PODCAST

This week, I didn’t post a new show, because of work stuff that I detail at length below. But there’ll be a new one in a couple of days, and I have THREE sessions scheduled in NYC next Friday, so we should be good up to Thanksgiving week! In the meantime, why don’t you go listen to . . .

Recent podcast episodes: Wallis Wilde-Menozzi • Nate Powell • Karl Christian Krumpholz • Alison Fensterstock & Michael Tisserand • Emil Wilson • Jonathan Ames • Dash Shaw

Or how about every single episode, alphabetically?

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

BIRDY!

Choosing between chicken and turkey (toys):

And a moment before whapping me in the head:

HITTING THE LINKS

Here are a couple of links for you:

• RIP Tom Skerritt . . . RIP Dale Brown . . . RIP Ryu Murakami . . . RIP Richard Riehle . . . RIP Noah Adams . . . RIP Douglas Dunn . . . RIP J. Todd Anderson . . . RIP John Anderson . . . RIP Cliff Hagan . . . RIP Dónal Lunny . . .

• If it means people are getting into books, I’ll take it.

• B&N’s CEO thinks the death of reading is BS.

• Here’s a NYT piece on “purpose anxiety,” and what it feels like to live without a sense of purpose. I found my purpose in 2012 when I started making the podcast, and that was hammered home to me when I thought I was dying back in 2021 and had to ask myself what I’ve done with my life. Your mileage may vary, of course, and as the piece points out, you may find different purposes over the course of your life, and sometimes they’ll overlap. The thing, I think, is to recognize and embrace it.

• Deborah Solomon reviewed the new bio of Edward Hopper.

• Jerry Saltz wrote about the Whitney’s new meh Roy Lichtenstein exhibition. (Dash Shaw & I talked about Lichtenstein in our recent podcast.)

• Merve Emre wrote up a list of her fave Anne Carson books.

• Laura Miller wrote about how Edgar Allan Poe is America’s most influential writer.

• Benjamin Markovits reviewed some recent films that approach the issue of being an art monster.

• Tom Tomorrow has a photo-essay on street art in Rome.

• I went into the Madison Ave. Sant Ambroeus on my 40th birthday, during a museum & menswear meander. Knew nothing about it, just needed coffee, and rapidly realized I was way too low-class for the joint, so I hid in a corner as best I could while I had my coffee. Here’s a history of the place on its 90th anniversary.

• Nick Cave wrote about his meditation practice. Now that I’m past my 6-week work-sprint, I hope to get back into a meditation routine.

• Anahid Neressian wrote about victim-shaming in the Cornell rape case.

• In our recent podcast, Nate Powell & I talked about Paul Smith’s run on The X-Men from our childhood. Here’s an interview with the Other Paul Smith.

• Michael Palin’s 83 and still traveling the world.

• Reiterating: fuck yo’ lifehacks and whatevermaxxxxxing, and learn to treat life as a wonder, not a series of problems to be solved. Thanks, Gabriel Marcel!

• (Yes, yes, I write about exercise and post the occasional workout-selfie. But that’s because I’m closer to 60 than 50, and maintaining strength, flexibility and cardio are important as I grow old. (Looking hot is just a side effect.))

COMMONPLACE

From my online commonplace book:

Using the gaze as a knife, using my memories, seeding these pages with clues, I want each of you to possess your own painting, to invent another story, so you see, in turn, in a way you did not imagine.

—Antonella Anedda (tr. Wallis Wilde-Menozzi), from La Vita die Dettagli, in Emerging from the Winter Sea

VERY RUSHMORE, PART 1

[This is a lengthy piece that has a natural break, so I decided to make this a 2-part newsletter; the next installment will be out in a few days, when I post the new podcast episode.]

Last week was rough. Last six weeks were rough. I was on a work-sprint from Sept. 11 to Oct. 23, during which time I spent 16 nights on the road — hotels + 1 redeye flight — and a lot of time driving. It was exhausting, especially because it culminated in my trade association’s 10th annual conference, which I organize/host/micromanage within an inch of its life.

But you know me, so of course there was magic.

I’d been dreading the conference. Attendee numbers were down a bit, despite all the work I’d put into getting good speakers and marketing it. Several regulars had to skip this year, for totally valid reasons that I nonetheless turned into an indictment of my work and a sign that I’m an abject failure.

On the drive from NJ to North Bethesda on Wednesday, I felt like I was not only heading to my execution, but was responsible for catering and A/V for the firing squad and the witnesses.

I’ve had way too much time in my own head during this stretch. Every previous year, a week or so before the conference, I reach a state of acceptance about the registration count and say to myself, “You do this for the people who ARE there, not the people who AREN’T; give them the best event you can.” This time, I was so rushed and uncentered, with so many other events and priorities, that I never really reached that mindset, and fretted over letting everyone down. (I mean, I have people who fly in from as far as Japan for this.)

Punchline: That sense of doom lasted until 5 minutes into day 1 on Thursday morning, at which point I realized they were all enjoying the heck out of it and that all my fears were overblown.

In my notes for next year’s event, along with “reduce the spanakopita count at the cocktail reception,” and “put a bio-break on the day 2 agenda after 2-3 sessions,” I wrote, “FOCUS ON WHO’S THERE, NOT WHO ISN’T; THEY WILL LOVE THE EVENT,” in hopes that’ll remind me to lighten the f up.

I soon texted one of my friends who had to attend virtually — I’m also responsible for getting each presentation to show up both on the projector and on Zoom, then managing the virtual attendees from a second laptop — and knew about my anxiety and my thoughts about canceling the conference after this year, “Yeah, I’m just a fucking idiot. This is the best and we should keep doing it.” He posted a heart-emoji reaction.

