The Virtual Memories Show

For the final episode of 2020, James Oseland rejoins the show to celebrate the launch of his World Food series of cookbooks, beginning with World Food: Mexico City (Ten Speed Press). We talk about his first experience with Mexico City, why he makes it his home, why he considers it North America's version of Rome, what it was like to treat it as though he was visiting it anew for this book, and his love of capturing places through local cooks and the dishes that they make. We get into the food-writing he loves and his broader literary influences, the changes in the food magazine industry, his disinterest in food travel TV, and Mexican cuisine's propensity for incorporating other culture's ingredients and foods. We also discuss subtle flavor of chapulinas in guacamole, why James had a pretty good 2020, all things considered, and why I have to make his charred tomato salsa recipe (in hopes that it'll release my inner cook). Follow James on Twitter and Instagram • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Direct download: Episode_414_-_James_Oseland.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:54am EDT

With the wonderful documentary, The Booksellers (Greenwich Entertainment), director D.W. Young celebrates the world of antiquarian books and the personalities who trade in them. We talk about how The Booksellers came together, the need to celebrate book culture, and the experience of premiering the movie during the New York International Antiquarian Book Fair on the cusp of the pandemic. We also talk about each of our realizations that we're not that obsessive about old books, the ways collectors help preserve history, and the changing nature of what's antiquarian. We get into his move into filmmaking in his 30s (after working on a novel that didn't quite work out), DW's new project on the pandemic, the election, and New York artists, the thrill of the hunt and what we miss about the pre-digital world, the great experience of getting Fran Lebowitz in The Booksellers, a celebration of NYC's long-gone Book Row, and why he's optimistic about the next generation in book dealers and what they'll collect. Follow The Booksellers on Twitter and Instagram • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Direct download: Episode_413_-_DW_Young.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 10:08am EDT

It's the 8th annual Guest List episode! Thirty of this year's Virtual Memories Show guests tell us about the favorite books they read in 2020 and the books they hope to get to in 2021! Guests include Derf Backderf, Philip Boehm, Ruben Bolling, Betsy Bonner, Henri Cole, Joan Marans Dim, Emily Flake, Jonathan W. Gray, Tom Hart, Arthur Hoyle, Rian Hughes, Richard Kadrey, Ben Katchor, Kathe Koja, Tess Lewis, Ellen Lindner, Margot Mifflin, David Mikics, Otto Penzler, Woodrow Phoenix, Darryl Pinckney, Alta Price, Steve Ronin, Dmitry Samarov, Michael Shaw, Stoya, Benjamin Taylor, Jeff Trexler, John Vercher, and Sheila Williams! • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Direct download: Episode_412_-_The_Guest_List_2020.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 6:24pm EDT

In her debut memoir, To The Moon And Back: A Childhood Under The Influence (Heliotrope Books), Lisa Kohn tells the tale of how her mother brought her up in the Unification Church (that is, the Moonies), while her hippie dad exposed her to the drugs and decay of the East Village in the 1970s. We talk about how she survived both of those experiences to become a successful executive coach, and how the tools she used to heal herself turned out to be mighty useful for coaching others. We get into the allure of cults and how she managed to transition away from the Moonies, her work in the Second Gen community (people born or raised in a cult), what raising her own kids taught her about her parents' behavior, the perils of telling her kids about her life story (including her extensive drug history), her reaction to the current crop of documentaries about cults, the influence of Mary Karr on her writing, and how long it took her to find out who she actually is. Follow Lisa on Twitter and Instagram and her blog• More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Direct download: Episode_411_-_Lisa_Kohn.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:25am EDT

Essayist and editor Phillip Lopate rejoins the show to celebrate the publication of The Glorious American Essay: One Hundred Essays From Colonial Times To The Present (Pantheon). We talk about the origins of this anthology & how it transformed into a three-part series (two more coming next year!), Phillip's self-admitted megalomania about the essay form, how the essay both paralleled and helped change American thought over the centuries, and just what's so Glorious about The Glorious American Essay. We get into the challenge of limiting the collection to 100 essays, the value of canons and the need to revise them, the postwar golden age of the essay, the challenge of compiling work from the 21st century, and Emerson's role as the key to the American essay (and how Phillip came to understand him through reading his notebooks). We also get into how his pandemic is going, how his students' essays about lockdown life are better than some of the ones he's read from older writers, his take on the Mets' new ownership and why he's glad sports came back during COVID, and what it was like to read so deeply in the history of American essays and thought during the Trump presidency. • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Direct download: Episode_410_-_Phillip_Lopate.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 6:40pm EDT

With his amazing new book XX (Overlook Press), Rian Hughes gets to add "novelist" to his titles of graphic designer, typographer, illustrator, comics writer & artist, and photographer. We get into how he wrote a science fiction narrative using graphic design as a tool & mode of storytelling (& why more writers should consider graphic design as a part of their work), how technology had to catch up to his vision of the novel, and why he's so interested in semiotics and how ideas get into our heads. We talk about his childhood entré into type and graphic design, the boredom of illustration and marketing, the ways design involves defining problems and solutions and how that does and doesn't apply to fiction, and his affection for science fiction pulps. We also discuss whether he can turn off his design eye, the new frontiers in technology and the plasticity of the digital realm, the perils of cultural conflict, and why everything for him comes down to colors, shapes, actions and language and what they mean. Follow Rian on Twitter and Instagram • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Direct download: Episode_409_-_Rian_Hughes.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 7:04am EDT

With her wonderful new memoir, SELF-PORTRAIT (NYRB), celebrated life-painter Celia Paul explores her life as an artist, the evolution of her portraiture, her need for a Virginia Woolf-ian Room of One’s Own, and her 10-year relationship with Lucian Freud (c.1978-88). We get into the influence she and Freud had on each other's work, how she took control of her life and her art, the moral component of life-painting, the importance of being selfish, the conflict for women artists between being loved and following your own path, her affinity for the artist Gwen John, her antipathy toward the word "muse," and how much she flat-out hates being called an artist "in her own right". We talk about the influence of Collette & Duras on her writing, her decision to incorporate her journals in the memoir and the continuity of self they reveal, why she only paints portraits of people she knows well (and why her paintings of her sister Kate as self-portraits), the uses of stillness, how she re-evaluated her life after Lucian Freud's death in 2011, why letters are like painting, and much more. • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Direct download: Episode_408_-_Celia_Paul.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:27am EDT

Journalist and scholar Virginia Postrel rejoins the show to talk about her brand-new book, The Fabric of Civilization: How Textiles Made The World (Basic Books). We get into how textiles intersect with technology, culture, commerce, politics, and more, the long gestation of this book & the dress that started it all, humanity's textile-amnesia, and Virginia's reversal of Arthur C. Clarke's third law of technology. We discuss the textile skills she learned (or tried to learn) in prep for the book and how she's now the owner of several looms, the extensive travel she undertook for research, how the book wouldn't have been possible during the pandemic, the notion of civilization as both survival technology and a cumulative process, how social technologies were just as key as physical ones to our development, and more! Follow Virginia on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Vimeo • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Direct download: Episode_407_-_Virginia_Postrel.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 6:35am EDT

In 2018, essayist David Shields wrote Nobody Hates Trump More Than Trump: An Intervention (Thought Catalog). For Election Day 2020, we decided to revisit that book, how he would write it differently now, and why Trump is the Bizarro World's Personal Essayist #1. I prompt David with the adventitious sight of a car that bore the message, "Compassion Is Another Word For Control," and we go off to the conversational races, talking politics, the superior messaging tactics of the right-wing, concerns about far-left cultural policies, faith in radical skeptical intelligence, the absence of reality hunger vis-a-vis the history of America, why rage isn't a primary emotion but rather a cover for fear and pain, the lessons of Howard Stern, and why "An Intervention" is not for Trump but for the American people. Follow David on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Direct download: Episode_406_-_David_Shields.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 6:18am EDT

Lawyer, ethics advisor and comics nerd Jeff Trexler joins the show to talk about his new role as Interim Executive Director of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. We get into his plans to help rebuild the CBLDF's reputation and ethics code after the sexual harassment scandal of its previous director, his experiences helping people pursue their harassment claims and launching antiharassment campaigns in the fashion world, how the Fund's role has changed over the decades, and why he's comfortable with that interim title. We also get into his obsessions with comics and design, the broad meaning of First Amendment law (and why R Sikoryak's recent Constitution Illustrated should be required reading), how to learn from ethics disasters, how nonprofits can grow and how they can become sclerotic, his childhood McLuhan-inspired interpretation of the theme to the Batman TV show, how our mutual friend Tom Spurgeon was the hub of the comics industry, and what it's been like to live without him. Follow Jeff on Twitter • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Direct download: Episode_405_-_Jeff_Trexler.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 7:00pm EDT

Got the election / pandemic / climate change / midlife / inexplicable rash blues? Then listen to me and cartoonist & humorist Michael Shaw talk about his new book, The Elements of Stress and the Pursuit of Happy-ish in this Current Sh*tstorm (co-authored by the great Bob Eckstein, from Weekly Humorist Press)! We get into how Michael and Bob managed to mash up Strunk & White with Thurber & White to create a prose & cartoons handbook to dealing with This Whole Situation, then explore Michael's history in cartooning and humor, how he balances that with a day job in writing and editing, his discovery that if he drew cartoons any better he'd be terrible, and why he took a hiatus from submitting gags to The New Yorker (and whether they know he's taken said hiatus). We also get into his literary loves, the perils of listening to William S. Burroughs audiobooks on late-night commutes, how his florid-rococo style balances with Eckstein's Hemingway-on-valium approach, the lesson he learned from Milton Glaser about One Element of Dissonance, and more! Follow Michael on Twitter and Instagram • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Direct download: Episode_404_-_Michael_Shaw.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 6:57pm EDT

