Hitting The Links: 11/19/23

Psychotic reactions, links galore, my Twitter departure, & The Backflex

Priors Authorization

I didn’t tell him about my dream. That night, sleepless and feverish, as I began to come down with what I hope is just a cold, I had a lucid dream in which the organic shapes of the Nativity facade began to shift in color and grow even more immense in scale. The true nature of the Sagrada Familia was clear to me as I stared at the maw of the entrance: it wasn’t a church but a machine for capturing souls. Gaudî, the only person buried there, was its first victim. I had an absolute conviction that my only courses of action were to flee Barcelona or to blow up the building.

—me, here, a few weeks ago (although now that I reread it, it could be the start of a short story)

I was really . . . touched? affected? . . . by this piece by

Max Goodbird

on his LSD-induced manic psychosis and multiyear recovery from it. He goes heavy into some of the symptoms and pathways of this sort of breakdown, and the ensuing depression as it ebbs.

The piece reminded me of my experience quoted above, the night after seeing the Sagrada Familia during my Barcelona business trip in October. At the time (a day-plus later), I wrote about how I was able to receive it as a revelation, while recognizing the unreality of the whole situation.

The lucidity of the dream made it feel more like a revelation than the product of exhaustion, anxiety and fever, and were I a more psychotic man, I’d have taken it as The Truth. Fortunately for all involved, I have too much work to do to just bail on reality, so I can laugh all this off, as long as I Never Sleep Again.

With time, I know it wasn’t simply a dream-state, or at least I retained its intensity and mystery post-dream, but it was as though I had a dual self, allowing me to experience it as a reality while being able to keep my distance from that vortex. Like a virtual machine, emulating another operating system while the main OS keeps operating outside it, or that Kabbalah notion of tzimtzum, that the universe is God’s withdrawal of his being, a bubble created within the divine fluid, or even the trap-twist at the end of Grant Morrison & Steve Yeowell’s Zenith comic.

(Don’t mind me; I just read widely. Also note that unlike the Mr. Goodbird, I’ve never tried hallucinogens. I did however, have a bad response to an antibiotic that led to a paranoia-episode; that was No Fun.)

But what he describes — not just the revelation, but the “burst of dopamine and adrenaline [from] a sudden feeling that you’re on the verge of a fantastically important discovery . . . It feels like you’ve broken through into a new world, or like you’ve been let in on some cosmic secret” — that’s what I had lying in my hotel bed, the Secret Knowledge and the (self-)importance that comes from being an initiate.

The rest of what the piece is worth reading, and makes me glad that I’ve never tipped too far from my priors, as it were, so go read it.

And now, let’s hit the links!

Links & Such

• Recent Virtual Memories Show podcasts: Phillip Lopate • Leslie Stein • Josh Bayer • Adam Sisman • Lisa Morton • Daniel Clowes • Rachel Shteir

• RIP A.S. Byatt . . . RIP Kevin Wynn . . . RIP George ‘Funky’ Brown . . .

• Lovely profile of Geddy Lee around his new memoir.

• Don’t get me any of this coffee-making gear; I’ve optimized my whole setup already. (The new issue of my Haiku for Business Travelers ’zine includes a piece on my coffee-making routine/practice; let me know if you want a copy.)

• Michael Dirda writes about 22 books he wants to reread and one of them is . . . a Dave McKean-illustrated edition of Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities?! [SMASHES BUY BUTTON].

• What Dublin was to Joyce, the malls of northern NJ were to me.

• Neat TinyLetter by Ali Trotta about Ted Hughes. It reminded me a little of my Ezra Pound/Donald Hall mini-exegesis from last year, but then I suppose I’m more interested in madness than love.

• Did you think about your bills, your deadlines, or when you think you’re gonna die? (via

  Kevin Kelly
  of
  Recomendo
  )

• Good piece by Virginia Postrel /

  Virginia Postrel
  about the “Techno Optimist Manifesto” and its author’s manifest misreading of the myth of Prometheus.

• I think the real moral of the Prometheus myth is that if you have a chronic condition like eagles devouring your liver, it helps to have medical coverage or the ability to regenerate your organs.

• Speaking of the ridiculous worldviews of techbros, Elon Musk’s most recent antisemitism-is-free-speech flareup was enough to get me to finally deactivate my Twitter account, so don’t look for me on that platform. There are other links at the bottom of this e-mail where you can find me. No, I didn’t post a going-away message, or make a grand statement. I’d already deleted all my tweets before then, and for months now was only posting to promote new podcast episodes and new Substack e-mails.

• You know, you can always send me a postcard! Zap me your mailing address and I’ll send you one, and maybe we’ll correspond in a slower, more decorative version of DMs. I mail out a postcard every mail-day — it started as a 2022 New Year’s resolution, and has stuck — and sometimes they’re even hand-made drawn/painted ones.

• The funny thing about Musk jumping aboard the Hitler-was-right train is that I mentioned The Columnist’s Curse in this week’s podcast with Phillip Lopate, a term I coined for when a pundit/columnist runs out of easy material and strays into “I’m not saying Hitler was right/the Holocaust was a good idea, but . . .” territory. (Commendably, Phillip never ran into that problem when writing the 2016-2017 weekly blog-essays that comprise his wonderful new book.)

Current/Recent Reading

Inherent Vice - Thomas Pynchon

Jack Ruby: The Many Faces of Oswald’s Assassin - Danny Fingeroth

Valid Until Sunset - Jarrett Earnest

My Bright Abyss: Meditation of a Modern Believer - Christian Wiman

Sound Body, Fractured Mind

I managed another full 5-day workout routine last week, Fri.-Tue. alternating weights & yoga, even though there were times I didn’t want to (also included a 5.3-mile run w/The Guys). I’m currently two days into that routine (weights later this morning, I hope), and also got in a 5.5-mile (slow) run on Saturday, as well as a 4.5-mi. hike on Friday. I’m hoping to add one more run/week, maybe on the morning of my ostensible rest day of Wednesday. Here’s a pic from Friday’s hike, the peak of which was the ruins of Van Slyke Castle.

Last Sunday, after my weights workout and weekly Accountability photo, I took a pic of my back while I flexed, and my shoulders look so stupidly jacked up that I laughed. It’s funny what you can do with some dumbbells and a couple of yoga mats, if you keep at it. (If you ask nice, I’ll send it to you, but I wouldn’t post Shirtless Gil in a family email like this one.)

For those of you asking, “Yes, Gil, but are there any practical benefits to all this exercise?”, LET ME TELL YOU: I managed to smoothly lift a ~200-lb. man off the floor yesterday and, outside of a slight lower back soreness this morning, I felt virtually no strain. So yeah, the strength & flexibility come in handy.

Until Next Time

Thanks for reading this far! I’ll be back Wednesday with a new podcast, maybe 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.

Love is the drug,

—Gil Roth
Virtual Memories
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