{"id":16069,"date":"2023-05-15T20:08:26","date_gmt":"2023-05-16T00:08:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/?p=16069"},"modified":"2023-05-15T20:08:28","modified_gmt":"2023-05-16T00:08:28","slug":"episode-539-brian-dillon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/episode-539-brian-dillon","title":{"rendered":"Episode 539 – Brian Dillon"},"content":{"rendered":"

Virtual Memories Show 539:
\nBrian Dillon<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/traffic.libsyn.com\/secure\/virtualmemories\/Episode_539_-_Brian_Dillon.mp3<\/a><\/audio><\/div>

Podcast: Play in new window<\/a> | Download<\/a><\/p>

Subscribe: Spotify<\/a> | TuneIn<\/a> | RSS<\/a> | More<\/a><\/p>\n

“The idea of affinity said something about not just my relationship with art & artists that I love, but something about the way artists treat their own relation with what we call influence.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a>With AFFINITIES: On Art & Fascination<\/a> (NYRB), Brian Dillon<\/a> completes a “loose trilogy” of books revolving around his connections to art, writing & the world, this time through a series of amazing essays about photography, dance, video, and other art forms, as well as the drift-nature of affinity itself. We get into the tendrils of influence (and how he has to shake himself loose of the reticence of Barthes & Sebald), the act of close looking. the way metaphors & images enable to him to explore art, and why he embraces mood over argument in his essays. We also talk about the ways his recent books (Affinities<\/em>, Suppose a Sentence<\/a>, & Essayism<\/a>) have served as a reboot of his writing, the challenges in wedding the critical\/analytic & the memoiristic, his decision to rewrite by hand the previously published pieces for this book to see if new connections revealed themselves, and how he never knows what to ask an artist in the studio. Plus, we discuss how much personal info is too<\/em> much in an essay, the parallels between his aunt’s descent into paranoia with his own pursuit of close looking\/reading, the writers he discovered late, what comes next, why he doesn’t shy away from calling Affinities<\/em> an essay collection, and more! Give it a listen!<\/a> And go read AFFINITIES<\/a>!<\/p>\n

“With a writer whose work you love, in addition to all the things they enable you to do, there are also ways they can hold you back.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n