Comedy legend Merrill Markoe returns to the show to celebrate her new graphic memoir, We Saw Scenery: The Early Diaries of Merrill Markoe (Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill)! We talk about how it felt to spend time with her childhood self over the course of the book, the decision to illustrate it and what that process taught her about cartooning, what contemporary Merrill has to say to her younger self, and how she owns up to having a crush on a junior high boy who made Heil Hitler salutes at her. We also get into the influence of Lynda Barry on her work, why she's considering leaving Malibu for the Pacific Northwest, her decision to auction off her Late Night with David Letterman gear to contribute to charities (like this one!), her love for Pen15, the joy of the Undo button, and how the world has changed for funny women. And speaking of, Emily Flake also joins the show to talk about the Kickstarter for St. Nell's Humor Writing Residency for Ladies (expiring Oct. 30, so go check it out)! Follow Merrill on Twitter and Instagram • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Direct download: Episode_403_-_Merrill_Markoe.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 9:28am EDT

Writer and cultural critic Darryl Pinckney joins the show to celebrate the new edition of Blackballed: The Black Vote and US Democracy (NYRB) and the paperback of Busted in New York and Other Essays (Picador). We talk about revisiting his Obama-era writings in the post-2016 world, the importance of the vote and the question of whether there's a Black vote, or Black voters. We discuss his surprise at the persistence of makeup of the BLM protests, his place in the historical chain and the moment he felt out of touch, and his history at the New York Review of Books and its roots in the anti-Vietnam War movement. We also get into the fractured relationship between Jews and Blacks (following their close ties during the civil rights movement), the companionship of books during the pandemic, the commodification of the arts, the memoir he's working on about Elizabeth Hardwick and 1970s NYC, and more, including an image I've pondered for years: Jesse Jackson's tears the night of Obama's election in 2008. Follow Darryl at the New York Review of Books • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Direct download: Episode_402_-_Darryl_Pinckney.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 9:53am EDT

Author, translator, professor and MacArthur Fellow John Keene joins the show to talk about how voices are found and how they're erased. We get into how Benedictine monks started him on the road to translation, which languages he wishes he had, the perils of knowing just enough of a language to get in trouble, and how translation trains one to let go of ego. We discuss his amazing but uncharacterizable fiction collection, Counternarratives (New Directions), along with his powerful essay, Translating Poetry, Translating Blackness, and how to explore Black representation across cultural boundaries. We also get into the performative aspects of BLM by corporations and institutions and would it would take to transform into real change, the impact of his MacArthur "genius" grant, why he's trying to move away from Counternarratives' narrative density in his new work, and more. Follow John on Twitter and Instagram and harass him about blogging more • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Direct download: Episode_401_-_John_Keene.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 5:33pm EDT

Legendary entertainment columnist Michael Musto joins the show to talk about the evolution of gossip, nightlife, New York City, celebrity, and queer representation over the years! We get into the origins of his La Dolce Musto column in The Village Voice (and what led to the magazine's decline and death), the parallels and differences between the AIDS crisis and COVID-19, the highs and lows of '80s NYC and how the city will bounce back post-pandemic, the impact of RuPaul on the culture, his Warhol story, the generational gaps in gay upbringing, the bridges he's burned, the reason he never had the nerve to talk to Madonna face to face, the best gift-bag he ever received, how his folks came around about his being gay but were always worried about his being a journalist, why he only reads celebrity memoirs, and more. It's a heck of a way to celebrate our 400th episode! Follow Michael on Twitter • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Direct download: Episode_400_-_Michael_Musto.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 11:53am EDT

With her new short story anthology, Entanglements: Tomorrow's Lovers, Families, and Friends (MIT Press), editor Sheila Williams brings together a panoply of voices to explore how technology and scientific advances have on the deepest human relationships. We talk about Sheila's nearly 40 years editing science fiction stories at Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, how she manages to balance new and diverse voices with a foundation of SF's history, how she copes with receiving ~800 stories a month (while only being able to buy 5-6), and technology's greater role in day-to-day life and what that means for writers' and readers' imagination and expectations. We also get into her author freakouts (like going blank when she met Samuel R. Delany many years ago), how her philosophy background helps her as an editor, missing cons and festivals, the challenge of editing an author in translation (in this case Xia Jia), and more. Follow Sheila on Twitter and Instagram • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Direct download: Episode_399_-_Sheila_Williams.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 9:57am EDT

Cartoonist R. Sikoryak rejoins the show to talk about his new book, Constitution Illustrated (Drawn & Quarterly), and how his mode of parodying other comics made a perfect complement to the founding document of the United States. We get into what surprised him about the Constitution as he read it for this project, the challenge of representing the Three-Fifths Compromise, as well as the other artistic and compositional challenges of the book (all those dense word balloons!). We also talk about his family's immigrant history, how he's coping with the pandemic after finishing this book, why we both miss SPX, the artists he had the most trouble parodying, the secondary reading that went into Constitution Illustrated, why he was glad to do a book without Trump in it, his devotion to the scratchy old newspaper style of comics, and why he had to use Peanuts to represent the First Amendment. Follow Bob on Twitter and Instagram • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Direct download: Episode_398_-_R_Sikoryak.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 11:31am EDT

With Three Rings: A Tale of Exile, Narrative, and Fate (UVA Press), Daniel Mendelsohn has written one of my favorite books of 2020. We get into Homer's use of Ring Composition and how it shapes Three Rings, how this book grew out of his experience writing An Odyssey, why he chose François Fénelon, Eric Auerbach, and WG Sebald as the three exiled subjects of his book, and how we understand the relationship between "what happened" and "the story of what happened" (that is, how narration changes the nature of facts). We also get into how he managed to compress and capture just about all of his major themes in his briefest book, why Auerbach disliked ring composition, and what it says about Homeric vs. Hebrew — or optimistic vs. pessimistic — styles of story, how every story has more stories embedded in it, and why Istanbul may serve as the fusion of Athens & Jerusalem. We also get into Daniel's pandemic experience and coping mechanisms for anxiety and dread, his mom's involvement in Ken Burns' upcoming documentary about the Holocaust in America, why translation is like a crossword puzzle for him, the negatives of focusing on STEM to the detriment of the liberal arts, and how we can both relate to Auerbach's comment, “If it had been possible for me to acquaint myself with all the work that has been done on so many subjects, I might have never reached the point of writing.” Follow Daniel on Twitter and Instagram • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Direct download: Episode_397_-_Daniel_Mendelsohn.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 9:16am EDT

To celebrate the launch of WOKE, his fantastic new comedy series on Hulu, Keith Knight rejoins the show! A lot has gone on since our 2015 conversation, so we get into how the country has changed, how his slideshows about police brutality and racial illiteracy are more in demand than ever (pandemic notwithstanding), and the reasons behind the surge in approval for BLM. We talk about how WOKE came together, the choice of Lamorne Morris to play Keef, why he wanted to be involved in producing WOKE, rather than selling the idea & walking off, what it was like to work in a collaborative environment after years as a solo artist, how different TV writing is than comics, the fun in casting the voices of the objects that come to life in the show, and how closely the lead character's woke experience parallels his own. We also discuss his drive to keep making comics, the good fortune of finishing shooting the series right before the pandemic shut everything down, and why he sure wishes he & his family could have gotten out of NC for a few weeks this summer for their annual Schwarzwald trip to see the in-laws. Follow Keith on Twitter and Instagram, and show him some support on Patreon • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Direct download: Episode_396_-_Keith_Knight.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 11:17am EDT

With Kent State: Four Dead In Ohio (Abrams ComicArts), Derf Backderf not only creates a graphic history of one of America's darkest chapters, he gives voice to the students killed by the National Guard 50 years ago and warns us about the times ahead. We talk about the legacy of the Kent State shootings, what Kent State taught America about the suppression of dissent and what we must learn from it as protests grow across the country, as well as the research and work that went into this book, the ways in which it challenged him as a comics artist, how he rendered the mundane aspects of life for both the students and the guardsmen, and his own childhood connection to the events leading up to the massacre. We also get into the unique power of comics to tell this story, how cartoons and other pop culture covered the Vietnam protests in that era, the international book tour that would have accompanied the originally planned release of this book last spring, and more. Follow Derf on Twitter and Instagram • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Direct download: Episode_395_-_Derf_Backderf.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:17am EDT

Poet Henri Cole joins the show to celebrate his brand-new collection, Blizzard: Poems (FSG). We get into his evolution as a poet over the 10 volumes he's published to date, the transformative year he spent in Japan, how the closet compelled queer poets to develop original emblems and symbols to convey their private experience (and his transcendent experience of reading James Merrill's Christmas Tree), and how a fan letter from Harold Bloom gave him a foundation during some tough times. We also get into his wonderful 2018 memoir, Orphic Paris (NYRB), whether he misses France or California more during the pandemic, his affinity for literary pilgrimage (and a recent one he took to Elizabeth Bishop's grave), his use of the sonnet form and his enjoyment of the constraints and parameters of the physical page, how he knows (or thinks he knows) when a poem is done, and more! Follow Henri on Twitter • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Direct download: Episode_394_-_Henri_Cole.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 12:04pm EDT

With her new memoir The Book Of Atlantis Black (Tin House), author Betsy Bonner explores her sister's mysterious death by overdose in a Tijuana hotel. We talk about how she knew she was ready to write this story, what it was like to look at her sister's life like a detective rather than as a sibling, the history of trauma in her family and whether she considers herself a survivor, the process of rereleasing her sister's music, and the ethics of writing a memoir with some shady characters and unreliable documents. We get into Betsy's literary influences, the writers she plotzed over when she was Director at 92Y Unterberg Poetry Center, her pandemic life & what she misses about NYC, how her modes of writing differ from poetry to memoir to fiction, how the meaning of family changes over the course of The Book of Atlantis Black, and more. Learn more about The Book of Atlantis Black • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Direct download: Episode_393_-_Betsy_Bonner.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 9:27am EDT

