Episódios
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Artist Frances Jetter joins the show to talk about her amazing new book, AMALGAM: An Immigrant, His Labor Union, and His American Family in Brooklyn (Fantagraphics Underground). We talk about how the book both expanded and narrowed in scope during its 12-year process, how her grandfather's story bleeds out into American, Jewish and labor history, and how she integrated her trademark linocut prints with other media to create an unforgettable graphic narrative. We get into how the editorial illustration field changed over her career and why she moved toward artist's books and narrative art, why "illustrator" isn't a dirty word & why having her work out in the world is important, how we don't always see the resonances of our work when we're in the middle of it, how working with other materials and forms (like sculpture) rejuvenated her drawing, what she learned about storytelling in the making of AMALGAM, her family's political background and her awakening, how students have changed over her 40+ years teaching at SVA, and more. Follow Frances on Instagram • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal and via our e-newsletter
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With THE NOTEBOOK: A History of Thinking on Paper (Biblioasis), Roland Allen explores how the proliferation of paper & binding changed culture, business, and maybe the nature of human consciousness. We talk about how keeping a diary got him obsessed-ish with notebooks, how he found a narrative and protagonists as he delved into the history of notebooks, and what it means to see the notebook as a piece of technology/hardware. We get into their influence on art and the Renaissance (and the theory that sketchbooks allowed artists to move toward realism), how diaries created a new, private persona distinct from the public self, how he discovered a new reading for a line of Hamlet, and how digital options never manage to replace the paper notebook. We also discuss how Moleskine came to dominate the notebook market and how Bruce Chatwin's The Songlines jumpstarted their craze, how Roland learned to switch off the "this isn't interesting" filter in his own diaries, how writing this book made him a better notebooker, the way Dutch album amicorum (friendship books) served as a social media precursor, how our notebooks can outlive us (and his posthumous plans for his diaries), and a lot more. Follow Roland on Instagram and Bluesky • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal and via our e-newsletter
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With his new graphic novel, NAKED CITY (Dark Horse Books), artist/activist Eric Drooker finishes the New York trilogy begun in Flood! and Blood Song. We talk about how Naked City started with the image of a beleaguered squeegee-man and wound up a love letter to New York and especially Tompkins Square Park, the challenges of using word/thought balloons and captions after making wordless comics for so long, and the importance of staying handmade in the digital era. We get into his upbringing in Stuy Town and the Lower East Side/Loisaida, why we were recording in an apartment above the Museum of Reclaimed Urban Space, how New York changed during his life, why he semi sorta escaped from the city, what it's like being a quality-of-life criminal, and the time he made his start with stencil-graffiti only to get over-tagged by Basquiat. We also discuss his artistic & political awakenings, the Tompkins Square Park riot and police militarization, his ambivalence about street art going into the gallery, the importance of on-the-ground activism (MOAR STREET POSTERS), the surveillance panopticon, and more. Follow Eric on Instagram, Facebook and YouTube • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal and via our e-newsletter
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With his fantastic new book, MYSTICISM (NYRB), philosopher Simon Critchley explores mystic traditions from medieval Christianity to the present. We talk about the evolving definition of mysticism, its female-centric history, how it's not just the moment of revelation but the adoption of a form practice (like Julian of Norwich's half-day of revelations and ~40 years of theological examination of them), and whether today's aesthetic experiences can truly be a substitute for the religious transcendence of the past. We get into attention as a form of mysticism and close reading as a form of attention, how we can try to overcome this age of distraction upon distraction, what it means to de-create our creaturely self and 'get out of our own way', how philosophy treated religion as bonkers, and why he's drawn to the weirdness of Christianity. We also discuss how he's made a publishing career out of death, how we each faced our theoretical deaths and found liberation in their wake, the music he makes with his oldest friend, John Simmons, how Brian Eno's concept of a Scenius is hard to create virtually, how his life and his teaching have changed since the pandemic began, The Time He Got To Meet Nick Cave (grr!), and a lot more. Follow Simon on Instagram and Facebook, and follow Critchley And Simmons on Instagram • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal and via our e-newsletter