But that wasn’t the magic thing. I mean, sure, there’s a whole gestalt, a catalysis when I bring all these people together — member companies, speakers, some Feds who wanted to learn about our industry —, but I’m used to that happening each year.

What happened was:

On the day before the conference, I had dinner plans with a couple of my members. I went to the lobby a few minutes early, found myself reminiscing about starting this whole sprint in the same hotel lobby for Small Press Expo 6 weeks earlier.

Then one of my speakers walked in, saw me, and came over to say hello. We talked about the event, his session on day 2, and how he couldn’t attend the networking dinner that night because he has family in the area and would be with them.

Then a woman on the check-in line at the front desk said, “GIL?!”

Recognizing me would make sense if she was one of my pharma-folks, but she was not. She was someone I went to grad school with at St. John’s College in Annapolis 30+ years earlier. She’s also a listener of the podcast and a reader of this newsletter, so hearing my voice in the lobby was a shock.

Being generally unfazable, I immediately broke into the story of the conference call I had with the Department of Defense a few years ago, where one of the staffers emailed me after to say that he was called in late to participate, had no idea who the call was with, but heard my voice and thought, “He sounds just like Gil Roth on the Virtual Memories Show!”

People often have to engage in code-switching, and while I do have a different tone when I’m explaining pharma-stuff, there’s a sense that the underlying Gil-persona straddles both worlds and lets me bring everyone in, regardless of what part of my life they’re from, because they all know that I’m weird.

I introduced them to each other, rapidly explained the podcast and grad school to my speaker, then told my friend that during the drive down from NJ, I thought about how I’d like to visit Annapolis and St. John’s again. Really, that occurred to me on the drive down there 6 weeks earlier, how much I missed it. Not just the campus and city, but what it meant to be 22 or 23 when I was there. My pal & I nervous-laughed when we told my speaker that we met more than 30 years ago, because how is that possible?

We talked about getting together while I was at the hotel, but as a regular listener/reader she understood that I was focused on managing the conference and was already on the point of burnout. Still, it was magic to see her, to get a reminder of all the life that brought me there, and to see someone who had no stake in how my next two days went. (She has family in the area and stays in this hotel when she’s visiting.)

And then I was off to dinner with my pals, followed by another anxious night of semi-sleep despite both guys talking me off the ledge during dinner, and then showtime on Thursday.

As mentioned, it went great — presentations & panels, virtual attendees, A/V, coffee and lunch breaks, cocktail reception, networking dinner — and I handled the curveballs and scheduling near-catastrophes: a panelist cancelled, a presenter didn’t arrive until 10 minutes before his session.

Don’t get me wrong, I slept horribly that night too, because of lingering anxiety, hotel noise, and eating too late/too much at dinner, but day 2’s shorter agenda — 8-11:45 a.m. — finished up fine. I thanked everyone who stuck around until the end, and told them I’d need a little time to decompress before planning for next year’s show.

And then I had to get home.

That week, I drove from NJ to Boston on Monday to speak at a trade show, Boston-NJ on Tuesday, then NJ-MD on Wednesday. Each time, I expected the ~4-hour drive to stretch into 5+ hours due to traffic, yet each one clocked in at ~3:50, even with a bathroom/stretch break.

Still, I knew that getting home on a Friday afternoon would be rough; there’s no way to avoid the construction on 95N in MD. Back in my room, I changed into my driving attire — shorts, T-shirt and sneakers —, then loaded up my car, shook hands with one of my friends who was flying back to Germany — he came in earlier for a much bigger event in DC —, and hit the GPS to see what I was in for.

5 hours and 45 minutes.

That’s when I texted Amy, “I think I’m gonna drive over to Annapolis, walk around & breathe, then head home from there.” She posted a heart-emoji reaction.

END OF PART 1

ABOUT THAT SPRINT

Here’s my itinerary the past 6 weeks. If I didn’t reply to your email or pitch request in recent weeks/months, read below and cut me some slack.

• 9/11-13 - Drive to Maryland/DC for Small Press Expo [recorded 2 podcasts]

• 9/14-15 - Toronto to speak at client event (fly IAD-YYZ and back)

• 9/16-17 - DC for Hill meetings, then FDA GDUFA public meeting, drive home [So, 4 hotels in 6 nights]

• 9/23-24 - Drive to New Brunswick to speak at Contract Pharma Conference

• 9/25 - VIRTUAL presentation at BioProcess Int’l. in Boston [shifted this to virtual one week from the event, otherwise I’d have been finishing my session in NJ around noon, jumping in the car, driving to Boston, speaking for TWENTY-FIVE MINUTES on the last day of the conference, and driving home]

• 10/4-10 - Fly redeye to Milan for CPHI Europe, 10/6-8, train to Parma 10/8-9, fly home afternoon of 10th [5.5-hour flight delay due to cracked windshield] [recorded 1 podcast]

• 10/19-20 - Drive to Boston to speak at CDMO Live Americas [recorded 1 podcast]

• 10/21-23 - Drive NJ to DC/MD for PBOACon . . .

• Oh, and I’ve still got 11/19-20 - Drive or train to Boston to speak at American Pharma Mfg. & Outsourcing Summit [which will mean getting back to NJ on the Friday afternoon before Thanksgiving week]

SOUND BODY, FRACTURED MIND

No exercise during my conference week, but got back to it the day after I got home with a good yoga set, then weights today after I send this out. Looking hot is just a side effect.

POSTCARD

I mail out a postcard every day, so let me know if you want to be in the rotation for that. I‘ve got a bunch from the past week to catch up on.

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.

I don’t wanna disappoint you, I’m not here to anoint you / I would lick your feet, but is that the sickest move? / I wear my own crown of sadness and sorrow / And who’d have thought tomorrow would be so strange?,