With his new book, Stanley Kubrick: American Filmmaker (Yale University Press), David Mikics explores the life and movies of one of cinema's greatest directors. We talk about David's intro to his work (seeing 2001 at the age of 12 (!)) and the research that went into this concise and wonderful biography, why Kubrick's movies work as literary experiences, which of his movies speaks most to This Whole Situation we're in, and Kubrick's Jewishness and the holocaust movie he could never make. We get into the director's perfectionism, right down to his movies' newspaper advertising, how he balanced being control-freak in a collaborative medium like film, the role of masculinity and the lack of women in many of his movies, and the unmade projects we wish he had gotten around to (he wanted to adapt Chess Story, my favorite Stefan Zweig story!). We also get into David's experiences with the late Harold Bloom, how he's adapted to teaching via Zoom, whether Lolita (the novel, not Kubrick's adaptation) survives the 'cancel culture' era, and why The Shining is his comfort movie, disturbing as that sounds. Follow David on Facebook • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Direct download: Episode_392_-_David_Mikics.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 7:32am EDT

Can there be economic justice without environmental justice? With his new novel, FAILED STATE (Harper Voyager), Christopher Brown returns to the alternate America of Tropic of Kansas (2017) and Rule of Capture (2019) to explore the possibility of utopia and the catastrophe of man's disconnect from the land. We talk about how he reprised his great character Donny Kimoe (causing Amazon to categorize this book as "Dystopian Lawyer"), the roots of the world he built in these novels and his drive to publish 3 books in 4 years, and how the pandemic is influencing the choice of his next project, and how he's been coping since our COVID Check-In a few months ago. We also get into the culture of undocumented people in his area of Texas, the documentary TV episode about his home in east Austin, his current binge of Latin American horror by women writers, the role of resistance when the law is being subverted by politics, the future of his wonderful Field Notes weekly e-mail, and more! Follow Chris on Twitter and Instagram • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Direct download: Episode_391_-_Christopher_Brown.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 12:54pm EDT

With his fantastic new book, Evil Geniuses: The Unmaking of America (Random House), Kurt Andersen explores how rich conservatives responded to the 1960s by pushing America on a pro-business trajectory that has led to record income inequality and a nation unequipped to handle a pandemic. We get into the one-two punch of this book and Kurt's previous history of America, Fantasyland, the over-exaggeration of individualism and how puts us on the precipice of disaster, post-'80s cultural stasis and nostalgia, the way "if it feels good, do it" led to "profits over all", the long-term impact of the Occupy movement, and how his kids give him optimism that this can all be fixed. We also get into his first New York City moment, the lessons learned from his 20-year tenure hosting Studio 360 on PRI, pandemic life and his re-integration into NYC, how we both treat our interviews like first dates, why he wants to get back to writing novels, and plenty more. Follow Kurt on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Direct download: Episode_390_-_Kurt_Andersen.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:56am EDT

Who's driving whom? With Crash Course (Street Noise Books), British cartoonist, artist and designer Woodrow Phoenix examines what cars do to us: physically, mentally, and environmentally. We talk about the evolution of Crash Course, the stint in LA that inspired it, the visual and design choices that make it a haunting piece of art, and how he reconciles driving his Mini Cooper One. We also get into growing up in South London, what being Black means in the UK and US, his compulsion to experiment with styles, why he sticks with pencils and inks, and his typography and design background and how they inform the semiotics of Crash Course. Plus, he nerds out HARD for Carmine Infantino, we nerd out together for Al Hischfeld, and we try to figure out why his recurring themes are duplication, language, perception and the shifting nature of reality. Oh, and I try to get him to spend a lot of money on bookshelves. Follow Woodrow on Twitter • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Direct download: Episode_389_-_Woodrow_Phoenix.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 7:21pm EDT

With her new book, Looking for Miss America: A Pageant's 100-Year Quest to Define Womanhood (Counterpoint), Margot Mifflin has written a compelling, thoughtful history and exploration of a uniquely American phenomenon. We got together to talk about the story of the Miss America Pageant — sorry, Competition — and its cultural significance (including its racist restrictions), how the pageant has evolved over a century, sometimes reflecting women's roles in America, sometimes reflecting men's perspectives of women, the pageant's heyday of the 1950s and '60s and its struggles since then, and the 2018 decision to get rid of the swimsuit portion. Along the way, we talk about feminist protests of the pageant, the great life-story of 1951 winner Yolande Betbeze, the history of Atlantic City and its decline, the common elements of most Miss America memoirs, the one winner she wishes she'd interviewed, Philip Roth's thread throughout her book, and how she'd change Miss America for this era. Follow Margot on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Direct download: Episode_388_-_Margot_Mifflin.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 9:14am EDT

Author, editor & memoirist Benjamin Taylor joins the show to talk about his wonderful new memoir, Here We Are: My Friendship with Philip Roth (Penguin). We get into how his relationship with Roth evolved over 20 years, how it affected his own writing, and his notion that everything that happened is still happening. We talk about the nature of friendship and how it may differ from literary friendship, Benjamin's fixation on older friends, why The Human Stain is his favorite of Roth's novels, the notion of "literary lions" like Roth, Bellow, Oates, Updike, and Ozick, and why this era seems bereft of them. He also fills us in on how long walks with Vivian Gornick have helped him handle Pandemic World, why fiction isn't the only worthwhile game in town, what it means to be an American and a heartbroken patriot, and plenty more. Follow Benjamin on Twitter and Instagram • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Direct download: Episode_387_-_Benjamin_Taylor.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 10:30am EDT

Comedian, actress and Emmy-winning TV writer Judy Gold joins the show to celebrate her brand new book, Yes, I CAN Say That: When They Come for the Comedians, We Are All in Trouble (Dey St.). We get into the role of comedy in society, the perils of censorship (from the left and the right), and what living through the AIDS crisis taught her about the need to laugh. We get into her history in standup, how audiences have become more offendable, how she got into her IDGAF mode in her 40s, who can take a joke and who can't (and who can tell a joke and who can't), the crucible of hanging out with comedians after shows, how she's dealing with pandemic life and how COVID-19 forced the longest break in her career, what she's learned from hosting Kill Me Now for 5+ years and who some of her Mount Rushmore guests have been, and plenty more. Follow Judy on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Direct download: Episode_386_-_Judy_Gold.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:37am EDT

Batter up! Let's celebrate Major League Baseball's 2020 Opening Day by talking with cartoonist, illustrator and baseball fan Ellen Lindner. We get into Ellen's great 'zine about the role of women in the history of baseball, Cranklet's Chronicle (1 & 2), her own history with baseball, why she's a Mets fan, her theories about Aaron Judge's mystery-injury, and what it's like being in the narrow Venn overlap of comics-makers and sports fans. We also explore her comics upbringing, the education she got by volunteering at the Words and Pictures Museum of Sequential Art, the comics festivals she misses the most in Pandemic World, the time she impressed David B. with her French, how to tell family stories without alienating one's family, her side-project of sewing masks and biking around NYC to deliver them, the cut-out figure she submitted to the Mets, and more. Follow Ellen on Twitter and Instagram • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Direct download: Episode_385_-_Ellen_Lindner.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 9:36am EDT

Cartoonist and illustrator Adrian Tomine is in it for the long haul. With his new graphic memoir, The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Cartoonist (Drawn & Quarterly), he explores his lifelong connection to comics and the embarrassments & humiliations they've caused him. We get into the new book and talk about whether it was worth it, what brought him to the sketchbook style he adopted for this one, the differences between his comics and illustration work, being accepted by his cartooning heroes, and the importance of mindless time. We also talk about his ideal reader, the anxiety of influence and vice versa, what he misses about floppy comics (as opposed to bookstore graphic novels), the redactions he made in Loneliness to protect the douche-y, Adrian's remembrances of Richard Sala, and much more. • Follow Adrian on Instagram • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Direct download: Episode_384_-_Adrian_Tomine.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 9:08am EDT

Artist, cartoonist, and clotheshorse Everett Glenn joins the show from Berlin to talk about how narrating his life as a story helped him make (some) sense of his fragmented, chaotic upbringing (he talks more about that upbringing in this great conversation with Noah Van Sciver). We get into his evolution and influences as a cartoonist through his Unsmooth graphic novel and his recent amazing achievement of the 20-page story The Gigs (which you HAVE to read), how he skipped the idol-worship phase of literature, how Cool World and Ralph Bakshi blew his mind at an impressionable age, and how he deals with the self-eating snake of racial identity from the perspective of a Black American living in Germany. We also talk about the importance of design, the origins of his ligne claire, where his fantastic clothing sense comes from, how he learned tailoring in an attempt to get a visa, how the confidence it takes to push the fashion envelope can feed into confidence in other parts of life, and more! Follow Everett's Instagram feeds for his comics and his fashion, and support his Patreon • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Direct download: Episode_383_-_Everett_Glenn.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 11:36am EDT

With Three Fifths (Agora), debut author John Vercher explores race and representation in a taut crime novel. We get into Black identity and the notion of 'passing' in America, the origins of Three Fifths and its evolution over a two-decade span, and how John's literary idols led him to the spare prose that carries the book's tension. We also get into his roundabout writing career, how an MFA program doesn't necessarily prepare one for the job-aspects of writing, the decision to place Three Fifths in 1995 (think Rodney King, OJ, and no cell phones or internet), John's martial arts background and how it informs his writing, how he integrated his characters' love of superhero comics into their psychologies, the need to pay it forward, and more. • Follow John on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Direct download: Episode_382_-_John_Vercher.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 11:02am EDT

