Category: Urban issues

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Episode 221 – Kyle Cassidy

Virtual Memories Show 221: Kyle Cassidy

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“In photography, the story is the most important thing, and technical imperfections will be forgiven.”

Photojournalist (or “artist who sometimes uses a camera”) Kyle Cassidy returns to talk about his new book, This Is What a Librarian Looks Like! Along the way, we also talk about photography, his love letter to America, the difference between knowledge and information, the heroism of NASA scientists, the example of Mr. Rogers, his continued use of LiveJournal, the joy of running, and how he convinced his wife that they should take vacations to visit libraries. Also, his cat Roswell gets his two cents in! Give it a listen! And go buy This Is What a Librarian Looks Like: A Celebration of Libraries, Communities, and Access to Information!

“It inspires me to see scientists spending their entire lives — in the shadows, unheralded for the most part — doing something that advances our knowledge.”

Enjoy the conversation! Then check out the archives for more great episodes!

Lots of ways to follow The Virtual Memories Show! iTunes, Twitter, Instagram, Soundcloud, Facebook, Tumblr, and RSS!

About our Guest

Kyle Cassidy has been documenting American culture for more than two decades. He has photographed Goths, Punks, Cutters, Politicians, Metalheads, Dominatrices, Scholars, and Alternative Fashion, in addition to less prosaic subjects. In recent years his projects have extended abroad to Romania, where he captured the lives of homeless orphans living in sewers; and to Egypt, where he reported on contemporary archaeological excavations. His publications include several books on information technology, as well as a regular appearance as contributing editor for Videomaker magazine. His Photo-A-Week blog was one of the first photo blogs on the internet. His work has appeared in The New York Times, Barron’s Financial, Photographers Forum, Asleep by Dawn, Gothic Beauty and numerous other publications.

Credits: This episode’s music is Nothing’s Gonna Bring Me Down by David Baerwald, used with permission from the artist. The conversation was recorded at Kyle’s home on a pair of Blue enCORE 200 Microphones feeding into a Zoom H5 digital recorder. I recorded the intro and outro on a Heil PR-40 Dynamic Studio Recording Microphone feeding into a Cloudlifter CL-1 and a Mackie Onyx Blackjack 2×2 USB Recording Interface. All processing and editing done in Adobe Audition CC. Photo of Kyle & Roswell by me. It’s on my instagram.

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Episode 219 – Keiler Roberts

Virtual Memories Show 219: Keiler Roberts

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“My drawing is as close as it can be to my handwriting. It’s what comes out without too much thought.”

Cartoonist Keiler Roberts joins the show to talk about her new book, Sunburning (Koyama Press). Oh, and parenthood, bipolar disorder, the avoidance of style, learning art while teaching art, making snap judgements about parents, having the world’s worst wedding photos, the temptation of shaping real life to generate a good story, trimming a 150-page memoir down to 12 pages, and why she cried when she got a blurb from Roz Chast! Give it a listen! And go buy Sunburning!

“My parenting advice is: lower your expectations for your kids and don’t make them feel special.” (I think she was joking.)

Enjoy the conversation! Then check out the archives for more great episodes!

Lots of ways to follow The Virtual Memories Show! iTunes, Twitter, Instagram, Soundcloud, Facebook, Tumblr, and RSS!

About our Guest

Keiler Roberts’ autobiographical comic series Powdered Milk has received an Ignatz Award for Outstanding Series and was included in the The Best American Comics 2016. Her work has been published in The Chicago Reader, Mutha Magazine, Nat. Brut, Darling Sleeper, Newcity, and several anthologies. Her new book is Sunburning, from Koyama Press.

Credits: This episode’s music is Nothing’s Gonna Bring Me Down by David Baerwald, used with permission from the artist. The conversation was recorded at Toronto Marriott on Bloor during TCAF 2017 weekend on a pair of Blue enCORE 200 Microphones feeding into a Zoom H5 digital recorder. I recorded the intro and outro on a Heil PR-40 Dynamic Studio Recording Microphone feeding into a Cloudlifter CL-1 and a Mackie Onyx Blackjack 2×2 USB Recording Interface. All processing and editing done in Adobe Audition CC. Photo of Keiler and Summer Pierre by me. It’s on my instagram.

