Where Shall Wisdom Be Found?

New podcast with Karl Stevens, my decay, a bunch of links, a little art & more

Intro

Sorry this one is a day late. The week has been rough. Last night, I had some concern I might die in my sleep. On Monday morning, I got diagnosed with an infection around one of my impacted wisdom teeth, and despite my starting antibiotics right away, it got worse very fast: by next morning it was fever, intense pain emanating from the infected area to my ear & face, fatigue, inability to sleep, swallow, eat, etc.

By Tuesday evening, I was in the ER (on my dentist’s recommendation, to get IV antibiotics), where they didn’t explicitly say they wanted to keep me overnight, but managed not to report the results of my CT scan for three hours until I told them (at the 7-hour mark of my stay (during which time I saw the Yankees beat the White Sox and then 2/3rds of the same game on replay) that I was leaving: “I figure if the CT scan showed something bad, Radiology would’ve called & told you by now, so I’m going the [expletive deleted] home.”

I took a Lyft from the hospital and got in at 3:30 a.m. on Wednesday; 6 hours later I was at an oral surgeon, getting an incision & drain. The rest of the day was debilitating, and by the evening, as I lay on the sofa shaking with fever and wincing with pain, and while Amy took care of me & watched the Tom Hollander Pride & Prejudice, I wondered whether the swelling in my jaw and near my throat might stop my breathing during the night. Or — or maybe the bacteria was gonna get into my blood & cause sepsis! A — and the fever, the heart-flutters: it all meant I could just shut off overnight!

Lots of bad stuff occurs to you when you haven’t slept and every movement brings more pain (except for a 2-hour respite when acetaminophen, codeine, ibuprofen gestalt into something good).

I took my antibiotics & painkillers and went off to bed while she finished the movie. (She slept in the guest room so I could writhe in pain in peace.) The meds went to work pretty quickly, so I had peace to read and wonder what might happen to me that night.

AS IT TURNS OUT, I’m still here. I managed to get a few hours of sleep, and got up at 3:30 for another antibiotic dose (I mean, I was already awake, so hey), at which point I discovered that my fever had broken, because I was pouring sweat from head to toe. I was glad, although it meant tossing the sheets in the wash this morning before I went out to the oral surgeon to get the drain removed.

The surgeon was happy about how the area looked, then kept talking to me about next steps while my mouth filled with blood. A lot. I said, “Excuse me,” went to the sink and spit out a goodly amount of the red stuff. He said, “Don’t spit; rinse,” advice I would have appreciated before he took the drain out. I thought about that moment in Fight Club during the presentation when Ed Norton gives a bloody smile to the person across the table from him.

After, we consulted about next steps & getting these lower wisdom teeth extracted (next week, 2-for-1 special), and how I shouldn’t worry about sepsis or suffocation, because things seem to be draining just fine. With the fever down, I feel a bit more human now; good enough to fool you guys for another week.

Maybe next time, I’ll tell you how last weekend went, when this infection was creeping up on me, and we were in St. Louis for my youngest niece’s Bat Mitzvah. In fact, because you’ve been good sports, here’s a pic of her from that day, shortly before the mincha.

My niece, a few minutes before her Bat Mitzvah service, Aug. 5, 2023

And now, on with The Virtual Memories Show!

Podcastery

This week, I posted Episode 549 of The Virtual Memories Show, With MOTHER NATURE (Titan Comics), artist Karl Stevens adapts a graphic novel from an eco-horror screenplay by Oscar™-winner Jamie Lee Curtis & Russell Goldman. We get into how he wound up collaborating with JLC, the challenges in adapting a screenplay into comics and how it was sort of like directing his own movie, how he discovered his affinity for horror, and how nervous he was to show Jamie Lee his drawings of the character who’s modeled after her. We also discuss comics-making & graphomania, the long-lost comic shops & record stores of Northampton, MA, his drive to make it onto the cover of The New Yorker, and why he’s used the same pen nib for the last 30 years. Plus, we talk about the challenges and moving parts in making a biography of his father (and his dad’s insane Vietnam draft experience), how his family history goes back to the 1720s pre-America, why his favorite era of Jack Kirby was the ’70s, and of course, running. Give it a listen! And go read MOTHER NATURE!

