Hitting The Links: 9/24/23
Let's split this Substack in twain!
Intro
[The weekly version of this email was getting WAY long, so I decided to split it in two parts. On Wednesdays (or thereabouts), I’ll send out the email about the latest episode of the Virtual Memories Show podcast, with my ruminations/sermonettes, + my latest artistic fumblings, and on Sundays, I’ll send out this one with links galore, my current reading, and workout-goofiness. Maybe each’ll evolve into its own thing, but for now, embrace the mystery. —GR]
“I’m not religious; I just like the affliction.”
Yom Kippur begins tonight, so I’m clearing some decks, in hopes of freeing my mind from the preoccupations and anxieties that govern pretty much every waking (okay, fine: sleeping too) moment of my life. My SOP in the last few years during the ~25-hour fast is to read books written by people who knew they were dying; I’ve still got an unread stack of those, but maybe I’ll also get into Barthes’ Mourning Diary, which a friend gave me last fall after an intense multi-hour conversation. (I always kick off this period with Bruce Jay Friedman’s story, When you’re Excused, You’re Excused, which gives me some laughs before things get heavy.)
Last year’s Yom Kippur turned out to be life-changing for me. I woke up the morning after the fast with an imperative in my soul and a clarity of purpose I’d never felt before. I bought a plane ticket, booked a hotel, and hopped a flight the next day to attend an event that I knew would force me to confront some seriously unaddressed emotions and (okay, fine) trauma.
I’d tell you more about it, but I’m still trying to figure out how to make a big audio-monologue of the experience, a year later. That quote at the top is supposed to be the opening line. (I told a recent guest one part of the story and she said, “You totally need to make a comic of that,” which I never would’ve thought of, but am now formulating.)
But that was a one-time thing. I don’t go into the fast with any expectations, just contemplation of the infinite and the finite, and the certainty that I’ll have a caffeine-withdrawal headache to contend with.
If you’re taking part in Yom Kippur, may your fast be meaningful.
And now, let’s hit the links!
Links & Such
Recent Virtual Memories Show podcasts: Keith Knight • Brett Martin • Peter Rostovsky • Bill Griffith • Jerome Charyn • Ron Rosenbaum • Karl Stevens
Jeet Heer wrote a remembrance/obit for Joe Matt.
Going into the 2018 elections, one of my (Republican) lobbyists in DC asked me if I thought the R challenger to Sen. Bob Menendez had a shot at beating him, because of the scandals around the incumbent at the time. I said, “It’s NJ; the Dems could take him off the ticket and put ME on it one week before the election, and I’d win by 30 points.” I’m keeping my options open, is all I’m saying.
Marvel classics? Sure, why not
Glynnis Fawkes has a new comic in The New Yorker on saying goodbye to a car that was old enough to vote.
I still think articles like this should use my broösphere portmanteau.
Sounds like I really gotta visit that Manet/Degas exhibition at the Met this fall. Sebastian Smee and Jerry Saltz each wrote about Manet’s Olympia (SS, JS) and Sebastian wrote a separate piece about the exhibition and his writing on Manet & Berthe Morisot.
Fun article about the NYC book party Graydon Carter threw to celebrate Gay Talese’s new book.
I went to a book party last year that Liveright threw for Jerome Charyn’s novel BIG RED. It was an awful lot of fun, schmoozing with literary folks and a famous ballet dancer (“Well, Balanchine liked how I danced,” she said). Turns out it was everybody’s first book party since The Before Time, and we all missed that vibe.
Speaking of Graydon Carter, Alexandra Wolfe wrote in Air Mail about her dad (Tom Wolfe) and literary feuds vs. the Audience-Outrage Internet-Pile-Ons of today.
This other Air Mail piece about the changes at the MFA writing program at Bennington and Susan Cheever’s discrimination complaint is pretty depressing. I visited there twice and recorded with a bunch of its teachers and directors over the years; thanks to David Gates, I wound up meeting some wonderful writers. I know nothing lasts, and economic pressures hit a lot of arts-oriented institutions, but it’s just sad, is all. (Yes, the story likely has more sides than what’s in the article; I’m no dummy.)
Those two pieces kinda dovetail for me, because each says something about “goddamned kids today who don’t even read.” I don’t make any predictions for what “the future of literature” is, but for more than a decade I’ve felt like we’re in an era where the notion of greatness has been erased, in favor of everything being pretty good. I could go on, but like I said in the editor’s note, these emails are getting way too long.
So here’s my podcast producer, during Saturday’s remote session
Current reading
Mason & Dixon - Thomas Pynchon
John Le Carré: The Biography - Adam Sisman
MONICA - Daniel Clowes
Sound Body, Fractured Mind
I’m back in my workout swing, although I’ll miss Monday’s yoga due to Yom Kippur. I might double up today — weights in the morning, yoga in the afternoon — to keep up my 5-day cycle. I’m starting to put some muscle on again after that 3+-week illness/oral surgery layoff in August. I’m traveling next weekend, which might screw things up, but I’ll figure something out. Stay swole.
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.
“Hey, I'm Fred the Cancerian from New Jersey / I like collecting records and exploring the cave of the unknown”,
—Gil Roth
Virtual Memories
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