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Hail Satan! It's spooky season, and writer/editor Doug Brod joins the show to celebrate his fantastic new biography, BORN WITH A TAIL: The Devilish Life and Wicked Times of Anton Szandor LaVey, Founder of the Church of Satan (Hachette). We talk about the line between huckster and believer, the history of the Church of Satan, why Doug didn't want to puncture the mythology LaVey built around his life, and the fun of writing a chapter about Sammy Davis Jr. exploring Satanism. We also get into how LaVey's philosophy of self-deification and aesthetics managed to penetrate American culture, how Doug balanced reporting & cultural history for the book, the people he wishes he could've interviewed, how LaVey reveled in spreading his gospel to the post-punk/'zine generation in the '90s, what it takes to create one's own aesthetic world while still going out to Olive Garden, Doug's first book about '70s hard rock, and what it means to consider Satan as metaphor rather than incarnated being, and more. Follow Doug on Instagram • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal and via our e-newsletter
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Author & essayist Sven Birkerts returns to the show to celebrate his fantastic new essay collection, The Miró Worm and the Mysteries of Writing (Arrowsmith Press). We talk about the estrangement of the everyday, the problem of other minds, how serendipity tells us something about where we are, authors' photos and self-mythologizing, moving house (& turning 70) during COVID, and the inspiration of Cortazar's Around the Day in Eighty Worlds. We get into the threat of AI to writing, reading, and thinking, opening up to ambivalence, why people find it so tough to say the word "soul", what he misses about teaching, Kierkegaard & Walker Percy's The Moviegoer & being on The Search, and wondering what Bob Dylan is like in the kitchen in the morning. We also discuss writers' homes & graves and the myth of inspiration, his new Sketches From Memory essays and how they've opened him up as a writer, how we build circles of affinity, how his father's career as an architect influenced his eye (but not his writing), why people find it so tough to say the word "soul", and more. Follow Sven on Instagram • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal and via our e-newsletter
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With his phenomenal new book, A NATURAL HISTORY OF EMPTY LOTS: Field Notes from Urban Edgelands, Back Alleys and Other Wild Places (Timber Press), Christopher Brown shifts from novels into nature-writing/memoir/nonfiction mode and I am HERE for it. We talk about the eco-cosmos of East Austin, TX, the years of observation that opened him to the hidden pockets of wildness in urban environments, why solitude in nature is a myth, what we have to gain from taking a long walk, Long Time vs. the short presence of Anglos in Texas, how 2020's lockdown turned off global capitalism and showed how society might truly change, and how this book mutated from when we talked about it at Readercon 2023. We get into Bruce Sterling's unforgettable critique of his writing, the process of turning a narrative of colonization into one of decolonization, (eco)psychogeography & the Situationists, why he (begrudgingly) brought the personal/memoiristic into the book and how it helped him come to terms with himself, and what a workshop with horror writers taught him about the truth-telling power of non-redemptive storytelling. We also discuss the design flaws of the agricultural revolution, how his readers in different regions respond to his FIELD NOTES newsletter, the nature of mysticism and writing a narrative about transcending the self, hiking a Massachusetts marsh in summer with Jeff VanderMeer, and plenty more. Follow Christopher on Bluesky, Instagram and Mastodon, and subscribe to his FIELD NOTES newsletter • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal and via our e-newsletter
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Artist Dmitry Samarov returns to the show to bail me out after a stressful couple of weeks and to explore his fantastic new book, MAKING PICTURES IS HOW I TALK TO THE WORLD, a survey of his art from the '80s to today. We talk about the process of selecting pieces for the book, what artistic legacy means to him, finding roots of his work in his childhood, and why the notion of 'progression' doesn't apply to his work. We get into the transformative experience of working at Tangible Books and how it's inspiring his new 'zine project, why he's culling a lot of his library and how he's deciding which books to keep, how his bookshelf paintings started to open him to abstraction, and why literary folks like Magritte but painters don't. We also discuss our monastic devotion to art and Antonio López García's devotion to painting his quince tree, why artistic memoirs tend to be no good but why not-great artists can be good critics, what it means to see his own books in thrift stores, how moving some furniture can change one's perspective, why he's against starting art with An Idea, and a lot more. Follow Dmitry through his newsletter and his podcasts, HU U NO and THAT HORRORCAST • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal and via our e-newsletter
