Hitting The Links: 10/8/23
Micromanaging can be your friend
Intro
Something weird happened at my pharma conference last Thursday-Friday: nothing weird happened. I mean, I know I over-plan, micromanage and stress the living crap out of myself with that event (I’m a one-man nonprofit, so I do all the organizing of speakers, hotel & A/V arrangements, website and ticket-site management, posters and 8-page handouts, etc., although one of my members was kind enough to make the arrangements for Thursday’s networking dinner), but once the day started . . . it all went fine.
I mean, sure, I got an email on Wednesday from one of the next day’s speakers that he had tested positive for COVID and needed to give his presentation remotely, but I already had the setup in place for that. And, sure, some of my speakers still hadn’t sent me their slides, but I knew they would get them to me before they had to go on. And, sure, when one of the other virtual presenters logged in, his audio was kinda faint, but I dashed over to the mixing board and figured out which channel to boost so we could hear him. (The A/V guys also had The One Dongle it turned out we needed to accommodate my laptop’s limited USB-C ports.) And, sure, the company that was sponsoring the wifi thought they were also getting a tabletop display as part of their sponsorship, but the hotel happened to put in an extra tabletop in our reception area, so what harm was there in letting them display their stuff? And, sure, I woke up at 2 a.m. on Wednesday thinking, “Does the printer know I need the posters, badges & conference guides this morning, or did he think I meant next Wednesday?”, but he had them waiting for me.
Really, day 1 cruised by without a blip, right through the networking dinner, where I got to make some new pals and receive all sorts of accolades from the attendees. Day 2 was similarly easy, right through the closing session of “Gil stands at the podium, asks for feedback about the conference and the association’s agenda, takes questions, and riffs at the mic.” I even had time to take pix of all the in-person speakers during their sessions & post those on my LinkedIn.
Then I changed from suit back to shorts, T-shirt & sneakers, untied my hair, loaded up the car, and drove back to NJ with one of my friends.
All of which is to say, I micromanaged the living heck out of this conference, but it paid off in multiple ways. (Admittedly, there was a big scare in the buildup to it, when the prospect of a government shutdown meant our three FDA speakers might not be allowed to present at the conference, but then Kevin McCarthy helped me out by ending his career.)
Now it’s time to decompress a little, although your definition of that may vary from mine. This evening, I’m heading into NYC to see a Nick Cave solo show, and maybe I’ll see a pal or two before the gig. For once I haven’t planned ahead.
And now, let’s hit the links!
Links & Such
Recent Virtual Memories Show podcasts: Rachel Shteir • Patrick McDonnell • Keith Knight • Brett Martin • Peter Rostovsky • Bill Griffith • Jerome Charyn
RIP Tim Wakefield . . . RIP Dick Butkus . . . RIP Terence Davies . . .
Belated RIP Charles Saunders (READ THIS)
This David Marchese interview with Errol Morris about his new John Le Carré film . . . did not go well. Makes me kinda happy that my attempts at recording a podcast with Morris never panned out, though I’m sure I’ll try again. (I’ll be recording with JLC’s biographer, Adam Sisman, next weekend around The Secret Life of John Le Carré, the followup to his 2016 biography of JLC.)
I enjoyed this history of the fantasy publishing genre and Lester Del Rey, from Dan Sinykins’ new book.
“Kiss the Skull of Death, My Beautiful Muchacha!” quoth Michael Dirda.
Amtrak’s going to invest in some of their bigger train stations, which aren’t exactly nice. The only time I’ve been to the Baltimore station (which is the center of the article), was on the way to my podcast with Thomas Dolby, and it was . . . shabby.
I mentioned this in Wednesday’s newsletter, but hey: I get interviewed by pharma podcasts WAY more often than by arts & culture podcasts, but the host at Pharma Source DID ask me about the Virtual Memories Show at the end of our conversation, so that’s something. Still, I guess it’d be neat to get interviewed about my arts-side, and then go on a tangent about biopharma outsourcing.
Reservation Dogs was a tremendous TV show, the closest thing to the spirit of Love & Rockets I think I’ve ever seen in another medium. I enjoyed this interview with the show’s creator, Sterlin Harjo, by Matt Zoller-Seitz.
Ooh! Nora Krug’s Ukraine project, Diaries of War, is coming out as a book this month!
I’ve actually read something by this year’s winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, Jon Fosse! Here’s Merve Emre about Fosse.
As someone who ran 20.21 miles (w/1,855’ of uphills) on 2020’s New Year’s Eve (as chronicled in Haiku for Business Travelers #2), I respect this cohort of people whose marathon was cancelled but decided to run it anyway. (FTR, my rule was to take a 30-sec. walk-break after every mile, regardless of where I was.)
Current/Recent Reading
Mason & Dixon - Thomas Pynchon
John Le Carré: The Biography - Adam Sisman
Sound Body, Fractured Mind
I missed Friday’s weights because of my conference and the long-ass drive home, but got in my yoga workout yesterday. I’ll do weights today, and I also went out for an easy 5.4-mile run with one of my running pals this morning. One of the conversations at my conference’s networking dinner got me more inspired to get back to running, but balancing that with everything else, and not incurring injury, is A Whole Thing I have to manage.
Until Next Time
Thanks for reading this far! I’ll be back Wednesday with a new podcast, some art, & who knows maybe a little profundity or something, and Sunday with more great links, current reading, and this broken down ol’ body of mine.
A star is just a memory of a star / We are fireflies pulsing dimly in the dark / We are here, and you are where you are,
—Gil Roth
Virtual Memories
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