooker • Simon Critchley • Doug Brod • Sven Birkerts
Station To Station
I wrote this in early October:
Train from Rome to Milan. Amy & I are seated across from each other at a 4-person table. We have the windows; the aisle seats are taken by an Italian couple, younger than us, & louder. I’m facing forward and our knees are touching.
I listen to Nick Drake on my AirPods and remember how I first read about him in 2000 in a European edition of Esquire. I was on a train from Milan to Lake Como, after the same trade show that brings me to Milan. I’d never heard of him.
The man sits next to Amy. He’s reading an Italian edition of Exit, Ghost by Philip Roth. It’s not a book one picks up by accident, and I think of asking him about Roth, but I keep listening to Nick Drake and watching the landscape.
In the few moments of exiting one tunnel & entering another, I see a family of black boars running up a hill.
I read most of Exit, Ghost while sitting in the Belfast airport in 2007 after a client visit. The inbound flight from Newark was weather-delayed for 7 hours. Our train was delayed today, but we’re in no rush.
You could say this attachment to years, locations, music is obsessive, but it’s my spool of jeweled thread, a series of life buoys.
And what I shared with you was
Black boars run in hills
Seatmate reading Exit, Ghost
Bullet train from Rome
I wonder what writing is like for you and what you think it’s like for me.
Instaxery
On Saturday, I shot Instax pix with a new guest and two past ones, getting me closer to the magic number I’ve set for myself for this 2024 project. I also contacted the person whose pic I’d like to shoot last (since the book project will run these photos chronologically), but haven’t heard back from him yet about end-of-December availability. I made a few notes for some of the text pieces, and wrote the first draft of one, but I feel like I’ll need to finish the shooting before I can work on the writing in earnest.
I’m considering taking tomorrow off and setting up a bunch of past-guest drop-ins in Philadelphia, but I’ll have to get rolling on that now, because apparently people have JOBS or something.
Also, I bought a binder and plastic sleeves to hold the prints, so I can see them/show them off. That’s helped me get a fuller sense of the project and feel like I’ve made something real, not something hidden in a shoebox.
Artistry
Zilch. Just the daily crappy sketch of something I saw that day, in a cheap notebook with a rollerball pen; the ones below are from last Tue/Wed. 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-craziness, and on Wednesday with a new episode, and maybe some art, I hope to gosh some more Instax.
Once there were mountains on mountains / And once there were sun birds to soar with / And once I could never be down,