{"id":16944,"date":"2024-07-23T19:08:29","date_gmt":"2024-07-23T23:08:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/?p=16944"},"modified":"2024-07-23T19:12:29","modified_gmt":"2024-07-23T23:12:29","slug":"episode-597-shalom-auslander","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/episode-597-shalom-auslander","title":{"rendered":"Episode 597 – Shalom Auslander"},"content":{"rendered":"

Virtual Memories Show 597:
\nShalom Auslander<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/traffic.libsyn.com\/secure\/virtualmemories\/Episode_597_-_Shalom_Auslander.mp3<\/a><\/audio><\/div>

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

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

“You are not born hating yourself; someone puts that in there. What would the world be like if they hadn’t?”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a>With his amazing new book, FEH: A Memoir<\/a> (Riverside Books), Shalom Auslander<\/a> explores how the judgmental disgust of FEH<\/em> infected his life, and what it meant to get sick & tired of the disgust and outrage FEH<\/em>-stival and look for a way out. We talk about the sense of shame, disgust and self-loathing at the core of our common story, why every bookstore should be called, ‘You Suck’, his friendship with the late Philip Seymour Hoffman<\/a> and how they bonded over FEH<\/em>, and how hard he’s worked to find the un-FEH<\/em> for his kids. We get into how story is our operating system (but what happens when there are bugs in the OS?), how the FEH<\/em> machine came after his psychiatrist, the notion of misotheism<\/a>, and his video series UNGODLY<\/a> where he reads the Bible and asks, ‘What if God is the antagonist?’. We also discuss his ultra-orthodox upbringing, how “Jewish heritage” has been subsumed by Holocaust memorials, his antipathy toward the pop-culture Anne Frank and how he rewrote her for HOPE: A Tragedy<\/a>, his time in the advertising industry and how it led to his TV show Happyish<\/a>, his bleak Peanuts<\/em> parody strip that got Jeannie Schulz’s approval, the neurological condition where blind people believe they can see and how it parallels our existential state of FEH<\/em>, the realization that cynicism doesn’t mean you’re smart (just lazy), and a lot<\/em> more. Give it a listen!<\/a> And go read FEH: A Memoir<\/a>!<\/p>\n

“The story at the root of everything is, ‘You suck.’ . . . . Once you start to see the story, it’s a very easy story to see through. . . . And one of the things that needs fixing is the story that tells us there’s no fixing this.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n