Time and Towers
New episode with Anita Kunz, a bunch of art, a Catskills fire-tower hike with a friend, rumination on whether I'll listen to my past episodes when I'm old, + more!
The Virtual Memories Show News
A 2x/week email about a podcast about books & life
Podcastery
This week I posted Episode 598 of The Virtual Memories Show, feat. the return of artist & illustrator Anita Kunz to talk about how art saved her life, as we catch up on her fantastic books, ORIGINAL SISTERS and STRIKING A POSE: A Handy Guide to the Male Nude (Pantheon and Fantagraphics, respectively). We talk about Anita’s passion for figure drawing, how disconcerted some male viewers were by Striking A Pose, the difference between drawing women and men and all the tension and dynamics that go into making art from each gender, and why Winston Churchill’s granddaughter was none-too-pleased by his appearance in her book. We get into how her 2020 lockdown project of painting one portrait of a badass woman every day evolved into her Original Sisters series, how it feels to be closing in on 500 portraits (!), and how she keeps finding more badass women to paint. We also discuss her transition from an acclaimed illustration career into big art projects, how Barbara Nessim helped her find a gallery (and how she had to get over her fear of gallery owners), the book of parables & fables she’s making, how it feels to see Original Sisters in museum exhibitions (and how much she’s looking forward to their big show at the Norman Rockwell Museum), the burden of having to be A Nice Girl In A Small Town growing up, how she makes great art while being racked with self-doubt, the importance of mentors and art-friends, and a lot more. Give it a listen! And go get ORIGINAL SISTERS and STRIKING A POSE!
Last week I posted Episode 597, feat. a conversation with Shalom Auslander around his fantastic new book, FEH: A Memoir (Riverside Books). FEH explores the judgmental disgust of FEH, how it infected his life, and what it meant to get sick & tired of the disgust and outrage FEH-stival and look for a way out. We talk about the sense of shame, disgust and self-loathing at the core of humanity’s common story, why every bookstore should be called, ‘You Suck’, his friendship with the late Philip Seymour Hoffman and how they bonded over FEH, and how hard he’s worked to find the un-FEH for his kids. We get into how Story is our operating system, how the FEH machine went after his psychiatrist, and his video series UNGODLY where he reads the Bible and asks, ‘What if God is the antagonist?’. We also discuss his ultra-orthodox upbringing, how “Jewish heritage” has been subsumed by Holocaust memorials, his antipathy toward the pop-culture Anne Frank and how he rewrote her for HOPE: A Tragedy, his time in the advertising industry and how it led to his TV show Happyish, the realization that cynicism doesn’t mean you’re smart (just lazy), and a lot more. Give it a listen! And go read FEH: A Memoir
Recent episodes: Maurice Vellekoop • Laura Beers • Robert Pranzatelli • Bob Fingerman • Swan Huntley • Stan Mack • Jim Moske
Time and Towers
On Sunday, my friend & I did our third monthly hike in the Catskills Fire Tower Challenge this summer, hitting Mt. Tremper in Phoenicia, NY. (There are 6 towers total in the challenge, but one isn’t really a hike, just a short walk from a visitor center.) The heat/humidity, rocky terrain, and incline — 2,000’ over 3 miles, with most of that climb during the second half of the trail — made it Not So Fun, but we brought plenty of water and made conversation (when we weren’t panting with exhaustion).
The views at the top of the fire tower were fantastic, & this one had a legend so we could figure out what peaks we were looking at from one side of the tower. We took pictures, we rested a couple minutes, and then we headed back down. Both ways, we barely saw the scenery, because we were looking down at the rocky trail to avoid spraining an ankle.
But we made it, telling stories about work, reflecting on other old friends, joking about politics.
We stopped at Woodstock Brewing on the way home to get some sustenance. We suspect the food was good, but you don’t really notice when you haven’t eaten in 7-8 hours and have been sweating your ass off on a strenuous hike.
While we were gabbing between inhalations of food, he asked me where I thought I’d move after I retire. I tried not to look at him like he had two heads, and said, “Nowhere. I plan on dying in my house.” He nodded, and having visited me there since we were like 9 or 10 years old, he understood where I was coming from.
We talk a lot on these hikes about the stages of our lives, what we could’ve done when we were younger, what we wouldn’t have appreciated, what we don’t have the energy, time, etc. for now. Never with real regret.
Last week, another friend told me he’s semisorta retiring (late 50s), taking a gap year (or at least 6 months) while his wife gets acclimated to her heavy-duty new job. I met him through my job, but we’ve become good friends; he listens to the show, reads this newsletter, and occasionally gets inspired by my guests.
He told me he’s looking forward to being able to listen to me & a few other podcasts more, and has no other idea what he’s going to do when he’s not working. I told him I was jealous of his opportunity to discover new aspects of himself (and I told him to go get a pencil & a sketchpad and sit out in his backyard and try to draw trees).
A night after the hike, watching a recent ep. of Dinner Time Live With David Chang, I heard the comedian Pete Holmes say something that struck me:
“I sometimes think that when I’m old — like real, real old — I’ll listen to my own podcast. ‘Cause I’ll miss me, you know what I mean? I’ll want to remember what it was like when I was with my friends.”
And all this got me wondering about what’ll remain of me in my twilight, when this — podcast, newsletter, my public face — comes to an end. Who I’ll be when I’m old.
Will I listen to old episodes, reminisce about the days when I’d drive 2 hours each way for a conversation with someone I’d never see again, the time I flew to England for ~48 hours to record 3 of the best conversions of my life, and on and on, reconstructing each of those scenes, listening to the voices, remembering those moments of connection?
We have two more towers to climb. We might have to skip August, but doing the last one in autumn seems fitting.
Instaxery
ANOTHER week with no podcasts or visits with past guests, so no new Instax pix. Good thing I’ve got a show scheduled for Saturday! Meantime, I need to write some of the pieces for my Instax+prose book that I hope to crowdsource later this year . . .
Artistry
I drew/sketched some stuff! I guess I was inspired by all those blank sketchpads I picked up the week before, so I went back to my practice of looking up people who were born or died that day, and trying to draw one. Over 3 nights I drew Robert Graves and then Joseph Mitchell (who came out looking like Sterling Hayden drawn by Ben Katchor with a broken hand), both with brush pen. Then I drew Diane Arbus with a Micron 01, because I couldn’t imagine how to do the camera equipment with a brush. (You should go listen to my podcast with Arthur Lubow about his Arbus biography.)
If you want a laugh, go check out the Robert Graves drawing I made 2 years ago from the same pic. I screwed up the nose terribly on that one, but otherwise it’s all superfine lines trying to get at some misguided notion of accuracy. This time, it was dashes and strokes of brush-pen, no overthinking, and (to me) a much more alive drawing. 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, & workouts, and on Wednesday with a new episode, and maybe some art & more Instax.
Go first in the world, go forth with your fears / Remember a price must be paid,