Hitting The Links: 12/3/23
The Psycho-Man's Lament, links galore, endurance & more
Rabbi, Poet, Psycho-Man
“It is not required of you that you complete the work, but neither are you free to desist from it.”
—Rabbi Tarfon, quote by Harold Bloom from our 2016 conversation
I’ve been listening to stillness the last few days, probably a side effect of reading three of Christian Wiman’s books of essays-poems-memoir in the past two weeks for yesterday’s pod-session (it’ll post this week, coinciding with his new book, Zero At The Bone: Fifty Entries Against Despair).
In my previous installment, Minimal Wage, I mentioned how crappy the pay was in publishing when I was starting out in 1995, why I went into business-to-business magazine editing in NJ rather than trying to make something of myself in NYC, and never really regretted not pursuing The Arts outside of a moment in the FSG lobby.
I’m not sure how much of that was my lying to you vs. lying to myself, but the important thing is the lying. My dilettantism and lack of focus in my art — writing, drawing, making conversation — wasn’t driven by finances but by a hit off the Psycho-Man’s iPad —
— good ol’ fear, doubt & hate (if you count self-loathing in the latter). I’m not fishing for pity, compliments, or encouragement, so DON’T; rather, I’m laying out the truth from the inside: I had a calling and I debased it.
That notion of calling & purpose permeates Christian’s books — at least, the three that I read in my typically rushed way of preparing for a conversation with an artist — and has me confronting the choices I’ve made and how I do/don’t approach the world and art.
Late in his new book, in an essay on life’s lack of culmination & our desire for meaning, Christian writes, “The contemporary reaction to this state of affairs [scientific materialism] is mostly either willful obliviousness, frenetic activity, or despair.” I went for the easy laugh and asked, “Can’t it be all three?!”, but the subtext of every nervous word out of my mouth yesterday was that I was meant for something different and shirked that.
I desisted, to quote Tarfon/Bloom, replacing rigor/refinement with half-assery, submitting first drafts over polish, skating by on those gifts with which I’ve been blessed. Wallowing in the immanent at the expense of the transcendent, the concrete over the metaphor. And it’s because I’ve always doubted that I would ‘measure up’ to whatever standard.
Which isn’t to say that I haven’t created beautiful things, but as with my painting, the good stuff happens mostly by accident.
And which isn’t to say I’m not particularly good at the weird form of the podcast-conversation; I am, and I got better with reps and that very refinement I criticize myself for. (My failures within every episode sting as a lack of readiness, or empathy, or nerve on my part.) But it’s a second-rate form of art (at best), and perhaps what Christian referred to as an earned calling rather than a given one: still valuable, but maybe not what you were intended for.
Thus reaching for stillness, and clarity, and maybe a voice under all the other voices.
Depressing fare for a rainy Sunday morning, I admit. To make up for it, here’s a pic I snapped on the drive up to Christian’s place yesterday, of a good boy who was very much enjoying the ride on the Merritt.
And now, let’s hit the links!
Links & Such
Recent Virtual Memories Show podcasts: Danny Fingeroth • Matt Bors • Phillip Lopate • Leslie Stein • Josh Bayer • Adam Sisman • Lisa Morton
RIP Shane MacGowan . . . RIP Sandra Day O’Connor . . . RIP Charlie Munger . . . RIP Marty Krofft . . .
Also, Henry Kissinger died.
Nick Cave wrote about Shane MacGowan (& Sinéad O’Connor) in his Red Hand Files. (Summer In Siam is on the mix-CD wedding favor we gave out. I should post that as a playlist sometime.)
Brett Martin wrote a neat NYT piece about the Punk Rock Museum in Vegas.
Go buy Whitney Matheson’s 2023 diary comix!
Read Nicole Rudick’s piece on Joanna Russ and go buy that Library of America edition of Russ.
Library! Of! Taxidermy! (Paging Kate Lacour)
This WSJ piece about an influencer/self-help couple and the pressures of Being On(line) shares a lot of vibes with that OnlyFans farm piece I linked to a couple weeks ago, but with a much sadder ending and an ass-walloping final line.
I cry just a little bit every morning for the last few weeks, as the new Mutts email shows up at 6am and Patrick McDonnell tells the story of Guard Dog getting freed after all these years. Glen David Gold tells the story of his rescue Shiloh Shepard, Coco.
Speaking of Glen, and his memoir I Will Be Complete, WHICH YOU SHOULD GO READ, here’s a LONG profile of Michael Stipe not quite getting around to making a solo album. The parts I enjoyed the most are when he interacts with younger musicians, all of whom plotz around him, but I also dug his impostor syndrome issues and the ways he finds not to make the new songs.
Current/Recent Reading
Inherent Vice - Thomas Pynchon
Zero At The Bone: Fifty Entries Against Despair - Christian Wiman
He Held Radical Light: The Art of Faith, The Faith of Art - Christian Wiman
Sound Body, Fractured Mind
Last week I only got in 4 days of my 5-day workout routine due to post-Thanksgiving stuff (Sat.-Tue, alternating yoga & weights), but did join The Guys for their Monday morning run, so technically 5 workouts total. I thought I’d bail at the 3.1- or 5.3-mile marks on our route, but found I could run the whole 6.4 miles without a break, which was a pleasant surprise. We didn’t go hard (avg. 9:48/mi., as they took it easy for once), but the physical & mental endurance was important to me. This week’s cycle is going to be a mess. I joined The Guys for 5.4 miles of their long run yesterday, but didn’t have time to do my yoga workout. I might double up today with that and weights, but Tuesday’s workout is already written off, as I’ll be getting up at 4am so I can get to a day-long FDA meeting in MD. Let’s hope next week/end gives me more exercise opportunities. (I do my morning stretch-yoga-plank-pushup-clamshell-leg raise routine every goddamned day before I make my coffee, so at least that baseline is in place.)
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.
Peacocks wandered aimlessly / under an orange tree. / Why can’t she see me?,
—Gil Roth
Virtual Memories
Bluesky • Instagram • Flickr • YouTube • Linktr.ee
(no Twitter anymore, so don’t look for me there)