Author & St. John's College tutor Zena Hitz joins the show to talk about her wonderful new book, Lost in Thought: The Hidden Pleasures of an Intellectual Life (Princeton University Press). We get into the nature of learning for its own sake, the corruption of academia and its potential reform, how St. John's prepared us for the world by not preparing us, and why the Newton's Principia is the toughest thing on the SJC curriculum. We also talk about the joy of autodidacts and our shared love of The Peregrine, why she disagrees with the notion that learning-for-its-own-sake is a privilege of the elite, the challenges of leading seminars by Zoom, and how bureaucracy creeps into every system. We also tackle my lightning round of questions for SJC tutors, what she'd add to the curriculum and what she'd subtract, and answer the long-standing question: What is virtue and can it be taught? Follow Zena on Twitter • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Direct download: Episode_381_-_Zena_Hitz.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:45am EDT

Author & publisher Bill Campbell joins the show to talk about what he's learned from running Rosarium Publishing (and how he accidentally became a publisher). We get into how having a diverse roster of authors and cartoonists is easy if you're willing to look, how independent bookstores generally don't support independent presses, and how work-life balance is something he doesn't even consider. We also talk about the impact of Rosarium's first book, Mothership: Tales from Afrofuturism and Beyond, the continued significance of their 2015 anthology, APB: Artists against Police Brutality, the cognitive dissonance of living in Washington, DC, his upcoming graphic novel about a Klan rally in Pittsburgh and why history equals horror, the challenges of continuing to publish during the pandemic, how lockdown taught him that he's not as antisocial as he thought, and more. • Follow Bill on Twitter and Instagram and follow Rosarium Publishing on Twitter • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Direct download: Episode_380_-_Bill_Campbell.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 9:36am EDT

The beyond-legendary designer Milton Glaser died on June 26, 2020, on his 91st birthday. To celebrate his life and world-changing career, I've re-posted our 2019 podcast, along with a new introduction. • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Direct download: Milton_Glaser_Tribute_Episode.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 7:25am EDT

I nerd out with author, English professor, and hardcore comics reader Jonathan W. Gray. We talk about how Blackness is represented in American comics (the subject of his next book), how Alan Moore's Swamp Thing changed his life, and how he was teaching comics when there weren't a lot of college courses on comics. We get into the perils and perks of academia, what it's like teaching at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and protesting against police violence, the influence of Kyle Baker's Nat Turner & John Lewis' March on his work, the horrifying question of whether we're actually in the best timeline right now, and plenty more. Follow Jonathan on Twitter • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Direct download: Episode_379_-_Jonathan_W_Gray.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 9:36am EDT

Herblock Award-winning cartoonist Ruben Bolling joins the show to celebrate 30 years of his comic, Tom The Dancing Bug! We talk about his two new collections, Into the Trumpverse and The Super-Fun-Pak Comix Reader, and how pandemic-uncertainty means you'll need to pre-order those books NOW in order to get 'em. We also get into how Tom The Dancing Bug has evolved over the decades, why he's never drawn himself in a strip (which I think is tied into his regret at using a pseudonym all these years), the benefits of using an open format without recurring characters (for the most part), how Bill Griffith's Zippy the Pinhead blew his mind when he was young, his embarrassment of riches when the blurbs for Into the Trumpverse started coming in, secretly being glad his kids are around so much during the pandemic, why he'd love to get back to making more of his EMU Club series of kids books, and plenty more! Pre-order Into the Trumpverse and The Super-Fun-Pak Comix Reader by June 30, 2020 • Follow Ruben on Twitter and Instagram, and support his work via The Inner Hive • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Direct download: Episode_378_-_Ruben_Bolling.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 9:13am EDT

Designer, artist and writer Keith Henry Brown joins the show to talk about his new kids book, Birth of The Cool: How Miles Davis Found His Sound. We get into the twists and turns of his illustration career, exploring the balancing act of art & commerce in his main role as an art director, the role of jazz in his work, how he started off by achieving his childhood goal of drawing for Marvel Comics, but rapidly realized it wasn't for him, the ongoing evolution of his style, how he discovered his place at the Society of Illustrators, the longform graphic novel he's hoping to create, the issues of race in his career, and more. • Follow Keith on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram• More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Direct download: Episode_377_-_Keith_Henry_Brown.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 7:01am EDT

Through his work at Publishers Weekly, editor Calvin Reid has been an important advocate for comics and graphic novel publishing for decades. We get into his history with comics and making art, how he began writing about the book publishing world, and the weirdness of having to update the annual retailer survey to reflect the effect of the pandemic on booksellers. Calvin talks about the transformative nature of Black Lives Matter, the lack of diversity in publishing (which he wrote about 25 years ago), and how Black artists are represented in mainstream comics, as well as how wearing a mask helps protects him from COVID, satisfies his superhero fantasies, AND gets him likes on social media. Follow Calvin on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram• More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Direct download: Episode_376_-_Calvin_Reid.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 7:54am EDT

Author Arthur Hoyle joins the show to talk about his new book, Mavericks, Mystics, and Misfits: Americans Against the Grain (Sunbury Press), in which profiles of American figures help illustrate the paradoxes and aspirations of a nation. We get into how the book grew out of the concept of the exemplar put forth by Henry Miller (the subject of Arthur's first book), his vision of America and how the florid language of the founding fathers is like PR for a damaging product, and how his selection of biographical subjects in MM&M represents the diversity of America in its ethnicity and geographic spread. We also get into climate change and rampant capitalism, his practice of "first draft, best draft", the fascist seed of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, how the pandemic scrambled his trip to Patagonia and led to an odyssey to get back to Southern California, his next book about the tension artists face between the muse & the mundane, our various ideas of how to treat Henry Miller in film & fiction, and more! • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Direct download: Episode_375_-_Arthur_Hoyle.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 9:24am EDT

Translator and director Philip Boehm joins the show fresh off winning his second Helen & Kurt Wolff Translator's Prize. We talk about his prize-winning translation of Christine Wunnicke's The Fox & Dr. Shimamura (New Directions), and the research and challenges that went into bringing the eerie historical novel to life in English, then get into his time in Poland in the '80s, how it shaped his ideas on the role of the arts in society, and how he had to smuggle his work out of the country, the differences between translating for the page vs. the stage, his role as Artistic Director of Upstream Theater, the time he pranked a publisher with a fake letter from Kafka to Milena, the pressure of translating canonical works and the joy of meeting & befriending authors he works on, the parallels between Iron Curtain countries in the '80s & America today, how every theatrical staging is an act of translation, regardless of the source language, why German is like Lego while Polish is like autumnal rustling, how he's dealing with Pandemic Life in Texas, and more! • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Direct download: Episode_374_-_Philip_Boehm.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 5:11pm EDT

Cartoonist Dylan Horrocks checks in from Wellington, NZ. We celebrate his country's success at overcoming the pandemic, but get into the darker lessons he learned during lockdown, and his shame at having to shrink his circle of concern during the depths of it. We get into making & reading comics during This Whole Situation, the grace of NZ's prime minister and the dry wit of its director-general of health, the joy of getting back to the pub, the way scientist Siouxsie Wiles & cartoonist Toby Morris collaborated to educate NZ about COVID-19, how the BLM protests have translated to his country, the comics projects he's working on, and plenty more. Follow Dylan on Twitter and Instagram, and read his all-time great graphic novel, Hicksville • Listen to our full-length podcast • More info at our site • Find all our COVID Check-In episodes • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Direct download: COVID_Check-In_with_Dylan_Horrocks.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 7:57am EDT

Photographer Steve Prue checks in from Brooklyn. We talk about how he got started in (largely NSFW) photography and the origin of Teamrockstar Images, how he's dealing with pandemic life (his roommate is yesterday's guest, Stoya), figuring out how to coordinate remote shoots with models, his love of burlesque and people who have an aversion to clothes, how he melted down when he met Britney Spears, our mutual love of the work of Richard Kadrey, his obsessive, studio-level lighting for routine Zoom calls, and more. Follow Steve on Twitter, and Instagram, OnlyFans, Vimeo and Patreon, and check out Teamrockstar Images • More info at our site • Find all our COVID Check-In episodes • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Direct download: COVID_Check-In_with_Steve_Prue.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 11:07am EDT

Writer, actress, publisher and adult performer Stoya checks in from Brooklyn. We talk about social change and protests against police violence, why now isn't the time for self-promotion and why it is the time to promote Black voices, what the next world may look like, and why the AVN Awards committee's decision to eliminate the category of "interracial" is long overdue. We also get into her pandemic life, the ethical debate over being on OnlyFans, wanting to get back to her AEW Wednesdays, the value of friendship, the toothpaste she hoards when she's in Serbia, and her relief at discovering that she & her roommate can handle the lockdown. Follow Stoya on Twitter, Instagram, and OnlyFans, and check out her magazine, ZeroSpaces • Listen to our full-length podcast • More info at our site • Find all our COVID Check-In episodes • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Direct download: COVID_Check-In_with_Stoya.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 7:39am EDT

Cartoonist, activist and live-drawing pioneer Liza Donnelly checks in from Rhinebeck, NY. We talk about the rhythm of her daily live-drawing video sessions and how they've improved her drawing & maybe her mental health, the Zoom event she held for Society of Illustrations with Roz Chast & Liana Finck, the longform graphic novel she's pondering, what she misses about NYC, her upcoming exhibition at the Norman Rockwell Museum, how she's getting reacquainted with drawing on paper, the challenge of coming up with cartoons for The New Yorker nowadays, and more. Follow Liza on Twitter, Periscope and Instagram • Listen to our full-length podcast • More info at our site • Find all our COVID Check-In episodes • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Direct download: COVID_Check-In_with_Liza_Donnelly.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 10:19am EDT

