I changed the way I do my weekly Virtual Memories e-mail for the podcast. It’s more like a blog-post, or a rumination or a reverie of something. This one’s about David Hockney. You can read it here and subscribe here.
The Quotable Malcolm Margolin
This week’s podcast with Malcolm Margolin featured so many great quotes, I don’t want to limit it to the 2 or 3 I put in the show notes for the episode. So here’s a big ol’ compendium of What Malcolm Said:
- “For years I’d been a slave to the in-box. Being out of the loop was a little disconcerting.”
- “What got me into publishing was to attract beautiful women.”
- “On the outside, I can create things I could never create on the inside.”
- “What I’m passing on to people is . . . the capacity to have fun. To have a life that you can build around. Not branding, and not the demands of the marketplace, but what you really think and what you want.”
- “Dressing Indians up to be perfect victims does them a disservice. What I’ve tried to do is get beyond the ‘dress code’.”
- “In some ways I feel regret; the irony is that I was so active in preserving other people’s cultures and languages, but I let mine go.”
- “As Phil Levine said, ‘Why be yourself when with a little bit of effort you can be interesting?'”
- “One of the biggest changes in the course of my life is the growing dominance of salesmanship in everything we do.”
- “Our culture takes knowledge and structures it around the sense of time. We have history. One thing led to another, and that’s causality. . . . We know the history of institutions, of genealogies. The Indians had none of that. Time is flat. Indians structured their knowledge around place.”
- “Their whole world was filled with stories, and the stories talked to one another.”
- “I’m an emotion junkie. If I can go more than a few hours without breaking into tears, it’s a wasted day.”
- “I’m not sure I know anything you couldn’t talk me out of in 5 minutes.”
- “I think if there’s an inscription on my headstone, it should be, ‘He was easy to please.’”
Now go listen to the podcast!
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I forgot
Last Friday was the 12th anniversary of the Virtual Memories blog! Sure, it’s mainly a repository for my podcast now, but it’s still kinda neat that I’ve been keeping this site & blog up all these years. And in 2016, we can plan its Bar Mitzvah!
A Dream
Last night I dreamed that I died. I wasn’t old, sick or wounded in the dream, but my wife and I both knew I would die soon.
When I died, I was happy to discover that I could still walk around and that I wasn’t consigned to some sort of eternal torment.
As per tradition, no one could sense me, and I’m pretty sure I was able to walk through walls.
I tried to reach Amy and convey something to her, but it was to no avail. I wasn’t fraught over that, and she seemed reconciled to my death.
I didn’t fly In the dream, but I did walk into other people’s homes and places of business, where I made snide comments about them.
I was gratified to know that my wit would outlast my mortal existence.
My afterlife was like being on Twitter with zero followers.
Podcast: Stick and Move
Virtual Memories – season 4 episode 11 – Stick and Move
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“Claressa Shields was the first boxer who showed me that women can be artists in the ring, like men. It was kind of like the first time I read Virginia Woolf.”
Essayist, boxer, novelist, chef and more, Sarah Deming joins The Virtual Memories Show to talk about yoga’s role as a gateway drug into boxing, winning a Golden Gloves tournament, the joys of watching a great fighter, her literary idols, the miracle of Bernard Hopkins’ longevity, and how she found her soul.
“I really like the people who write about boxing with empathy. There’s a lot of subtly disrespectful boxing writing. I think it’s essentially because of the threat the intellectual feels from the athlete, and I think racism underlies it, too.”
We also talk about the spiteful inspiration for her first novel, the thread connecting boxers and adult film stars, the magic in the mundane, and why it’s almost impossible to write something boring about sex or a fight! Give it a listen! (And check out these wonderful essays Sarah wrote about skydiving and vodka-peddling!)
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Enjoy the conversation! Then check out the archives for more great episodes! Related conversations:
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About our Guest
Sarah Deming is the author of the children’s novel Iris, Messenger
Credits: This episode’s music is Brainy by The National. The conversation was recorded at Ms. Deming’s home on a pair of Blue enCORE 200 microphones
10 Years On
10 years ago today, I launched this blog. I was going to write some grandiose post about all that’s gone on during that span, but I think I’ll just celebrate this blogiversary the way they all should be celebrated: sobbing quietly in a corner.
Anniversaries
Three years ago today, my pal Sang was found dead in his apartment of a heart attack, at the age of 43. Here’s what I wrote a few days after his death. I think of him every day.
Today’s also the ninth anniversary of the day I met my One True Love. I thank my lucky stars for her every day.
Who Am I? (party monster edition)
I’m the guy who went to a party last night and
- met a guy who recently interviewed William Gass,
- met a guy who read A Dance To The Music Of Time three times already, and
- drove past the Federal Reserve building in East Rutherford, NJ while listening to the B-52s’ Legal Tender.
And that’s my idea of a good time.
Who Am I?
Apparently, I’m an asshole. (To quote Denis Leary.) Here’s a screencap from my Sitemeter dashboard:
According to the IP address, this search was done by someone in my office. Yay, me!
(And go check out the Virtual Memories Show podcast!)
Years of the Nines
Holy crap, dear readers: today’s the nine-year bloggiversary of Virtual Memories! Congratulate me!
I have absolutely nothing to share with you in relation to this event, because I’m currently working on the next VM podcast! So here’s a pic of me looking suave and debonair or something!
