Virtual Memories Show #160:
Bob Stein & Ashton Applewhite
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“In the last few hundred years, we thought of reading as something you do by yourself. What we’re discovering now is that all media consumption — whether movies, games, or reading — is going social. And it’s going to be completely different.” –Bob Stein
What do you get when you synthesize Marx & McLuhan? Ask Bob Stein! Bob’s the rare person for whom the term “visionary” isn’t an overstatement (seriously: check out his bio below). He’s been at the forefront of digital publishing for decades, and has plenty to say about how technology is transforming human experience, from LaserDisc to Oculus Rift. We talk about the importance of failure and the era of Good Enough, how his Maoist background may or may not influence his long-term vision for humanity, the directions that future media creation and consumption may take, Silicon Valley’s twisted obsession with immortality and machine intelligence, living comfortably in the virtual world, his hopes for a VR revolution, and more! Give it a listen!
“Should my goal be to remain what I was when I was 20? What kind of insane, self-corrosive goal would that be?” –Ashton Applewhite
Then Bob’s partner, Ashton Applewhite, joins us to talk about the publication of her new book, This Chair Rocks: A Manifesto Against Ageism
“The real book of the future is going to connect everyone.” –Bob Stein
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Also, if you want to find out who Bob & Ashton are reading nowadays and get a list of the books we talked about in this episode, join our Patreon and become a monthly contributor to The Virtual Memories Show! At the end of March, the new episode of our patron-only podcast, Fear of a Square Planet, will go up with a bonus segment about who he’s reading and why.
Enjoy the conversation! Then check out the archives for more great episodes! You might like:
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About our Guests
Bob Stein writes, “I got bit by the electronic publishing bug in 1979 and haven’t looked back since. I spent the first 15 years expanding the notion of the page to include rich media. the two companies i founded, Criterion and Voyager, managed a lot of firsts — the first films with commentary tracks and supplementary sections; what is widely regarded as the first commercially viable CD-rom, The CD Companion to Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, referenced in Edward Tufte’s Visual Explanations
Ashton Applewhite writes, “I didn’t set out to become a writer. I went into publishing because I loved to read and didn’t have any better ideas. I had a weakness for the kind of jokes that make you cringe and guffaw at the same time, my boss kept telling me to write them down, and the collection turned into the best-selling paperback of 1982. I was a clue on Jeopardy (“Who is the author of Truly Tasteless Jokes?”; Answer: “Blanche Knott”), and as Blanche, I made publishing history by occupying four of the fifteen spots on the New York Times bestseller list. My first serious book, Cutting Loose: Why Women Who End Their Marriages Do So Well
Credits: This episode’s music is Nothing’s Gonna Bring Me Down by David Baerwald, used with permission of the artist. The conversation was recorded at the Roosevelt hotel on a pair of Blue enCORE 200 microphones
and his new book 
(Abrams Comicarts). In this live podcast, we talk about that transition, how he became political years after being a political cartoonist, the impact of Ohio’s rustbelt disintegration on his worldview, and the surprise of his success in Europe. How do you go from garbageman to winner of the Angouleme prize? Find out from Derf Backderf in this week’s Virtual Memories Show! 
(SLG Publishing, 2010). He followed that with the international bestseller, 
. Processing was done in Audacity and Logic Pro. Photo of me & Mr. Backderf by 
in his new book, 
(First Second), the massive implications of crowdfunding for cartoonists and other creators, the problems with ‘balance’ in comics pages, his rebellion against Facebook, the Laurie Anderson model of comics, how he defines success, how to keep a happy marriage inside the comics world, and more! 
is probably off the hook now, because I finally did a comic even more sentimental. So now I made Craig look like Gary Panter.”
– Scott McCloud
– Scott McCloud
– Scott McCloud
– Art Spiegelman
– Chris Ware
– Wendy Pini
– Frank Miller
– Alan Moore
– Kerascoët, Fabien Vehlmann
– Roz Chast
– Jules Feiffer
– Richard McGuire
– Matthew Farber
– Joan Didion
– Tom Hart
– Orwell
– Joshua Foer
– David Byrne
– Alice Munro
– Joyce Carol Oates
and a pair of 
, why he he wrote it under the nom de plume 
, which is one of the most disturbing novels ever written. But don’t worry; it’s not all crime and horror! There’s also Stona’s role as the founder of the 
– Rory Flynn
– Stona Fitch
– Stona Fitch
– Stona Fitch
– George V. Higgins
– Paula Hawkins
– Gillian Flynn
– Gregory Maguire
– Jess Walter
– Jess Walter
– Bohumil Hrabal
– Bruno Schulz
– Joshua Cohen
– Donna Tartt
– Thomas Pynchon
(Harper) by 
), the challenges of writing about Long Island, how his years at Interview magazine honed his ear for dialogue, his fascination with rootlessness, why it’s too easy to parody the contemporary art scene, and more! 
– Rachel Kushner
– Ron Rosenbaum
– F. Scott Fitzgerald
– F. Scott Fitzgerald
– Nelson DeMille
– Bret Easton Ellls
– Michael Dirda
– Alex Garland
– DH Lawrence
, joins the show to talk about Chanel’s impact on women’s fashion and French national identity, how she managed not to get tried for collaboration after the war, the one figure from our age who compares to Chanel, what it’s like teaching the accordion-and-beret crowd, and more! 
– Walter Isaacson
– Ta-Nehisi Coates
– Scott Herring
– Jonathan Strauss
(Princeton University Press, winner of the Kayden Award for outstanding manuscript in the humanities), 
(Princeton), and, as co-editor, 
(University of Nebraska Press, winner of the 2011 award for book design from the American Alliance of Museums). Her new book is 
(Henry Holt).We talk about what it means to miss New Jersey, what makes The Shore different from any other seaside amusement region, what he learned while writing for the YA category, what he unlearned from his copywriting day-job, the value of 