Author & photographer Kipp Friedman checks in from Milwaukee, hours after the death of his father, the great writer Bruce Jay Friedman. We trade stories about BJF, but first we talk about how Kipp has been coping with pandemic life, and how, with his bar/bat mitzvah photography business on hiatus, Kipp has returned to a novel he began a few yeas ago about his time as a newspaper reporter in FL in the '80s. He also gets into how teaching tennis manages to keep him occupied while letting him keep appropriate social distance, the advantages of having a live-in chef (his son moved back in and loves to cook), the joy of bingeing on Eric Ambler novels and the Criterion Channel streaming service, and more. Read Kipp's memoir, Barracuda In The Attic • Listen to our full-length podcast • More info at our site • Find all our COVID Check-In episodes • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Direct download: COVID_Check-In_with_Kipp_Friedman.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 7:53am EDT

The first great author I ever recorded with, Bruce Jay Friedman, died on June 3, 2020, at the age of 90. His work means the world to me, so to celebrate his life, I've re-posted that 2014 podcast, along with a new introduction. • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Direct download: Bruce_Jay_Friedman_Bonus_Episode.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 7:52am EDT

Design scholar, teacher, and author Steven Heller checks in from New York City. We talk about the anxiety & stress of pandemic life, and why he's thinking of designing a watch that just tells you the day of the week. We also get into his upcoming 70th birthday, and why that number is a big rubicon for him, his reread & revised opinion of Philip Roth's The Plot Against America, the relaunch of Print magazine (he and partners bought the title a few months ago) and the how he sustains his Daily Heller blog there, the weird comfort of walking through a protest this week, his recent binge of Shtisel on Netflix, and more. Follow Steven on Twitter and Instagram and check out his blog at Print Magazine, The Daily Heller • Listen to our most recent full-length podcast • More info at our site • Find all our COVID Check-In episodes • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Direct download: COVID_Check-In_with_Steven_Heller.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:33am EDT

Caldecott Medal-winning author & illustrator David Small checks in from SW Michigan. We talk about the "what am I going to do next?" moment he's fallen into, the bad timing of selling his papers to a university library last fall and how it means he has to recreate the opening of his next graphic novel from memory, whether his background as a kids book author & illustrator would help him explain This Whole Situation to kids, the upcoming sequel to one of her best-known books, Imogene's Antlers (and how he gave this one a more evil ending than the one his publisher suggested), living with CLL and other aspects of being 75, how he learned to use the dilation of pandemic-time to his advantage, and more. Listen to our full-length podcast and check out David's graphic novels, Stitches and Home After Dark • More info at our site • Find all our COVID Check-In episodes • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Direct download: COVID_Check-In_with_David_Small.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 7:36am EDT

Cartoonist & illustrator Robert Sikoryak checks in from NYC. We talk about his just-completed new book, Constitution Illustrated (Drawn & Quarterly), what he learned about the US Constitution & America in the process of making that book, and how that deadline insulated him a little from the effects of sheltering in place. We get into remote teaching of his art classes at Parsons, finding his best Zoom angle, trying to adapt his Carousel live cartooning performances to the social distancing world, and the sequel to Masterpiece Comics he hopes to work on next. Follow Bob on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram • Listen to our full-length podcast • More info at our site • Find all our COVID Check-In episodes • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Direct download: COVID_Check-In_with_R_Sikoryak.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:30am EDT

Cartoonist & comics-historian Eddie Campbell checks in from Chicago. We talk Pandemic Hair, surviving with a pair of 2-month-old kittens (acquired by yesterday's guest, Eddie's wife Audrey Niffenegger), finishing his book on the great cartoonist and interviewer Kate Carew, the difference between imagining books and making them (I have no idea what he's talking about), how the scribbly charm or half-assed-ness of his comics takes a lot of work, catching up on Gasoline Alley reprints, his appreciation of the interchangeable anonymity of Picasso & Braque's unsigned cubist works, his belief that your bucket list should be enjoyment of the magic of the everyday, and more. Follow Eddie on Twitter and read his work • Listen to our full-length podcast • More info at our site • Find all our COVID Check-In episodes • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Direct download: COVID_Check-In_with_Eddie_Campbell.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:39am EDT

Author & artist Audrey Niffenegger checks in from Chicago. We talk about her decision to add a pair of 2-month-old kittens to her pandemic household, the progress she's making on the sequel to The Time Traveler's Wife, how she fortuitously incorporated 9/11 into that book and has found a place for the pandemic in this one, and why she continues to wear lipstick every day. We also get into writers' tendency to keep fiddling with their books (especially and expensively in the case of Joyce with Ulysses), the bookstores she wants to visit after This Whole Situation, the question of positing a better world in fiction, Chicago's inequality and how it's exacerbating the health crisis, the nonprofit Artists Book House she helped launch, and why she's enjoying the silence even as her house succumbs to entropy. Follow Audrey on Twitter and support Artists Book House • Listen to our full-length podcast • More info at our site • Find all our COVID Check-In episodes • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Direct download: COVID_Check-In_with_Audrey_Niffenegger.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 6:29am EDT

Publisher Annie Koyama checks in from Toronto. We talk about whether the pandemic has affected her plans to close down Koyama Press in 2021, and the big farewell she had planned for this year's Toronto Comic Arts Festival. We get into her guerrilla charity/grant-program to help cartoonists and other creative people, her concerns for her 92-year-old mom, the increasing racism toward people of Asian descent, how "being good in emergencies" gets tested when the emergency never ends, why she delayed her dive into Animal Crossing, and the ongoing lesson of appreciating the mundane. Follow Annie & Koyama Press on Twitter and Instagram, and pick up some of their books • Listen to our full-length podcast • More info at our site • Find all our COVID Check-In episodes • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Direct download: COVID_Check-In_with_Annie_Koyama.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:25am EDT

Writer, performer, director and producer Kathe Koja rejoins the show to talk about her new story collection, VELOCITIES (Meerkat Press). We talk how she's coping with the pandemic, the importance of having a good working relationship with chaos, and why Russell Hoban's Riddley Walker is more apropos than ever. She gets into her work in immersive theater and how it needs to be reimagined in this era of social distancing, while teasing out details of her new project, Dark Factory. We also get into the upcoming reissue of her cult novel The Cipher this September, why she's bingeing on Babylon Berlin, the one thing she hoarded when things went sideways, why it's important to be open to the messages the world sends us, and what to do when you find a pill lying on the floor in a hospital cafeteria. • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Direct download: Episode_373_-_Kathe_Koja.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:13am EDT

Documentary photographer Jonathan Hyman checks in from Bethel, NY. We talk about his travels from Maine to Maryland to photograph towns and "open the economy" rallies during the pandemic, the near-emptiness of New York City on St. Patrick's Day, the parallels and divergences with post-9/11 America and his photography projects from that era, people coming at him during rallies because of their hostility toward media, how pointing a camera at someone is different than pointing a phone at them, and more. Follow Jonathan on Facebook and Instagram • Listen to our full-length podcast • More info at our site • Find all our COVID Check-In episodes • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Direct download: COVID_Check-In_with_Jonathan_Hyman.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:53am EDT

Author and professor Peter Trachtenberg checks in from the Catskills. We talk about his surprise at how well he's dealing with This Whole Situation, the essay he's working on about Katherine Anne Porter's Pale Horse, Pale Rider, the realization that Americans are more afraid of going broke than contracting COVID-19, and how this pandemic echoes and differs from the 1918 flu and the AIDS crisis. We get into the book he's working on about living and dying in New York's Westbeth artists' apartments, the value of art in society, his meditative practice of reading Levi's Periodic Table in Italian, what it was like to preside over graduation-by-video at Pitt, and more. Follow Peter on Twitter and Instagram • Listen to our full-length podcast • More info at our site • Find all our COVID Check-In episodes • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Direct download: COVID_Check-In_with_Peter_Trachtenberg.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:27am EDT

Author, archivist and curator David Leopold checks in from Bucks County, PA. We talk about curating art in a quarantine and organizing the Socially Distant Theater virtual exhibition of Al Hirschfeld's drawings of solo shows, how museum audiences are changing over the years and his concerns that we'll continue to drive away from in-person experience, missing JazzFest in New Orleans, making a social-distancing garden, bingeing on The Leftovers and Saki's short stories, researching minstrel shows for an exhibition on race & identity in George Herriman's work, and contextualizing them as commedia dell'arte (while being sensitive about the potential for offense inherent in the subject matter), working on a Frontera music virtual exhibition for Arhoolie, going 6 weeks without leaving the farm he lives on, and more. Follow David on Twitter and check out the Ben Solowey Studio and the Al Hirschfeld Foundation • Listen to our full-length podcast • More info at our site • Find all our COVID Check-In episodes • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Direct download: COVID_Check-In_with_David_Leopold.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:27am EDT

Cartoonist, illustrator, archeologist, and teacher Glynnis Fawkes checks in from Burlington, VT. We get into how her knowledge with Ancient Greece & archeology informs her perspective on the current pandemic, and talk about how how she's making a diary comic about her family, but setting it in 1347 during the Black Death semisorta so she can avoid drawing her kids using their iPads all the time. We get into how making Charlotte Bronte Before Jane Eyre led her to realize how much we think we're excused from a lot of hazards, the Angouleme residency she's missing out on, the inspiration of Natalia Ginzburg's Family Lexicon, how she's staying in touch with her comics-festival table-mates, Jennifer Hayden, Summer Pierre, and Ellen Lindner (who I really need to record with), how in-person contact has become a luxury, the joys of online yoga, and more. Follow Glynnis on Twitter and Instagram • Listen to our full-length podcast • More info at our site • Find all our COVID Check-In episodes • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Direct download: COVID_Check-In_with_Glynnis_Fawkes.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 7:49am EDT

