Episode 330 – Milton Glaser
Episode 161 – Dan Perkins (Tom Tomorrow) LIVE & #NJPoet Corner
Virtual Memories Show #161:
Dan Perkins (Tom Tomorrow) LIVE + #NJPoet’s Corner
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“Satire is the art of exaggerating for humorous emphasis and to make a point, but how do you exaggerate Trump?”
Last July, I talked to Dan Perkins (aka Tom Tomorrow) as he was launching a Kickstarter to produce 25 Years of Tomorrow, a massive quarter-century collection of his This Modern World comic strip. It was way more successful than he anticipated (356% overfunded!), so at his book launch party at Mark Twain House in March, we recorded an on-stage followup conversation, plus audience Q&A! Give it a listen! And buy 25 Years of Tomorrow!
“Does political humor date? Sure, but I was writing about gun control and healthcare reform 25 years ago.”
Dan & I talk about the challenge of satire in this day and age, the benefits of operating under a pseudonym, the ways his life and work have changed as a result of the Kickstarter process, the ongoing labor of his production partners, Topatoco and Make That Thing!, looking back at 25 Years of Tomorrow, the mixed blessing of the internet, the doors that opened when he published a 1,000-page collection, whose hatred cheers him the most, why the internet is like Soylent Green, and more! Go listen and then order a copy of 25 Years of Tomorrow!
“It’s all fun and games until the crazy man is in the Oval Office.”
This episode is also the launch of our new monthly feature, #NJPoet’s Corner, where we’ll talk with philosopher-historian-zen-monk-poet Charles Bivona! (That starts around the 50:00 mark)
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Also, if you want to find out who Dan and Chuck 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 they’re reading and why.
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
Dan Perkins, better known as Tom Tomorrow, is the creator of the weekly political cartoon, This Modern World, which appears in approximately 80 newspapers across the U.S., and on websites such as Daily Kos, and The Nation. His work has appeared in publications including The New York Times, The New Yorker, Spin, Mother Jones, Esquire, The Economist, The Nation, U.S. News and World Report, and The American Prospect, and has been featured on Countdown with Keith Olbermann. In 2013 he was awarded the prestigious Herblock Prize in a ceremony at the Library of Congress, and in 2015 he was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. He received the first place Robert F. Kennedy Award for Excellence in Journalism in 1998 and 2003, and has also received the Media Alliance Meritorious Achievement Award, the James Madison Freedom of Information Award from the Society of Professional Journalists, the Professional Freedom and Responsibility Award from the Association for Education in Journalism, and the James Aronson Award for Social Justice Journalism. In 2009, he collaborated with Pearl Jam to create artwork for their album “Backspacer“. Dan has published 9 anthologies of his work, and one mega-sized 15-pound, two-volume slipcased edition of 25 Years of Tomorrow.
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 Mark Twain House. I recorded the intro and outro on a Blue enCORE 200 microphone
Episode 132 – Rootless People
Virtual Memories Show #132:
Christopher Bollen – Rootless People
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“I wanted to be a writer since I knew that I couldn’t be a detective.”
We close out the summer of 2015 with a great summer novel, Orient
“Remember how you could totally judge a stranger by what they were reading? Now we’ve totally lost that cue, thanks to e-books.”
We also talk about Christopher’s impending 40th birthday, his reverse mid-life crisis, “kids today,” the people he now realizes he should’ve been nervous about interviewing when he was young, the allure of detective stories, why childhood bookish shut-ins have great skin when they get older, how I once nearly blew up a shopping mall back in my high school years, and whether the actual inhabitants of Orient were peeved about his new novel.
“You don’t interview Fran Lebowitz; it’s more like you’re her audience.”
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We talk about some books and movies in this episode. Here’s a list of ’em (Note: if I ever go to a Patreon crowdfunding model for the show, this is the first thing that goes subscriber-only):
- Orient: A Novel
- Lightning People: A Novel
- The Flamethrowers
– Rachel Kushner
- The Secret Parts of Fortune: Three Decades of Intense Investigations and Edgy Enthusiasms
– Ron Rosenbaum
- The Great Gatsby
– F. Scott Fitzgerald
- Tender Is the Night
– F. Scott Fitzgerald
- Plum Island
– Nelson DeMille
- Less Than Zero
– Bret Easton Ellls
- Browsings: A Year of Reading, Collecting, and Living with Books
– Michael Dirda
- The Beach
– Alex Garland
- Women in Love
– DH Lawrence
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
Christopher Bollen
is a writer who lives in New York City. He regularly writes about art, literature, and culture. His first novel, Lightning People
Credits: This episode’s music is Nothing’s Gonna Bring Me Down by David Baerwald, which seems to have become our unofficial theme song (I’ll ask DB if it’s okay to make it official). The conversation was recorded at Mr. Bollen’s apartment on a pair of Blue enCORE 200 microphones