No Show
No new podcast, but some other news, + links, postcard-art & more
Intro
“There is no Diligence like that
That knows not an Until –”
Emily Dickinson, #880
No podcast for you! Late last week, after a really busy month-plus of work, + anxiety over our dog-boy’s dental procedure (greyhounds sometimes just die under anesthesia; Benny came out fine), + the realization that I’m still mentally blitzed from the mid-April experience of my finding pod-guest Michael Denneny dead in his apartment*, I looked at the empty slot for this week’s show and thought, “I could panickedly line up an emergency guest, and spend the weekend prepping, recording, editing, and posting it . . . or I could just let myself off the goddamned hook for once.”
* I thought I’d put Denneny’s death behind me by recording a monologue about it and hearing from so many of his friends, but when I was in the same neighborhood 4 weeks later to record w/Brian Dillon, I realized the whole experience was still echoing around in this big ol’ noggin of mine.
On Friday, I did make a few stabs at lining up a guest, and even got a tentative yes, but I realized that I’d be racing to get that together, would be doing the guest & listeners a disservice, and would wind up compounding my stress. Instead, you get a week without having to hear my voice. (Just kidding! I know almost nobody actually downloads/listens to the show.)
Last time I took a (non-year-end) week off was the week of my annual pharma conference in October, when I was way too stressed to spend time prepping & recording a show. I also had a psychological meltdown/transformation that preceding weekend, which I still need to write/record a monologue about.
I have to say, once I got over the self-induced guilt/panic over not making a show without having a ‘legit’ crisis as an excuse this weekend, I felt awfully at ease. The notion that I can slow down and recharge is alien to me, but I’m glad I did it.
But it’s not like I relaxed that much. Saturday was pretty zombie-like, one of those days when you never really feel like you’ve woken up, and when I got up Sunday, a funny thing happened.
I opened my computer, and thought, “You’ve got 40-50 pages of material for the 2nd issue of the ’zine you put out in 2020, and you only need 32 pages to get it done, so FINISH THAT GODDAMNED ‘ZINE. TODAY.”
And I did. I bumped the not-quite-ready stuff to the next issue, rewrote a late 2020 piece then edited it back again, tweaked the layout, ruthlessly edited my 12,000-word Clive James interview down to ~3,000 words, wrote my Back Page Blather column, and issue #2 of Haiku for Business Travelers was all ready by 5:00 p.m. on Sunday.
The next day I proofread it, while making good on my blood-oath not to make major changes, and it went off to the printer on Tuesday. For good measure, I also made a second printing of #1, since I’m down to my last copy.
So, even on a “Gil takes it easy” weekend, I wound up tackling a project that had been sitting for 30 months — I put out #1 in May 2020 with the goal of getting #2 out 6 months later, around Thanksgiving — and required no small amount of anxiety itself (writing!). But not having the podcast hanging over me — all the work that goes into making & posting the final product — has felt awfully good this week. I might even take some more breaks in future, maybe downshift the show’s frequency and trust that I won’t fall out of my rhythm.
That said, I’ve got a guest lined up for this weekend, and a tentative second guest, and a bunch of commitments tied to pub-dates through October, so I don’t think I’ll have gaps for a while. (But I may take the July 4th week off, then post 2 episodes the following week, because of publishing schedules.)
So that’s what’s going on: recharging from work & life stress/burnout took precedence over the podcast, and I also managed to make something new to share with you.
As far as the new issue of Haiku for Business Travelers goes: it’s print-only and it’s free, but if you want to give me some money to help defray the costs, then either subscribe to this Substack or kick me some cash at paypal.me/vmspod. The issue should arrive in early June, and if you never got #1, zap me about that.
And now, on with The Virtual Memories Show!
Podcastery
This week, I didn’t post jack. Sue me.