No episode last week, but the week before I posted Episode 548 of The Virtual Memories Show, in which writer, musician and composer Howard Fishman joined the show to celebrate his amazing new book, TO ANYONE WHO EVER ASKS: The Life, Music and Mystery of Connie Converse (Dutton). We get into how he discovered the music of the enigmatic Connie Converse, what it was like to write a biography around the gaps in her life, the sheer amount of chance, happenstance, and miraculous occurrences that led to this book, and what it means for the idea of artistic legacy changed. We talk about how Connie Converse arose as a singer-songwriter in 1950s NYC (maybe) just a few years ahead of her time, her subsequent role as a public intellectual and progressive activist, her Cassandra-like nature and how she vanished without a trace in the mid-’70s. Give it a listen! And go read TO ANYONE WHO EVER ASKS.

Other recent episodes: Christopher Brown • Rian Hughes • Eddie Campbell • Remembering Michael Denneny • Mitchell Prothero

Links & Such

• RIP William Friedkin (w/an appreciation by Ben Schwartz) . . . RIP Robbie Robertson . . . RIP Carmen Xtravaganza . . . RIP DJ Casper . . .

• Nick Cave posted a heck of a response when asked about the use of ChatGPT to write song lyrics. I really do have to pitch him on recording with me when he’s in NYC in October.

• Huh: I thought Jeff Goldblum’s musical career began when he played New Jersey in The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension.

• So ... this week I learned about BAP via Graeme Wood’s article, and now I feel even more like we’re stuck in a bad 1970s SF novel.

• This article about Amtrak delays quotes the vice president of government affairs and policy at the Rail Passengers Association and OH MY GOD HOW DID I NOT GET THAT JOB?

• But if the serial killers go away, where will the next generation of true crime podcasters come from?

• Around the world in a (lot of) day(s).

• I’m pretty sure this was an omen in Homeric times.

Current reading

Gravity’s Rainbow - Thomas Pynchon (I finished my 4th reading of it while in the ER on Tuesday night; you can’t imagine how the phantasmagoria of the closing part of the book interacted with my fevered sleep those last few nights)

Cultural Amnesia - Clive James (concerned I might die in my sleep last night, I decided to reread my sneaky-favorite essay in this all-timer book: Paul Muratov. You should buy this book & read every page of it. And, of course, listen to my 2015 conversation with Clive.)

Vineland - Thomas Pynchon (since the combo of meds, painkillers, interrupted sleep, death-worries & such left me unable to sleep after finishing the Muratov essay, I figured, I may as well start the next book in my sequential Pynchon reread)

Art

In my hotel room last weekend, I wanted to sketch something, so I opened a pic of the sculpture of The Boxer At Rest and blammo. I did a few more little sketches during the weekend, but this is the one that stuck. You should go to the Flickr album of most of the art I’ve made & find something you like.

Sound Body, Fractured Mind

Whoa, Nelly. My whole routine got derailed, first due to travel and then this debilitating infection, which was already messing with me when I was away. I did my weights Friday morning, ran 2.5 miles on a hotel treadmill Saturday morning, but haven’t done a thing since, not even my morning stretching & exercise routine. Luckily, I’ve been in so much pain that I wasn’t overly concerned about my habits. I hope to get back to the morning routine tomorrow, and maybe do a yoga workout before I try weights again. But hey: not eating solid food + sweating through the night has left me down 7 lbs. since Monday, so at least I’m closing in on my target weight.

Until Next Week

Thanks for reading this far! I’ll be back next week with a new podcast, some great links, maybe some art, & who knows maybe a little profundity or something.

I'd either swim or I'd drown / Or just keep falling down and down / I think its that, that makes me quiver / Just to keep falling down,,

—Gil Roth
Virtual Memories
Bluesky • Instagram • Flickr • YouTube • Twitter • Linktr.ee