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With Salinger's Soul: His Personal & Religious Odyssey (Post Hill Press), author and retired journalist/editor Stephen B. Shepard explores the life of JD Salinger and the hidden core of an author who became famous for avoiding fame. We get into why Stephen decided to chase this elusive ghost, why Salinger didn't make it into his previous book about Jewish American writers, whether he believes Salinger's unpublished writing will see the light of day, and why it was important that he approach the book as biography and not literary criticism (although he does bring a reader's voice to the book). We talk about the lack of sex in Salinger's fiction, the uncanniness of Holden Caulfield's voice, Salinger's WWII trauma, his rise to fame, search for privacy, abandonment of publishing, embrace of Vedanta & ego-death, and his pattern of pursuing young women, and how it all maybe ties together. We also discuss Stephen's career as a journalist and how it influences his writing, what he learned in building a graduate program in journalism at CUNY, the ways we both started out in business-to-business magazines (he went a lot farther than I did, editing Newsweek and Business Week), how journalism has changed over the course of his career, Philip Roth's biography and what it means to separate the book from the writer, and a lot more. More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal and via our e-newsletter
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Benjamin Dreyer joins the show to talk about the joy of good writing. We talk about his career as managing editor and copy chief of the Random House, his post-retirement perspective on that role, the authors he enjoyed working with, the success of his first book, DREYER'S ENGLISH: An Utterly Correct Guide to Clarity and Style (Random House), and his plans for the followup, DREYER'S FICTION (!). We get into why he's leaving NYC and looking forward to Santa Monica (and talk about the books that he can leave behind and those he can't), the way that writing a Substack newsletter has made him a better writer, how the copy-editor's role is to enhance the writer's work, not to reshape it, whether his online persona changed after retirement, his love of digressive footnotes, how he feels about "weird" catching on this election season, whether the success of Dreyer's English surprised him, the moment he KNEW it was a hit, and what his authors had to teach him about the process of writing his first book. We also discuss the tension within the pronoun section of DE (c.2019), how he hopes to revise it, and why the mind needs to catch up with the soul sometimes. All this & a lot more, so go listen! Follow Benjamin on Bluesky, Facebook, and Instagram, and subscribe to his Substack • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal and via our e-newsletter
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Nicholas Delbanco returns to the show to celebrate his 32nd book and his first true foray into memoir (or ME-moir), STILL LIFE AT EIGHTY (Mandel Vilar Press)! We talk about how the rediscovery of the 40-page history of art he wrote at eleven years old (!) sparked this project, how he built the book as a mosaic, why he centers it around the homes, totem-objects, and writers in his life, and why he wanted his first memoir to be an act of gratitude rather than a list of complaints. We get into decision to part with some of his library and the books he regrets selling, his long-term interest in literary and artistic reputation and how its study helped him navigate the transition from "promising" to "distinguished" writer, his writing practice and process, and what he learned when recently revising a series of his early novels. We also discuss his embrace of compression and restraint in his later writing, why he'll write a fictional character's poetry but doesn't write poetry on his own, what his family's history and business taught him about the balance between the dutifulness and risks of art, his surprise at how quickly John Updike's reputation waned, what he's learned in his 80s, and a a lot more. More info at our site • Catch up on my 2017 and 2022 conversations with Nicholas • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal and via our e-newsletter
