Here’s a short post to keep you apprised of things, dear reader/listener!
- The Virtual Memories Show (VMS) podcast just had its most successful month yet, busting the previous monthly record for downloads by 13%. I don’t chase numbers, but I admit that it makes me happy to know that people are downloading (and maybe listening) to the show.
- I wrote my first short story in 20+ years last week, after a trip to the Art Institute in Chicago. It’s called Loesser and the Six-Faced Conqueror of Death on a Buffalo. If you want to read it, make a donation of at least $1 in the tip jar! I added a Paypal “donate” button to the site; it’s also at the end of the Podcast Archive page.
- I put that in place because it’d be nice to get a little money specifically for VMS-related stuff. My day job subsidizes the show (and gives me opportunities to travel and interview guests), and I don’t have any illusions about making a living based on the podcast, but it’d be nice to know if people put any monetary value on the work I do to bring out the show.
- About Jason Collins: I’m very glad that he felt ready to come out. I was a Nets fan when he played for them, and in those days I was conflicted about cheering for Jason Kidd, despite the fact that Kidd’s arrival turned the team around and propelled them to two NBA Finals appearances. That’s because Kidd got traded to NJ because he beat his wife. But they won, so I rationalized.
- This is one of those lists. I read 31 of them.
, how what we find offensive has changed over time, the ways words get into the language, the OED’s transition to digital, the roots of “dropping an F-bomb”, the value of kids’ texting habits, and the importance of hosting dinner parties and wearing fine suits. Plus, you get to listen to me obsess over word choices and still embarrass myself!
. For more information, visit 
, feeding into a 
. I recorded the intro and outro on a 
into Audacity. All editing and processing was done in Garage Band. Photo by 
, was published in March 2013 by Pantheon Books. 
. The conversation with Ed was recorded at the 
into Audacity. All editing and processing was done in Garage Band.
, the new novel by literary legend 
. You can read his work and find links to his criticism at 
, discusses all this and more in the latest episode of The Virtual Memories Show! (My contribution is a comparison of war analytics to pharmaceutical clinical trials.)
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. His articles, reviews and essays have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The LA Times, The Boston Globe, Time, Newsweek, New York Magazine, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, The Atlantic, The New York Observer, The Forward, Architectural Digest, Home Theater, GQ, and a whole lot of other venues over the years. He won the Pulitzer Prize in 1983 while at the Boston Globe. 
Reading, walking, looking, dancing, listening, swimming, and writing: these are the activities organizing the life of this episode’s guest, Willard Spiegelman, author of 
! We talk about his wonderful book (go read it!), his addiction to ballroom dancing, how to find joy in the day-to-day world, why he hates book clubs, what Dallas, TX is like for a secular Philadelphia Jew, how he turned me on to one of my favorite novels, who his Desert Island Poets are, how he writes about the visual arts, why the world’s great novels are lost on the young, and what it was like to attend his 50th high school reunion. (Also, Harold Bloom crops up yet again; I really gotta try to get him on the show sometime. Boy, talk about the anxiety of influence . . .)
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. He writes about the arts for the Wall Street Journal. Oh, and he’s quite 
, and what he learned in the course of researching the present danger of nuclear conflict. (It’s a pretty harrowing — and very important — topic, folks.) From there, we discuss Ron’s body of work, his literary influences, Nixon’s final lie, what he thinks of Harold Bloom, his opinions about contemporary literary journalism, and more.
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, a collection of his essays and journalism from The New York Times Magazine, Harper’s, Esquire, The New Yorker, The New York Observer, and other publications. I highly recommend all of them; in fact, I have extra copies of The Secret Parts of Fortune at home and in my office, just in case I feel like reading one of what Errol Morris calls “metaphysical detective stories.” You can find Ron’s current work at