Virtual Memories Show 466:
Gil Roth and Aaron Finkelstein
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“Once you start stripping away the things you were using to distract yourself, and you’re stuck with what’s left, you see what really matters & what you reinvent to start distracting yourself again.”
Our final guest of the year is . . . me! I invited my long-time pal Aaron Finkelstein to interview me as we close out 2021. We talk about my newfound sense of mortality and the invention of new distractions, what I’ve learned from doing remote podcasts during the pandemic, the ways repeat guests & I have changed over the years, why I avoid trying to do podcasts with “personalities” (as opposed to people), and the one person Aaron really wants me to record with. We get into making art, how I learned to love destruction (by which I mean drawing on paper and not a computer), what it means to commit to a line, and how drawing may actually be my way of undermining other artistic pursuits. I also tell a bunch of anecdotes about guests and a set of stories about the Society of Illustrators, and we discuss the culture of Like, my desire to slow things down, the advice I tried to give Graydon Carter, and my suspicion that you’re all bots, among a bazillion other topics. Give it a listen!
“It took forever to get over the fear that the mark we leave behind is the wrong one.”
“In my youth I thought the recording angel was going to tell me how many quarters I’d blown on video games, and as an adult, how much time I’d wasted on porn. But somewhere in between, that’s where the life gets lived.”
“Over the years, people would ask how I was going to monetize this podcast, but basically the podcast is how I de-monetize my life.”
“The greatest lesson I’ve learned about this show is that I can never guess what episodes anyone is going to care about.”
TUNEIN PLAYER TK
Enjoy the conversation! Then check out the archives for more great episodes!
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About our Guest
Aaron Finkelstein is a writer, sound designer and musician living in Seattle, Washington.
He has for more than a decade played the role of Trickster Uncle to his young nephews, Kai and Kenji. He teaches them board games, iambic pentameter, pop music trivia, comic strip history, theoretical and applied geekery, and the power of the written word.
Mr. Finkelstein has held the job titles of Coal Scuttle, WebMonkey, Don Juan’s Feckless Tobacconist, Sprinting Cubicle Troglodyte, Copyflogger, Phonics Monkey, Tritagonist, and the Much-Maligned Voice of Reason. Currently, he is seeking gainful employment as a Luftmensch, License Plate Alphabetizer, or Color Swatch. He no longer accepts appointments as a Social Creature, Stage Foot, Perhaps Man, or Peacekeeper.
Follow Aaron on Instagram & listen to his work on BandCamp
Credits: This episode’s music is Fella by Hal Mayforth, used with permission from the artist. The conversation was recorded remotely via Zencastr. I used a Heil PR-40 Dynamic Studio Recording Microphone
