Episode 500 – ALL The Guests
Episode 416 – Wendung
Episode 333 – Gil Roth
2013 Podcast Countdown: #1 Top of the Pods
It’s taken a week, but the Virtual Memories podcast countdown is complete! Our most downloaded episode from 2013 is all about the Great Books!
#1 – Highest Learning – Eva Brann discusses her 50-plus years teaching the Great Books curriculum at St. John’s College, how the program has changed (and how it hasn’t), her role as a female tutor at a time when virtually the entire faculty, student body, and curriculum was male, and more! Then we have a conversation with St. John’s alumnus and Virtual Memories pal Ian Kelley about his experiences in the program and how they informed his life, his decision to join the Navy, and which books he wished he spent more time with during the program. (6/11/13) – mp3
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I knew this one was going to be big; in fact, it’s the most downloaded episode in the show’s history! Ms. Brann is a hugely important figure in the history of St. John’s, and the college did a great job helping to publicize this one (as they did with the St. John’s tutor interviews I posted in 2012 with David Townsend and Tom May). It doesn’t hurt that she’s such a great conversationalist!
Now go listen to our most downloaded episode from 2013! And if you’ve got smart kids who are starting to think of college, take a look at St. John’s!
These were the top 10 episodes, but I’m proud of all 32 episodes I posted during the year. I couldn’t have done it without all these wonderful guests, and I’m awfully glad to have an audience with whom I can share these conversations! (While I’m at it, I should also thank Libsyn for making such an easy system for posting & hosting these podcasts!)
Here’s the rest of the Top 10:
#10-8 – Craig Gidney / Ed Hermance, Drew Friedman, Jesse Sheidlower
#3 – John Crowley / Scott Edelman
#2 – Michael Kupperman / Ivan Brunetti
And remember, you can find all our episodes at the podcast archive or by visiting iTunes! Wanna see pix of our guests? Check out the flickr set!
Podcast: The Guest List: 2013
Virtual Memories – season 3 episode 32 – The Guest List: 2013
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The year is over! I exceeded my podcast goal of getting a new episode out every other week! And rather than eke out one more interview for the final podcast of the year, I decided to make my life more difficult by hitting up this past year’s guests to find out the favorite books they read in 2013.
At the time, I thought this episode would make a nice companion to my Another Year, In the Books post, but now I realize it’s just another symptom of my Need To Create Giant Organization-Oriented Projects. Regardless, you get the fruits of my obsessive-compulsive labor! This year-end episode features selections from nearly 2 dozen of our recent guests! Go give it a listen! (And visit this cheat sheet if you’d like to see which guests responded and which books they picked.)
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About our Guests
The guests who contributed their favorite book from the past year — and that’s “favorite book I read in 2013,” not “favorite book that came out in 2013” — are Charles Blackstone, Lisa Borders, Scott Edelman, Drew Friedman, Kipp Friedman, Craig Gidney, Ed Hermance, Nancy Hightower, Jonathan Hyman, Maxim Jakubowski, Ben Katchor, Ian Kelley, Roger Langridge, Philip Lopate, Hooman Majd, Zach Martin, Ron Rosenbaum, David Rothenberg, Willard Spiegelman, Peter Trachtenberg, Wallis Wilde-Menozzi, and Matt Wuerker. Check out their episodes at our archives!
Credits: This episode’s music is Ho Renomo by Cluster/Brian Eno. Most of the episode was recorded at Virtual Memories Manor on a Blue Yeti USB Microphone
Podcast: Highest Learning
Virtual Memories – season 3 episode 12 – Highest Learning
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Your humble(ish) host just made his annual Piraeus pilgrimage to St. John’s College in Annapolis, MD, this time to participate in a four-day seminar about Moby Dick . . . and score a great interview! I managed to get legendary tutor Eva Brann (above) to take a break from her crazy schedule and sit down for a 45-minute conversation about the college’s Great Books program and how she’s seen it change (and stay the same) in her FIFTY-SEVEN YEARS at the school. We also talk about the value of a liberal arts education, the one novel she’d add to the St. John’s curriculum, the need professors have to profess (and why St. John’s has tutors instead of professors), her swoon for Odysseus, her desert island book, her one criterion for a great novel, where she sees the school going in the next fifty-seven years, the Dostoevsky-or-Tolstoy debate, and more, including a boatload of questions I solicited from alumni! It’s a fascinating conversation with one of the most learned people in the world.
And then Ian Kelley, a St. John’s student from 1993, talks about his experience at the college, what brought him there, what he learned about himself and the Great Books, and how his Annapolis experience influenced his decision to join the U.S. Navy. Ian’s a longtime pal and is the first guest to appear in the non-famous Virtual Memories Library (pictured, with dog, who occasionally sighs and grunts during the podcast).
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Enjoy the conversations! Then check out the archives for more great talk!
Related episodes:
Follow The Virtual Memories Show on iTunes, Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, and RSS!
About our Guests
Eva Brann has been a tutor at St. John’s College in Annapolis, MD since 1957 and served as dean there from 1990 to 1997. Ms. Brann is the author of Homeric Moments: Clues to Delight in Reading the Odyssey and the Iliad
Ian Kelley is a proud 1997 graduate of St. John’s College in Annapolis, MD, and an avid motorcyclist, traveler and reader. He trusts Gil Roth to keep him smart and honest. Ian and his wife, Jessica, live in Fallon, NV.
We previously interviewed St. John’s College tutors David Townsend and Tom May, so you should check those out! For more information about St. John’s College and the Great Books program, visit its site.
Credits: This episode’s music is Wonderful World by Sam Cooke. The conversation was recorded at the home of Eva Brann on a pair of Blue enCORE 200