Musician, producer, and just-about-Broadway songwriter Gary Clark checks in from Scotland to talk about the musical of Sing Street (he wrote the songs, based on the movie) and how its Broadway debut has been postponed by the pandemic. We get into the recent charity livestream of Sing Street, what he's learned from the process of working on a musical and how that's feeding into his next project, the Emma Thompson-led staging of Nanny McPhee, the dire prospects for clubs and theaters hurt by the quarantine, the importance of having routines and rhythms for work and life, the pros and cons of streaming music, practicing Transcendental Meditation, having to rewrite the Nanny McPhee song "Plague, Rickets, Scurvy & Spleen" in light of This Whole Situation, and (of course I had to ask) the (non-)prospects of a virtual Danny Wilson reunion. Follow Gary on Twitter and Instagram and keep up with news about the musical of Sing Street • Listen to our full-length podcast • More info at our site • Find all our COVID Check-In episodes • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Direct download: COVID_Check-In_with_Gary_Clark.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:38am EDT

Architecture writer Witold Rybczynski checks in from Philadelphia. We talk about how his present circumstances — retired from teaching, helping his wife recover from a broken arm, and editing his next book — have enabled him to transition into shelter-in-place mode pretty smoothly. We also get into that upcoming book, The Story of Architecture, how working on it enables him to transport himself into the Renaissance and elsewhere/when, how it's modeled after Gombrich's The Story of Art, why he doesn't want to theorize about the impact of the pandemic on architecture, the Mantel & Greene books he's immersed in and the French TV series he's bingeing on via Netflix, and his acceptance that there are wonderful historic buildings he'll never visit. Follow Witold on Twitter • Listen to our two our full-length podcasts: 2015 and 2019 • More info at our site • Find all our COVID Check-In episodes • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Direct download: COVID_Check-In_with_Witold_Rybczynski.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 9:55am EDT

Author & activist Nathaniel Popkin checks in from Philadelphia. We talk about the potential for creative moments in the midst of self-isolation, the inspiration of Elsa Morante's novel History on his recent LitHub essay on the abuse of war imagery during the pandemic, the unique social aspects of Philadelphia, the dilation of time during self-isolation and how glad he was to take a social-distance walk with friends, the eternal search for justice and the battle against corporatization, the history of how the Lenape natives were defrauded of their land in the 1700s and how the language of destroying indigenous people hasn't changed over the centuries, how literature helps him travel in time and space, and more. Follow Nathaniel on Twitter and Instagram • Listen to our full-length podcast • More info at our site • Find all our COVID Check-In episodes • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Direct download: COVID_Check-In_with_Nathaniel_Popkin.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 7:21am EDT

Cartoonist and educator Tom Hart joins the show to talk about how the Sequential Artists Workshop (SAW) is adapting to the pandemic era. We get into Tom's comics upbringing and his formative years in the Seattle scene, how he managed to avoid superhero comics during his formative years, my discovery of his debut, Hutch Owen's Working Hard, in 1994, the value of pretension and his drive to bring literary notions to his comics, the experience that led him to create SAW, the challenges of teaching students half his age (& younger), how teaching his helped him as a cartoonist, the new form he's seeking for his next book, and why he's hoping to get out of Florida. • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Direct download: Episode_372_-_Tom_Hart.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:55am EDT

Author, teacher & activist Kate Maruyama checks in from LA. We talk about whether writers have a responsibility to write a positive future and how she helped organize the Writing Better Futures in Times of Crisis virtual event (happening 5/14/20!). We also get into how she self-shamed into finishing a novella but is averse to the myth of WFH productivity, teaching writing online, whether her F&SF & horror background prepared her for this scenario, the fragmentation of LA and the challenges that creates for keeping community, reading for the Shirley Jackson Awards, the theory that panicked brains focus on details rather than broad & deep thinking, and more. Follow Kate on Twitter and Instagram • Listen to our full-length podcast • More info at our site • Find all our COVID Check-In episodes • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Direct download: COVID_Check-In_with_Kate_Maruyama.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:57am EDT

Writer and editor Ron Hogan checks in from Queens (near Elmhurst Hospital). We talk about why you don't need to write King Lear while in quarantine (or finish War & Peace, although he's hoping to do that), how to handle bad writing days regardless of whether there's a pandemic on, keeping up with his writing-development e-mail, Destroy Your Safe and Happy Lives, and a key lesson from Thomas Merton to find the core of one's writing. We also get into how he officially joined a Quaker meeting via Zoom, his binge of season 3 of Castlevania, his deep-dive into the Psalms, having Korean baseball games as occasional TV-wallpaper, enjoying The Anarchist's Tool Chest (as part of his goal of minimizing his engagement with capital), and more! Follow Ron on Twitter and Instagram and subscribe to his e-mail • Listen to our full-length podcast • More info at our site • Find all our COVID Check-In episodes • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Direct download: COVID_Check-In_with_Ron_Hogan.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 7:09am EDT

Supernatural horror author & game writer Cassandra Khaw checks in from Montreal. We talk about her life in transit and her dread at seeing borders close, how horror writers are scaredy-cats and why she's trying to write something bright & happy, how it's driving her batty to not be able to go to the gym), the therapeutic aspects of playing Animal Crossing and how it deviates from a key rule of gaming by enforcing the need to slow down, her lament at missing Montreal's mural festival, helping amplify other writers through Twitch-streamed readings, her undying love for Stephen Graham Jones' Mongrels, her upcoming novella, and more. Follow Cassandra on Twitter and Instagram • Listen to our full-length podcast • More info at our site • Find all our COVID Check-In episodes • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Direct download: COVID_Check-In_with_Cassandra_Khaw.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 6:35am EDT

Flutist and author Sato Moughalian was the last person with whom I recorded an in-person podcast, and the first guest of the show to turn up positive with COVID-19. She checks in from New York City to talk about her recovery and the time-warping delirium of going 35 days without leaving her apartment. We get into how she's been able to return to the flute, how she knows her lungs well enough to rebuild their strength, her concerns about the future of live music, the communal nature of musicians and their way of being in the world, the joy of the very vibrations in the air that come from performing in close quarters with other players, losing herself in Call the Midwife and more. Follow Sato on Twitter and Instagram, watch one of her performances, and read Feast of Ashes: The Life and Art of David Ohannessian • Listen to our full-length podcast • More info at our site • Find all our COVID Check-In episodes • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Direct download: COVID_Check-In_with_Sato_Moughalian.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 7:47am EDT

James Beard Award-winning writer Brett Martin checks in from New Orleans. We talk about his brand-new Best New Restaurants In America feature in GQ, how the world's changed since he finished this annual tour and how this edition helps celebrate restaurants both for what they are and what they do. We get into his last great meal, the communal & celebratory spirit of New Orleans, the way he misses all the things he used to gripe about (travel, hotel rooms, etc.), the uncertain future of our alma mater (Hampshire College), my envy at what a fantastic writer he is, why he's not bingeing prestige TV despite writing a book about it, his regular Meal of Bretts at Crescent City Steakhouse, and more! Follow Brett on Twitter and read this year's Best New Restaurants In America and his book, Difficult Men • Listen to our full-length podcast • More info at our site • Find all our COVID Check-In episodes • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Direct download: COVID_Check-In_with_Brett_Martin.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 7:02am EDT

Cartoonist Karl Stevens checks in from Boston, to talk about how his life hasn't changed all that much during the pandemic (outside of one COVID case in his co-op). We get into how he's trying to find unique humor for gag comics, and playing mix-and-match with The New Yorker's unofficial list of humor topics, his deep dive into Jack Kirby's 1970s comics, having his new book postponed until next spring, the festivals and conventions he misses most, his reflexive morning click on comicsreporter.com almost 6 months after Tom Spurgeon's death, and more. Follow Karl on Twitter and Instagram and check out his work at The New Yorker • Listen to our full-length podcast • More info at our site • Find all our COVID Check-In episodes • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Direct download: COVID_Check-In_with_Karl_Stevens.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 7:25am EDT

Professor and author Shachar Pinsker checks in from Ann Arbor after a month-long walloping by COVID-19. We get into how his recent book, A Rich Brew: How Cafés Created Modern Jewish Culture (NYU Press), informed his understanding of the pandemic's effect on people, how social isolation may affect the exchange of ideas, the post-COVID energy and inspiration he's feeling for new writing projects like pieces on the nature & future of conviviality and the history of the feuilleton, how his family in Israel is coping, and whether he can taste coffee again. We also talk about how he had to learn online teaching on the fly, what it takes to develop a good asynchronous course, and why teaching during this experience helped him as much as it did his students. Follow Shachar on Twitter and Instagram • Listen to our full-length podcast • More info at our site • Find all our COVID Check-In episodes • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Direct download: COVID_Check-In_with_Shachar_Pinsker.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 9:52am EDT

Professor and author Shachar Pinsker checks in from Ann Arbor after a month-long walloping by COVID-19. We get into how his recent book, A Rich Brew: How Cafés Created Modern Jewish Culture (NYU Press), informed his understanding of the pandemic's effect on people, how social isolation may affect the exchange of ideas, the post-COVID energy and inspiration he's feeling for new writing projects like pieces on the nature & future of conviviality and the history of the feuilleton, how his family in Israel is coping, and whether he can taste coffee again. We also talk about how he had to learn online teaching on the fly, what it takes to develop a good asynchronous course, and why teaching during this experience helped him as much as it did his students. Follow Shachar on Twitter and Instagram • Listen to our full-length podcast • More info at our site • Find all our COVID Check-In episodes • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Direct download: COVID_Check-In_with_Shachar_Pinsker.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 9:52am EDT

