Podcastery

No new show this week! I was planning to post one, and I even edited an episode, but when I looked at the calendar, I saw that if I run the three guest-episodes I’ve recorded, plus the annual Guest List ep. on Dec. 23 & a monologue for the Dec. 30 slot, that’d add up to a nice, even 50 shows for 2025. Also, when I was writing an intro script yesterday, I realized it’d be a dick move to ask Amy to stop doing Thanksgiving prep for 10-15 minutes so I could record it.

It’s all for the best: I get to chill out a little, you still get 50 episodes on the year, and I don’t have to record another guest-show for a few more weeks. (There are some non-guest books I really want to get to, like that new Pynchon novel.) Why don’t you go listen to something in the archives? With Thanksgiving a day away, the recent ep. with Jennifer Hayden would be a great listen if you’re fretting in the kitchen.

Last week I posted Episode 664 of my Virtual Memories Show, where Glenn Kurtz tried to answer the question: Who were the men who built the Empire State Building? We talked about his new book, MEN AT WORK: The Empire State Building and the Untold Story of the Craftsmen who Built It (Seven Stories Press) and how he accidentally fell into this project, how “turn every page” led him to a key discovery about Lewis Hine‘s photos of the Empire State construction, how his experience researching and writing THREE MINUTES IN POLAND helped him with this book, his childhood connection with the Empire State, and how identifying their subjects affects the mythic aura of Hine’s photographs. We got into the corporate perspective of the building and how it dehumanizes the workers who built it, and similarly how that heroic collectivist notion of The Worker devalues workers as people, whether craftsmanship and artisanship survived the transition into mass production during the skyscraper era, Hine’s authorial fallacy and the genius of his portraits, and what the Empire State says about the immigration-dynamics of the workforce and the role of unions. We also discussed the question of context and how the question, “What are we looking at?” can reveal the world, the resonance of Hine’s Icarus/Sky Boy pic, the messiness of history, the joy of Virginia Woolf’s diaries, why Glenn just wants to write a novel without it inspiring a nonfiction project, and more. Give it a listen! And go read MEN AT WORK!

Recent episodes: Jennifer Hayden • Rian Hughes • Josh Neufeld • Dean Haspiel & Whitney Matheson • Ron Rosenbaum • Lance Richardson • Tom Tomorrow

With Thanks

As mentioned above, Thanksgiving (U.S.) is tomorrow. I have plenty to be thankful for, not that it stops me from complaining.

And as mentioned as nauseam, I’ve had a tough year. But I’m thankful for that, too, I think. In the wake of my dad’s death, I’m learning about new or unvisited aspects my soul (or whatever you want to call it), and when I get through the darkness, I’ll understand other people’s sadness better, maybe be able to help them as they heal, just as others are helping me.

So I’m thankful,

for my wife for putting up with me, and understanding,

for our dog-girl Birdy, even though she’s blown to hell the morning routine that served me so well for a decade-plus,

for the podcast & newsletter and all the guests, listeners/readers, publicists et al. who are part of it,

for the 13q mutation in my bone marrow,

for the books and comics, and the space to keep so many of them,

for the music,

for friends, both close and casual,

for family, no matter how difficult I make things,

and for everything else that makes this life feel like an infinite unfolding, even in the moments when it feels like an infinite narrowing.

I’ll see you Sunday.

*

This email setup runs $29/month, podcast-hosting via LibSyn is $20/month, and the remote recording setup on Zencastr is $20/month, so if you want to help out with these expenses or otherwise Contribute To The Cause, you can support the Virtual Memories Show with a contribution of any size, one-time or recurring.

Instaxery

I took three Instax pix on Saturday in NYC, although technically only one of them fits the parameters of my whole project. It’s the center one, which I took after my recording session with Hunter Prosper and his production folks in Washington Square Park. The one on the left jumped out at me on the walk from the subway to the park, and it turned out to be by Timothy Goodman, a past guest of mine. The one on the right is from the wine bar where I met a friend after recording with Hunter. I had red, she had white.

Artistry

Didn’t draw anything, sorry. 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 a new episode, and maybe some art & a new Instax.

I sat too long in my silence / Grown too old in my pain / To shed this skin, be born again / It starts with an ending,