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Cartoonist and animator Dash Shaw returns to the show to celebrate his phenomenal new graphic novel, BLURRY (New York Review Comics). We talk about the decompressed mode he brought to this book, the turning points we encounter in the most mundane situations, his focus on the microscopic moments of doubt we have between two very similar things, and how he settled on the idea of structuring the book around nested stories (& figured out to thread them together by the end). We get into the 2x2 panel regularity of every page of Blurry and how that allowed him to build the book, how the experience of making a Clue miniseries changed his comics-making process, and how Blurry felt like he'd been playing a video game for a long time and then discovered a bonus level. We also discuss his film-making process and how that contrasts with the isolation of making comics, the ways his work tends toward collage, why naturalistic dialogue is another form of stylization, what it was like to grow up in a comics-friendly house, and a lot more. Follow Dash on Instagram • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal and via our e-newsletter
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Comics journalist Jess Ruliffson joins the show to talk about the origins of INVISIBLE WOUNDS (Fantagraphics), her collection of stories from veterans of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, but we wind up talking about guys' butts, among other things. We get into her focus on male vulnerability, the Tim Hetherington photos that led her to make Invisible Wounds, the differences between soldiers who enlisted pre-/post-9/11, what it's like to come home from war with no idea what to do next, and the new comics she's making with her husband, Ernesto Barbieri, about his work as an ICU nurse. We talk about her upbringing in Mississippi, what she's learned about interviewing and how stories sometimes take shape in retrospect, whether it's "permissible" to tell stories about people in a different demographic, the common thread of moral injury in her work, how she met her husband through an MFA open house, and how she found her way into comics and journalism. We also discuss her frustration at not drawing the butts she wants to draw, her experiences teaching comics and learning to give her students permission, what she's learned from making the Terrible Anvil podcast with Tom Hart, why her therapist insisted she never make a memoir, and more! Follow Jess on The Terrible Anvil podcast • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal and via our e-newsletter
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For my 600th episode, the great artist Joe Coleman joins the show to celebrate his phenomenal new career-spanning retrospective book, A DOORWAY TO JOE: The Art of Joe Coleman (Fantagraphics). We talk about art, mortality, mythography, history, the corruption of the flesh, the nature of evil, his Odditorium & the power of relics, Dr. Mombooze-o's send-off for his dead parents, playing Whac-A-Mole with T-cell lymphoma, getting arrested for being an Infernal Machine, taxi-driving in NYC's Travis Bickle era, the inspiration of the Hubble telescope, the pagan Celtic roots in Irish Catholicism, what it's like to work on one square-inch of a painting for 8 hours at a time, our respective appearances on the Uncle Floyd Show, playing in the Steel Tips with Patrick McDonnell & Karen O'Connell, and how he found his love and muse in Whitney Ward. (Also, this one's got an interminable intro, so jump to the 15:45 mark to start the conversation.) Follow Joe on Instagram • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal and via our e-newsletter
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This one's all about legacies: familial, literary, cultural & institutional! Mirana Comstock joins the show to celebrate the publication of The Algonquin Round Table: 25 Years with the Legends Who Lunch (Excelsior Editions/SUNY Press), by her grandfather, the late literary lion Konrad Bercovici. We get into how Mirana discovered this manuscript, what it meant to edit it & write the intro, what it was like to help bring the Algonquin scene & Konrad's writing to life for a new generation of readers, and the experience of growing up in a multigenerational household of compulsive artists & writers. We talk about why her grandfather's immense literary stature diminished, the nature of charisma and The Aura, the scandal of Chaplin stealing Konrad's script for The Great Dictator, how the Algonquin habitués were the influencers of their time (only with something to say), how the Algonquin scene was like Vienna café society transposed into New York & American capitalism, Mirana's discoveries as she researched the figures in the book, and why there'll never be another book like this one. We also discuss the New-York Historical Society's acquisition of Konrad's papers, her New York and how it's changed, her idea for transforming her family's writing into a meta-stage production, and a lot more. More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal and via our e-newsletter
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Artist & illustrator Anita Kunz returns to the show 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 her 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. Follow Anita on Instagram, check out the Original Sisters site, and listen to our 2021 conversation • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal and via our e-newsletter