Last week, I posted Episode 539 of The Virtual Memories Show feat. Brian Dillon about his new book, AFFINITIES: On Art & Fascination (NYRB), which completes a “loose trilogy” around his connections to art, writing & the world, this time through a series of amazing essays about photography, dance, video, and other art forms, as well as the drift-nature of affinity itself. We get into the tendrils of influence (and how he has to shake himself loose of the reticence of Barthes & Sebald), his family history of close looking, and why he embraces mood over argument in his essays. We also talk about his decision to rewrite by hand the previously published pieces for this book to see if new connections revealed themselves, the challenges in wedding the critical & the memoiristic, how much personal info is too much in an essay, the writers he discovered late, why he doesn’t shy away from calling Affinities an essay collection, and more! Give it a listen and go read AFFINITIES (+ Essayism & Suppose a Sentence)!
Other recent episodes: John Wray • Ho Che Anderson • Finding Michael Denneny (+ followup) • Noah Van Sciver
Links & Such
RIP Martin Amis (tributes by Salman Rushdie, Ian McEwan, James Wood, Christian Lorentzen, AO Scott) . . . RIP Jim Brown . . . RIP Andy Rourke . . . RIP Rick Dalton . . .
Amis & I were supposed to record a podcast around his last novel, INSIDE STORY, in fall 2020, but he cancelled via his publisher a few days before, feeling he didn’t have anything new to say. I was bummed, partly because I’d read about 1,500 pages of his writing in the lead-up to our session, but mainly because I was looking forward to talking with a formidable writer & a member of that London literary circle, after my grand experience with Clive James in 2015. Also, I was hoping to get some Hitchens anecdotes out of him. I would say it’s ironic that he died from the same form of cancer that killed Hitchens (esophageal), but I wound up with the same form of leukemia that Clive had, so there’s no accounting for taste. Sure wish I’d gotten to sit down with him for a talk.
Here’s an obit in The Comics Journal for Chris Reynolds, who died on May 4.
Virginia Heffernan writes about Bad Bromance.
Around the turn of the century, I held an occasional brunch get-together I called Smart Guys Salon. It was at the WWE Cafe in Times Square, lest anyone get the idea we were actually taking the name seriously. Which is the lead-in to telling you that that NYer article about the monthly parties for ‘cancelled’ people is as inane as you’d think.
Good/scary Fred Kaplan piece on the new nuclear arms race.
Steven Heller writes about chronic pain.
Jerry Saltz writes about the Supreme Court decision that Warhol violated the copyright of a photograph of Prince.
I really dug this piece by W. David Marx about Natasha Degen’s book on how fashion took over the art world post-Warhol (or really via Warhol).
Derek Lowe has a neat piece on how ketamine works on depression and the implications for mind/body dualism.
Mark Wunderlich wrote about his love of postcards recently. As I’ve said many times this past ~18 months, I mail out a postcard every day. This weekend, I drew a postcard for a paying subscriber (see Art below). If you want a handmade one, become a paid subscriber. If you just want any ol’ postcard, make sure I’ve got your address so I can add you to the recipient/victim list. And maybe YOU can send ME a postcard somedarntime.
Merritt Tierce writes LONG about bad relationship with internet.
Dress sneakers? That’s a hard no.
Current reading
Rome As A Guide To The Good Life: A Philosophical Grand Tour - Scott Samuelson
Gravity’s Rainbow - Thomas Pynchon
Art
I drew a postcard of Bendico roaching on his sofa, quick pencil, then brush-pen. I like the design and may try it again. As mentioned above, it’s a postcard for one of my paying Substack supporters; I’m hoping to make a postcard each month for the payers. You should go to the Flickr album of most of the art I’ve made & find something you like.
Sound Body, Fractured Mind
I got in all 5 days of my weights & yoga cycle, Friday-Tuesday, thankfully. Also took a nice walk with one of my running pals on Tuesday. My weight’s still a little high, but my body feels okay, y’know?
Until Next Week
Thanks for reading this far! I’ll be back next with a new podcast (so I hope! I mean, that’s what I said last week, & look what happened)), great links, maybe some art, & maybe a little profundity or something.
Now my race is finally run / And as I tumble to the sun / All these things I can't achieve / Brought me crashing to my knees,
—Gil Roth
Virtual Memories
Mastodon • Instagram • Flickr • YouTube • Twitter • Linktr.ee
That drawing of your greyhound is lovely!!!
Have you looked at Ben Shahn's drawings yet?