Let's check in with musician, songwriter, producer, inventor and now novelist David Baerwald! We talk about America conforming to the apocalyptic vision of his 1992 album, Triage, and his friends realizing he wasn't as crazy as they thought. We get into the novel he's writing about his family and its connections to 20th century history and the roots of the CIA, how working on the book lets him travel the world from his desk, why we should all Google Emily Hahn & Israel Epstein, why this is the most dangerous moment in human history, what it was like moving house in the middle of the pandemic, the fun of teaching guitar online, how he adapted a full-face snorkeling mask into PPE in lieu of an N95 mask, how his son and the college-age cohort views the future, how a bag of mushrooms is helping him get by, and more. Follow David on Twitter and Instagram • Listen to our full-length podcast • More info at our site • Find all our COVID Check-In episodes • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Direct download: COVID_Check-In_with_David_Baerwald.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 7:17am EDT

Nov Shmoz Ka Pop? Writer & artist Paul C. Tumey joins the show to talk about his fantastic new book, Screwball: The Cartoonists Who Made The Funnies Funny (IDW Publishing). We get into where screwball cartooning began, how he selected the 15 cartoonists profiled in the book (like Herriman, Segar, Rube Goldberg, and Frederick Opper), the ways in which the book is an attempt at explaining the parentage of Mad Magazine, the nuances of biography and his work at humanizing his subjects, and how screwball cartooning intersected with with vaudeville & film (and how the Marx Bros. got their names) and why it's the subject of his next book. We also talk about how we're coping with pandemic-panic and his latest binge-reads & -shows. • More info at our site • Find all our COVID Check-In episodes • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Direct download: Episode_371_-_Paul_C_Tumey.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:13am EDT

Cartoonist Keiler Roberts checks in from Chicago. Even though she was one of the people I was most worried about during the pandemic, it turns out she's doing better than anyone else I've talked to. We talk about what it's like to see the rest of the world conform to her everyday life, her MS and how the lack of day-to-day errands has reduced its toll on her, the progress she's making on her next book, why she chose to bail on comics festivals last year, shifting her coffee-dates with friends to Zoom, how she stays grateful for little things, and more. Follow Keiler on Twitter and Instagram • Listen to our full-length podcast • More info at our site • Find all our COVID Check-In episodes • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Direct download: COVID_Check-In_with_Keiler_Roberts.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:44am EDT

Biblical scholar David M. Carr checks in from Putnam Valley, NY. We get into how his book, Holy Resilience: The Bible's Traumatic Origins, resonates with our current moment, how he was trapped in Mallorca when the European semisorta travel ban was announced, the ways Tiger King reflects our own cagedness, the work he's doing on the book of Genesis and the nature of the myth of the Flood, the power of Jewish traditions (especially talking back to God), and how our relationship with our pets may disturbingly mirror the patterns and language people used to use about slaves. • Follow David on Twitter and Facebook, although he's not active on either • Listen to our full-length podcast • More info at our site • Find all our COVID Check-In episodes • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Direct download: COVID_Check-In_with_David_M_Carr.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 6:33am EDT

Michael Gerber, editor/publisher of The American Bystander, a.k.a., the last great humor magazine, checks in from Santa Monica, where he's busier than ever. We talk about finding humor and sharing laughs during the pandemic, the Bystander's viability and how its distribution model is built to survive this sort of situation, his background in history and how it helps and hurts right now (including the lesson of the Rome's Gracchi brothers), his upcoming binge of I, Claudius and the novel of ancient Rome he's threatening to write, Dan Savage's (non-sexual) advice about keeping perspective during the pandemic, and his realization that making The American Bystander may just be his calling (as opposed to CIA analyst, which he considered once upon a time). • Support The American Bystander by subscribing to the Last Great Humor Magazine, and check out samples at their site • Follow Michael on Twitter, follow The American Bystander on Twitter and Instagram, and subscribe to their free daily e-mail, Quarantine Cavalcade • Listen to our full-length podcast • More info at our site • Find all our COVID Check-In episodes • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Direct download: COVID_Check-In_with_Michael_Gerber.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 7:48am EDT

Author Scott Edelman checks in from West Virginia. We talk about how the pandemic has derailed his podcast, Eating the Fantastic, after 120 episodes, all the conventions that have been cancelled and how much he misses them (and why Readercon is his fave), the solace he takes from Middlemarch, the books he's hoping to get to now that he's not reading for pod-guests, whether his zombie fiction has prepared him for the current situation, the joys of light opera, and more. Follow Scott on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, and listen to his podcast, Eating the Fantastic • Listen to our full-length podcast • More info at our site • Find all our COVID Check-In episodes • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Direct download: COVID_Check-In_with_Scott_Edelman.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 7:11am EDT

Illustrator and cartoonist Ken Krimstein checks in from Chicago. We talk about how the process of finishing his next book helped him muscle through the early stages of social distancing and isolation, and how the content of the book — adaptations of anonymous autobiographies of Jewish teens in pre-war Lithuania — helped him with perspective on the trials people have gone through in the past. We also get into some utopian thinking, his Charles Portis binge, his amazement at Frank Santoro's graphic memoir Pittsburgh, how he'll never escape Hannah Arendt, years after finishing his graphic biography of her, and more. Follow Ken on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram • Listen to our full-length podcast • More info at our site • Find all our COVID Check-In episodes • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Direct download: COVID_Check-In_with_Ken_Krimstein.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 7:24am EDT

Yiddish historian Eddy Portnoy checks in from Harlem. We get into how he's managing the work/home setup now that his sofa has molded itself to his body, how the Yiddish papers covered the 1918 flu and the analogs that has for our present situation, the Displaced Persons exhibition he's working on for 2021 at the UN (fingers crossed), his long-gestating project on a pair of Yiddish puppeteers, a 1970s novel he's reading about the Black Death hitting NYC, why his Jewish tendency to comedy outweighs any tendency to utopian thinking, the soul food restaurant he'd love to visit again, and more. Follow Eddy on Twitter, and read his book, Bad Rabbi • Listen to our full-length podcast • More info at our site • Find all our COVID Check-In episodes • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Direct download: COVID_Check-In_with_Eddy_Portnoy.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 6:44am EDT

Author Maria Alexander checks in from Los Angeles, where we talk about finishing her Bloodlines of Yule trilogy with the upcoming Snowblind (and reworking the ending to be a little less downbeat, given the current moment). We also get into her pandemic-binges, like Bewitched and the Preston/Child Agent Pendergast novels, her social-media distancing, her experience with an emotional vampire (prompted by our mutual love for What We Do In The Shadows), and more. Follow Maria on Twitter and Instagram, and buy her some Agent Pendergast paperbacks • Listen to our full-length podcast • More info at our site • Find all our COVID Check-In episodes • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Direct download: COVID_Check-In_with_Maria_Alexander.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 9:17am EDT

Artist, teacher and graphic medicine practitioner Kriota Willberg checks in from Manhattan. We talk about the importance of building routines during home confinement (inspired by Ellen Forney), reaching domestic equilibrium in a 2-cartoonist, 1-bedroom apartment (they're both working on new books), holding Netflix Sync parties with friends in lieu of having people over, volunteering at a food bank, missing comics festivals, and how her experience in the AIDS era as part of the Chicago arts community prepares her and compares to our pandemic moment. Follow Kriota on Twitter and Instagram, and read Draw Stronger: Self-Care For Cartoonists and Other Visual Artists • Listen to our most recent full-length podcast • More info at our site • Find all our COVID Check-In episodes • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Direct download: COVID_Check-In_with_Kriota_Willberg.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 9:34am EDT

Doug Wright Award-nominated cartoonist Sylvia Nickerson checks in from Hamilton, ON. We talk about her artist residency and how its postponement has led her to rethink her artistic direction, the fate of the invisible people she documented in her debut book, CREATION (Drawn & Quarterly), why it can be a good time for people to think about creating other worlds, the dual inspirations of Lynda Barry and the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and more. Follow Sylvia on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Vimeo • Listen to our full-length podcast • More info at our site • Find all our COVID Check-In episodes • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Direct download: COVID_Check-In_with_Sylvia_Nickerson.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 3:52pm EDT

Cartoonist, illustrator & writer Summer Pierre checks in from Highland Falls, NY. We talk about the importance of work & parenting routines, keeping sane with freelance work, making diary comics, diving into National Poetry Month, the joy of sending & receiving letters (and getting a recent letter from Seth), crying at the supermarket, having the impulse to drive down to New York City just to cruise around the empty streets, and more. Follow Summer on Twitter and Instagram • Listen to our full-length podcast • More info at our site • Find all our COVID Check-In episodes • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Direct download: COVID_Check-In_with_Summer_Pierre.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 7:43am EDT

New Yorker cartoonist Emily Flake checks in from Brooklyn. We talk about the challenges of making gag comics in the COVID era (and finding jokes outside of Zoom conferences and toilet-paper hoarding), adapting her Shitshow and Nightmares live events to an online audience, stocking up on art supplies but worrying about the pharma supply chain from India, conning her kid into a reading contest as a way to get some quiet time, missing even the awkward-est of hugs, and more. Follow Emily on Twitter and Instagram, and look for upcoming livestreams of Shitshow and Nightmares • Also, go read her new essay about enchantment and middle age, Molly and the Unicorn • Listen to our full-length podcast • More info at our site • Find all our COVID Check-In episodes • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Direct download: COVID_Check-In_with_Emily_Flake.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 7:26am EDT

Photojournalist Kyle Cassidy checks in from Philadelphia. We talk about his new photo series, Between Us and Catastrophe (recently excerpted at Hidden City), where he's photographing and interviewing (at a distance) the healthcare workers, essential personnel and volunteers who are keeping the world going during the pandemic. We talk about the awful choices that nurses have to make, the technical challenges of the series, his aggravation at neighbors holding porch parties, the book on Icelandic sweaters that he'd love to get back to, his decades-old flash that's been waiting for this moment, his fundamental belief in the goodness of humanity, and more. Follow Kyle on Twitter and Smugmug • Listen to our most recent full-length podcast • More info at our site • Find all our COVID Check-In episodes • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Direct download: COVID_Check-In_with_Kyle_Cassidy.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:29am EDT