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With his amazing new book, FEH: A Memoir (Riverside Books), Shalom Auslander explores how the judgmental disgust of FEH 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 our 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 (but what happens when there are bugs in the OS?), how the FEH machine came after his psychiatrist, the notion of misotheism, 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, his bleak Peanuts parody strip that got Jeannie Schulz's approval, the neurological condition where blind people believe they can see and how it parallels our existential state of FEH, the realization that cynicism doesn't mean you're smart (just lazy), and a lot more. Subscribe to Shalom's Substack • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal and via our e-newsletter
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Artist & illustrator Maurice Vellekoop joins the show to celebrate his amazing new graphic memoir, I'M SO GLAD WE HAD THIS TIME TOGETHER (Pantheon). We talk about the midlife crisis that led to the memoir (and the subsequent crisis that almost made him give up), the joy and pain of putting his life on the page, his process of self-discovery as a gay man and an artist, and why his mother hoped she wouldn't live to see the book come out. We get into his (editor) partner's sigh that told him the first draft needed a drastic rewrite, the role sublimation has played in his art & sex life, his accidental technique for drawing himself crying, how the AIDS crisis did & didn't affect his life, his decision on how to depict sex in the book, the incredible color palettes he uses throughout the work, and the realization that he had a 500-page book on his hands. We also discuss life on Toronto Island and what it was like during lockdown, why he'd like to try stage design (just once), his Pride tradition, why publishing a book of erotica was a great stepping-stone for making a memoir, and more! Follow Maurice on Instagram • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal and via our e-newsletter
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Historian, professor & author Laura Beers joins the show as we celebrate her important new book, ORWELL'S GHOSTS: Wisdom and Warnings for the Twenty-First Century (Norton). We talk about her course on Orwell and the making of the early twentieth century, how the post-Jan. 6 misuse of "Orwellian" inspired her to write this book, and her own path into Orwell. We get into Orwell's balancing act between freedom of speech and obligation to truth, what he meant when he wrote that he was "for democratic socialism, as I understand it," his family's history with Empire and his hatred of inequality, why my favorite of his essays, Inside The Whale, may be the most misunderstood Orwell piece of all (!), and why The Road To Wigan Pier might have the most influence on her. We also discuss the ways to reckon with Orwell's prejudices and especially his misogyny, why students are still coming into college with Animal Farm under their belt, Laura's trip to Barcelona to follow Orwell's steps in the Spanish Civil War, how her chapter on gender involved some deep, critical reading and writing, how we should look at the "blacklist" Orwell provided to the Information Research Dept., how Laura's next book on the politics of infertility sort of dovetails with Orwell's Ghosts, and more! Follow Laura on Twitter and BlueSky and listen to her on Progressive Britain • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal and via our e-newsletter
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Author, publicist and partially involved narrator Robert Pranzatelli joins the show to celebrate his amazing new book, PILOBOLUS: A Story of Dance and Life (University Press of Florida). We talk about the origins of the legendary Pilobolus dance company, his transformational first experience seeing them in 1997, the workshops he took with them and the friendships they engendered, and the "itchy fingers" moment when he realized he had to write their history. We also get into Pilobolus' unique melding of improvisation and dance technique, the joyful challenge of describing their dance pieces on the page, the importance of capturing the time capsule of Pilobolus' '70s roots (and covering All The Affairs, along with the friendships and fallings-out), how Pilobolus was taken seriously by dance critics long after audiences flocked to them, the company's through-line in its 50+-year history and how they managed to continue the tradition of something that was based on overthrowing tradition. Plus we discuss Robert's history as a writer, how Metal Hurlant & Moebius blew his mind as a teen, how he became a book publicist at Yale University Press, his narrow-focus mode of reading, his greatest eBay score, why he got choked up while reading a text he sent Pilobolus' artistic directors after a performance, and more. More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal and via our e-newsletter
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