Podcast 103 – Nostalgia of the Infinite

Virtual Memories Show:
Jim Woodring – Nostalgia of the Infinite

“I have this one focus in my life, which is that this world isn’t real. There are much more interesting right behind it or in it and sometimes you can glimpse them. Those are the most interesting things. That’s what my work has always been about.”

The great cartoonist Jim Woodring joins the show to talk about comics, surrealism, Vedanta, the principle of fluorescence, and why he may be the reincarnation of Herbert E. Crowley! While he was in town for his first solo gallery show, Jim and I met up to talk about his conception of the universe, how his FRANK comics have and haven’t evolved in 20+ years, how art can convey the existence of something it can’t show, why it’s easier to express the grotesque than the beautiful, why younger cartoonists may be lacking the bitter, competitive drive of past generations, and why I think the Prado is a second-rate museum! Give it a listen!

YOU_DRIVE!

“I always felt in my post-adolescence that, as soon as I figured out how to say what I wanted to say, there would be some people who would respond to it. I never doubted that people would find the work interesting if I could only produce it properly.”

Bonus: I’ve got BIG NEWS about booking an upcoming guest! It’s in the intro.

Enjoy the conversation! Then check out the archives for more great episodes! You might like:

Follow The Virtual Memories Show on iTunes, Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, and RSS!

About our Guest

Jim Woodring was born in Los Angeles in 1952 and enjoyed a childhood made lively by an assortment of mental and psychological quirks including paroniria, paranoia, paracusia, apparitions, hallucinations and other species of psychological and neurological malfunction among the snakes and tarantulas of the San Gabriel mountains.

He eventually grew up to be an inquisitive bearlike man who has enjoyed three exciting careers: garbage collector, merry-go-round-operator and cartoonist. A self-taught artist, his first published works documented the disorienting hell of his salad days in an “illustrated autojournal” called JIM. This work was published by Fantagraphics Books and was recently collected in a single edition called JIM.

He is best known for his wordless comics series depicting the follies of his character Frank, a generic cartoon anthropomorph whose adventures careen wildly from sweet to appalling. A decade’s worth of these stories was collected in The Frank Book in 2004. The 2010 Frank story Weathercraft won The Stranger’s Genius Award and was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for that year. Woodring has published two more FRANK books, Congress of the Animals, and Fran.

Woodring is also known for his anecdotal charcoal drawings (a selection of which was collected in Seeing Things in 2005), and the sculptures, vinyl figures, fabrics and gallery installations that have been made from his designs. His multimedia collaborations with the musician Bill Frisell won them a United States Artists Fellowship in 2006. He lives in Seattle with his family and residual phenomena.

Credits: This episode’s music is Forest Veil by Lisa Gerrard. The conversation was recorded on a pair of Blue enCORE 200 microphones feeding into a Zoom H5 digital recorder. I recorded the intro and outro on a Blue Yeti USB Microphone. Processing was done in Audacity and Logic Pro. Photo of Mr. Woodring by me, photo of art by Jim Woodring.

Unrequired Reading: April Link Showers

Bizarre! I was just settling in to collect my May Twitter-links for a big Unrequired Reading when I discovered that last month’s load o’ links never went live! So here’s all of April’s great stuff! I’ll post May’s tomorrow!

* * *

It’s time for another month’s worth of Twitter links, dear readers! If you want to follow along, I’m at twitter.com/groth18!

First, the retweets:

RT @mookiewilson86 (paul raff): David Koresh had a better homestand than the Mets.

* * *

RT @ESQStyle Esquire Style: And the best-dressed male guest at the #RoyalWedding is… not David Beckham.

* * *

RT @felixsalmon (felix salmon): Wherein Martin Amis blathers on for 4,000 dutiful but unnecessary words about Christopher Hitchens.

* * *

RT @kylevanblerk (Kyle van Blerk): Client request of the year.

* * *

RT @simondoonan (Simon Doonan): Creative factory: Simon Doonan, My Faves!

* * *

RT @GreatDismal (William Gibson): “WE HELPED YOUR GRANDAD GET LAID” #daytonbootsvancouver

* * *

RT @mattzollerseitz (Matthew Zoller Seitz): “‘After Hours’ exists to prove that ‘Taxi Driver’ actually displayed some restraint. @notjustmovies

* * *

RT @JPosnanski (Joe Posnanski): In honor of touching CNN story, I write a little more about Nick Charles and a moment I’ll never forget.

* * *

RT @asymmetricinfo (Megan McArdle): Why Europe won’t develop as an independent military power

* * *

RT @kottke (kottke.org): Hilarious fake TLC promo

* * *

RT @kylevanblerk (Kyle van Blerk): Bored at work. Photoshopping Bieber’s head onto things.

* * *

RT @questlove (?Love of The Roots): Man. Not even “OJ Guilt” is the proper colloquialism for what I feel after eatin Cinnabon.

* * *

And now, the links!

NBA Action: Bet On It! #IhadSpursandMagicinthefinals

* * *

Ah, #vodka, with your “marketing gimmicks that make getting drunk seem like a gateway to fame and fortune

* * *

The bowling alley of the #Frick: it’s no basement of the Alamo, but still.