Translator Alta L. Price joins the show to talk about co-curating the 2020 (now 2021) edition of Festival Neue Literatur with Tess Lewis. We talk about the bureaucratic snafu that led her into a life of translation, how she fights the urge to revise translations between editions, the differences between translating a classic vs. a contemporary work, her work for gender parity among translators and translated authors, and how editors serve as gatekeepers that inadvertently perpetuate disparities. We also get into how studying printmaking brought her an understanding of what a work of art is and does as it shifts media, her literary ambassadorship of Chicago, how she overcame perfection-paralysis, and plenty more. This episode was intended to promote the Festival Neue Literatur, which was to be held April 23-26, 2020 in NYC but has been postponed to 2021; I decided to retain the portions about that to remind us of The Before Times. • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Direct download: Episode_370_-_Alta_L_Price.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:03am EDT

Last time Eva Hagberg checked in, she'd just gotten her positive COVID-19 test. Three weeks later, she fills us in on the most harrowing medical experience of a life filled with harrowing medical experiences (seriously, read her memoir). We talk about her attempts to cope with the virus without going to the hospital, the system-wide assault the virus conducts on body and mind, how the experience may change the pandemic novel she'd started writing in The Before Times, and more. Follow Eva on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and her own podcast, Recoup • Listen to our full-length podcast • More info at our site • Find all our COVID Check-In episodes • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Direct download: COVID_Check-In_with_Eva_Hagberg_2.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 10:14am EDT

Essayist and journalist (and one of my very first pod-guests!) Jane Borden checks in from LA. We talk about memoir-metamorphosis, her recent Vanity Fair piece on the art of making art during a plague, the solace of deep time, working for Tom Wolfe, the Ishion Hutchinson essay that recently blew her mind, the intertwining of arts criticism and memoir, whether it's healthy to try to interpret the pandemic through metaphor, rereading her Joseph Campbell books and reflecting on her marginalia from her 20s, and more. Follow Jane on Twitter • Listen to our full-length podcast • More info at our site • Find all our COVID Check-In episodes • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Direct download: COVID_Check-In_with_Jane_Borden.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 11:01am EDT

Writer and critic Whitney Matheson checks in from Brooklyn, after a multi-week bout with COVID-19 (her doctor thinks she's past it, but still dealing with after-effects). We talk about the irony of her being debilitated just when the world needs pop culture recommendations most, her best Zoom angles, the amount of good, bad and ugly art that will come out of this period, the restaurant she misses most, the TV show she's meaning to catch up on, home-schooling a 7-year-old kid while trying not to pass out, and how happy she is to have a birthday coming up next week. Follow Whitney on Twitter and Instagram, subscribe to her weekly pop-culture e-mail and get exclusive content like her comics, short stories and more at her Patreon. Listen to our full-length podcast • More info at our site • Find all our COVID Check-In episodes • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Direct download: COVID_Check-In_with_Whitney_Matheson.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 6:59am EDT

Cartoonist and playwright Dean Haspiel checks in from Brooklyn (home of his superhero, The Red Hook!). We talk about making art (good, bad or ugly) during the plague, finding yourself while putting your life on hold, how our social norms may change after the pandemic subsides, the virtue of online comics, bingeing on 1970s comics by Steve Gerber, feeling sad (but not self-pity) when his play, The War of Woo, had to be postponed last month, and more. • Nominate season 3 of The Red Hook, STARCROSS, for Best Webcomic at the Ringo Awards • Follow Dean on Twitter and Instagram, and subscribe to his e-newsletter • Listen to our full-length podcast • More info at our site • Find all our COVID Check-In episodes • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Direct download: COVID_Check-In_with_Dean_Haspiel.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 7:33am EDT

Author Christopher Brown checks in from the edgelands of East Austin, TX. We talk about the final edits of his upcoming novel, Failed State (which is part of the universe of his previous novels, Tropic of Kansas and Rule of Capture), and how the border between dystopia and utopia are kinda permeable. We also get into his amazing weekly e-mail, Field Notes, nature's reclamation projects, the potential inflection point of the current moment, why he's trying to translate German and has taken up the lute, the midwest road trip he's planning, and more. Follow Chris on Twitter and Instagram, and subscribe to Field Notes • Listen to our most recent full-length podcast • More info at our site • Find all our COVID Check-In episodes • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Direct download: COVID_Check-In_with_Christopher_Brown.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:06am EDT

Author Matt Ruff checks in from Seattle and we talk about his brand-new novel, 88 Names. We get into what gaming and the internet reveal about human character(s), how he handles VR nausea and whether VR measures up to what Neuromancer semisorta promised us, the pros and cons of a virtual book tour (including an upcoming one on Altspace VR on 4/17/20), the fluidity of identity in the virtual landscape, the bookstores he can't wait to get back to, post-pandemic, the origins of empathy, and more. • More info at our site • Check out our 2017 podcast and the rest of The COVID-19 Sessions • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Direct download: Episode_369_-_Matt_Ruff.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 6:59am EDT

Translator Tess Lewis joins the show to talk about co-curating the 2020 (now postponed to 2021) edition of Festival Neue Literatur, why editing a bad translation is much tougher than just translating it yourself, the book she's proudest of translating (Maja Haderlap's Angel of Oblivion), and the project that is the most difficult (Ludwig Hohl's Notizen), how the business and culture has changed, her dream project of translating Montaigne (swoon!), and how literature — especially in translation — can disrupt the familiar and familiarize what seems strange. This episode was intended to promote the Festival Neue Literatur, which was to be held April 23-26, 2020 but has been postponed along with everything else; I decided to keep it all to remind us of The Before Times. • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Direct download: Episode_368_-_Tess_Lewis.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:41am EDT

Fantasy author Ilana Myer checks in from eastern PA. We talk about cancelled travel plans, the virtual tour for her new book, The Poet King, what she learned in the course of finishing her Harp and Ring trilogy, the difference between reading about the pandemic and living it, making the plunge into Wodehouse (and avoiding dystopian fiction), and more. Follow Ilana on Twitter and Instagram, and read her new book, The Poet King • Listen to our full-length podcast • More info at our site • Find all our COVID Check-In episodes • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Direct download: COVID_Check-In_with_Ilana_Myer.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:09am EDT

Cartoonist Jennifer Hayden checks in from central NJ. We talk about the need to micro-vent during self-isolation with her family, the graphic memoir she finds herself immersed in (and which keeps growing in scale), her changing understanding of aspects of the Goddess, and how this situation is bringing her to terms with herself. Follow Jennifer on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram and read her great graphic memoir, The Story of My Tits • Listen to our full-length podcast • More info at our site • Find all our COVID Check-In episodes • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Direct download: COVID_Check-In_with_Jennifer_Hayden.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 7:27am EDT

Silent-film accompanist Ben Model checks in from the Upper West Side of NYC. We talk about how the pandemic and self-isolation led him and his partner Steve Massa to launch the Silent Comedy Watch Party, a livestream on YouTube that airs every Sunday at 3pm EDT. We also get into the ups and downs of Zoom teaching, the challenges of playing piano for a telepresent audience, how he can't wait for New Yorkers to get pushy again, and more. Watch the Silent Comedy Watch Party and follow Ben on Twitter and Instagram • Listen to our full-length podcast • More info at our site • Find all our COVID Check-In episodes • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Direct download: COVID_Check-In_with_Ben_Model.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 7:57am EDT

Author Michael Tisserand checks in from New Orleans. We talk about how his wife (a pediatrician) got through her recent bout with COVID-19, how the city has had to change its traditions and practices even when jazz funerals beckon, the Krazy Kat strips that are giving him solace, the comparisons with Katrina, and more. Read KRAZY, Michael's biography of George Herriman, and follow Michael on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook • Listen to our full-length podcast from 2017 • More info at our site • Find all our COVID Check-In episodes • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Direct download: COVID_Check-In_with_Michael_Tisserand.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 7:27am EDT

Writer, editor and rare book dealer Henry Wessells checks in from Montclair, NJ. We talk about the books & authors he's bingeing on, the big project of selling Ricky Jay's collection, the joy of a walk in the woods, the one cooking ingredient he wishes he'd stocked up on before battening down the hatches, and more. Follow Henry on Twitter and go check out his book, A Conversation Larger Than The Universe: Readings in Science Fiction and the Fantastic 1762-2017 • Listen to our full-length podcast from 2018 • More info at our site • Find all our COVID Check-In episodes • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Direct download: COVID_Check-In_with_Henry_Wessells.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 7:45am EDT

Cartoonist James Sturm checks in from Hartland, VT. We talk about how COVID-19 has affected learning at the Center for Cartoon Studies (he's the founder and director of that institution), his weekly digital Sabbath, recording video-dispatches with cartoonists about this experience, missing Tom Spurgeon and how he would have helped us cope with this, and more. • Follow James Instagram and follow CCS on Twitter and Instagram • Listen to our full-length podcast from 2019 • More info at our site • Find all our COVID Check-In episodes • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Direct download: COVID_Check-In_with_James_Sturm.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:43am EDT

Urban fantasy horror writer Richard Kadrey checks in from San Francisco. We talk about how self-isolation impacts his writing, the history of urban plagues, his stab at passing the time by learning to use Windows, Clive Barker as "comfort food" reading, why he doesn't binge on TV series, risking his life for his favorite bourbon, the difference between folk horror and rural horror, and more. • Follow Richard on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram • Listen to our most recent full-length podcast • More info at our site • Find all our COVID Check-In episodes • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Direct download: COVID_Check-In_with_Richard_Kadrey.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 7:31am EDT