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Episode 215 – Charif Majdalani

Virtual Memories Show 215: Charif Majdalani

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“Proust tried to explain how we live in subjective time. Both our work is about the transformation of society, but he seems nostalgic about the time before. I’m not nostalgic for that period. I’m more interested in how societies reach their peak and then fall down.”

Charif Majdalani has been called the Lebanese Proust, thanks to his series of novels chronicling the modern history of his home country. He joins the show this week to celebrate the first American publication of his wonderful novel, Moving the Palace (New Vessel Press). We talk about the the dynamic of French and Arabic languages, Lebanon’s fixation on the eternal present and its sense of living under the volcano, his process of escaping his literary influences, why he needed to get away to France to gain perspective on home, and what he wants to do on his first trip to America. Give it a listen! And go buy Moving the Palace!

“Lebanon is living through repetitive history. Problems never find resolution, so we go from crisis to crisis.”

“The problem with New York is that everyone who comes here has an image or idea of New York that comes from the movies. We try to find it, but we have to adjust to the real New York.”

Enjoy the conversation! Then check out the archives for more great episodes!

Lots of ways to follow The Virtual Memories Show! iTunes, Twitter, Instagram, Soundcloud, Facebook, Tumblr, and RSS!

About our Guest

Charif Majdalani, born in Lebanon in 1960, is often likened to a Lebanese Proust. Majdalani lived in France from 1980 to 1993 and now teaches French literature at the Université Saint-Joseph in Beirut. The original French version of his novel Moving the Palace won the 2008 François Mauriac Prize from the Académie Française as well as the Prix Tropiques.

Credits: This episode’s music is Nothing’s Gonna Bring Me Down by David Baerwald, used with permission from the artist. The conversation was recorded at the home of New Vessel Press co-founder Michael Z. Wise on a pair of Blue enCORE 200 Microphones feeding into a Zoom H5 digital recorder. I recorded the intro and outro on a Heil PR-40 Dynamic Studio Recording Microphone feeding into a Cloudlifter CL-1 and a Mackie Onyx Blackjack 2×2 USB Recording Interface. All processing and editing done in Adobe Audition CC. Photo of Mr. Majdalani by me. It’s on my instagram. Photo of me & Charif by Michael Z. Wise.

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Episode 213 – Sarah Williams Goldhagen

 

Virtual Memories Show 213:
Sarah Williams Goldhagen

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“The built environment is not inert. It’s an active agent in the shaping of people’s lives.”

Why are our buildings crushing our quality of life? Sarah Williams Goldhagen joins the show to talk about her new book, Welcome to Your World (Harper), and how we can live in a better built environment. We get into cognitive neuroscience and the theory of mind-body-environment consciousness, the perils of lowest-common-denominator construction and design, the perils of the “starchitect” phenomenon, the limits of Jane Jacobs’ urban proscriptions, the experience of going on urban planning vacations as a kid with her dad, how she and her family wound up living in a converted church in East Harlem, the challenges of architecture criticism, how her book was predicted by one of my favorite 1980s comics, the planning process a year-long around-the-world trip, and more! Give it a listen! And go buy Welcome to Your World!

“It’s all architecture, and it all needs to be as well-designed as you can make it. And at any level of investment, you can make a better building or a worse building.”

Enjoy the conversation! Then check out the archives for more great episodes!

Lots of ways to follow The Virtual Memories Show! iTunes, Twitter, Instagram, Soundcloud, Facebook, Tumblr, and RSS!