* * *

There’s now a computer as dumb as my boss. #thatswhatshesaid

* * *

Joe Queenan goofs on the #gehry glut.

* * *

Is anyone at the #royalwedding sporting a monkey-tail beard?

* * *

Via @khoi, abandoned Yugoslavia monuments of awesomeness.

* * *

Xanadu comes back to life! (Will #MichaelBeck and @olivianj be at the opening?)

* * *

Xanadu: More of disaster than @XanaduMovie? #likedecoratinganuclearreactor #bringbacktheAlexander’smural

* * *

In the movie, I see Billy Bob Thornton as the local, and Pesci as the mobster: #greateststoryever #trustme

* * *

Tefillin: it’s like Jewish blood pressure.” Go, @MitzvahTank! #areyouJewish?

* * *

Will nobody think of the #pistachios?!

* * *

#AllStarSuperman never should’ve released the sun-eater from captivity:

* * *

The Walk of Shame goes #StreetStyle, via @sartorialist

* * *

So VCs are like the AIDS activists of our time?

* * *

I’m all for taking advantage of gorgeous chicks, but sheesh! #modelscam (via @felixsalmon)

* * *

#HaroldBloom and his “elite Europhile glasses” #agon

* * *

Eat lead! #staedtler and #fabercastell at war

* * *

Every so often, I remind myself why I find contempo literary fiction useless and stultifyingly dull

* * *

Go read this #BenKatchor interview! Nownownow! #CardboardValise (just plow through the “what is comics?” section)

* * *

@felixsalmon delivers a (much appreciated) Jonathan Franzen smackdown

* * *

@witoldr on the secret language of architects.

* * *

This #Houdini article escapes from the need to write in complete sentences. #escapeartistry

* * *

I guess I oughtta get around to reading #GeoffDyer sometime, huh?

* * *

In honor of tonight’s season 2 premiere of #Treme on #HBO, check out this interview with #WendellPierce (#BunkMoreland)

* * *

#ChrisElliott has a DAUGHTER on SNL? #igrowold

* * *

Dali makes aliyah!

* * *

Ron Rosenbaum implores us to visit (Joyce’s) Ithaca (but not much else). (I admit I’ll likely skip #Ulysses)

* * *

I’m awfully happy with my @allenedmonds, I have to say

* * *

I look down on my wife. #shekicksmeintheshins

* * *

#Starbury = Jim Jones?

* * *

Is it good or bad that my TV/movie/prose diet is so similar to that of #StevenSoderbergh? #MillersCrossing!

* * *

25 years ago: Graceland and the Gatwick Baby

* * *

“People who drink coffee are different in many ways from those who don’t drink coffee” #whataboutgin?

* * *

Geoff Dyer on being allergic to David Foster Wallace’s writing (his compare/contrast w/Federer is great)

* * *

“You look into the fiery furnace and see the rich man without any name” #wallstreet

* * *

Neat video of @billy_reid at home.

* * *

@simondoonan on camp: “I am not the brightest Art Nouveau lamp in the room…” #needIsaymore?

* * *

NOLA: The Big Hypothetical

* * *

Fun interview with Glenn O’Brien, onetime Warhol employee and current #StyleGuy for #GQ: #howtobeaman #glennobrien

* * *

Ah, get back to me around yer 20th reunion, ya young bastid.

* * *

Neat take on Android, Google’s business model, and moats.

* * *

Authors and broken promises. #Icantgetstarted

* * *

I would prefer not to poke you. #groupmeh

* * *

Um, the good news is that “cancer” doesn’t exist (the bad news is that it’s more complex than anyone thought) #uhoh

* * *

Would it have more success if it were called a “scrodpiece”? #probablynot

* * *

“It’s still real to me, dammit!” #soareconcussions #andearlydeath #wwe

* * *

When Antonioni met Tarkovsky: #shakeitlikeaPolaroidpicture

* * *

RPG = Rocket-Powered Genius (of design) #rocketpunchgeneration

* * *

@rupaul answers all questions, except, “What’s up with the mustache?” #dragrace

* * *

@david_j_roth speaks truth to pizza (I still don’t understand how @pizzahut stays in business here in NJ.)

* * *

Is there a Damien Hirst level to unlock? #jeffkoonsmustdie

* * *

By @mattnycs: Vote for the man in the small hat: a rabbi runs for office … in Uganda: Parts I and II #really

* * *

Hot chicks with (old) douchebags: #Iblamesociety #Ialsoblamehotchicks

* * *

No Shakespeare in Topeka? #talentnotgenius #billjames

* * *

#Koppenburg: why I don’t bike. #whoneedstheexercise?

* * *

Accidental Mysteries: masked #seenandunseen

* * *

GREAT piece by @comicsreporter on a trip to the #centerforcartoonstudies

* * *

Because, as we know from #chrisrock, books are like Kryptonite to… certain people: #padandquill

* * *

The Perplexitude of Hilfiger

* * *

Proto-Facebook

* * *

Darkness at Noonan: #tomgoestothebar (happy 60th, Tom Noonan!)

* * *

And I close this month’s edition with a non-link:

“I used to believe that worry was a talisman against something bad happening to you.” thx for the wisdom, @ConanOBrien (& @MarcMaron)!