About our Guest

Sarah Williams Goldhagen taught at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design for ten years and was the New Republic‘s architecture critic until recently. Currently a contributing editor at Art in America and Architectural Record, she is an award-winning writer who has written about buildings, cities and landscapes for many national and international publications, including the New York Times, The American Prospect, and Harvard Design Magazine. She lives in New York City. (There’s a more extensive bio at her site.)

Credits: This episode’s music is Nothing’s Gonna Bring Me Down by David Baerwald, used with permission from the artist. The conversation was recorded at Sarah’s home on a pair of Blue enCORE 200 Microphones feeding into a Zoom H5 digital recorder. I recorded the intro and outro on a Heil PR-40 Dynamic Studio Recording Microphone feeding into a Cloudlifter CL-1 and a Mackie Onyx Blackjack 2×2 USB Recording Interface. All processing and editing done in Adobe Audition CC. Photo of Sarah by me. It’s on my instagram.

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Episode 207 – Garth Greenwell

Virtual Memories Show 207: Garth Greenwell

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“Speaking a language inexpertly makes language visible, and malleable. You become aware of language not just as a medium but as matter itself, as something you manipulate, as something you have to work with.”

Garth Greenwell joins the show to talk about the poetics of cruising (and cruising’s great leveling potential) both in his life and in his debut novel What Belongs to You, the hyper-masculine culture and homophobia of Bulgaria, his concern that contemporary English-language writers don’t read in other languages (or read in translation), his role chairing the 2017 Festival Neue Literatur, the dangers of LGBTQ mainstreaming, the fragility of cosmopolitanism, the state of queer fiction, and our mutual admiration of Samuel R. Delany! Give it a listen! And go buy What Belongs to You: A Novel!

“I wanted in this book to create a space where I could think about what shame feels like to an open and proud gay man.”

Bonus: This episode is also part of our media partnership with Festival Neue Literatur, which is taking place March 2-5 in New York City! Garth’s the chairperson for the event! Go attend! Maybe I’ll see you there!

Enjoy the conversation! Then check out the archives for more great episodes!

Lots of ways to follow The Virtual Memories Show! iTunes, Twitter, Instagram, Soundcloud, Facebook, Tumblr, and RSS!

About our Guest

Garth Greenwell is the author of What Belongs to You, which was longlisted for the National Book Award and shortlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize and the LA Times Book Prize. A New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice, it was named a Best Book of 2016 by The New York Times, The New Yorker, Publishers Weekly, and over 50 other publications. His work has appeared in The Paris Review, The New Yorker, the London Review of Books, and elsewhere. He lives in Iowa City.

Credits: This episode’s music is Nothing’s Gonna Bring Me Down by David Baerwald, used with permission from the artist. The conversation was recorded at the apartment of Jeff Nunokawa on a pair of Blue enCORE 200 Microphones feeding into a Zoom H5 digital recorder. I recorded the intro and outro on a Heil PR-40 Dynamic Studio Recording Microphone feeding into a Cloudlifter CL-1 and a Mackie Onyx Blackjack 2×2 USB Recording Interface. All processing and editing done in Adobe Audition CC. Photo of Mr. Greenwell by me. It’s on my instagram.

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Episode 202 – Karen Green

Virtual Memories Show 202: Karen Green

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“My plan is to make this a research destination for comics studies, especially as they relate to comics in New York City.”

Karen Green, Curator of the Comics and Cartoons collection at Columbia University, joins the show to talk about her secret origin! How did she go from bartender to medieval scholar to comics librarian? We get into the evolution of the library and comics scholarship, her proudest acquisitions, her love of NYC and being a bartender there in the ’80s, reading Playboy for the cartoons, the experience of having a portrait done by Drew Friedman, her Venn diagram with Mimi Pond, and the one cartoonist she’s still speechless around. Give it a listen! And go buy Drew Friedman’s More Heroes Of The Comics: Portraits Of The Legends Of Comic Books; Karen wrote the intro!

“Things that were throwaway materials for the medieval or early modern period are now priceless artifacts in museums and libraries around the world. Who’s to say that the things we see as disposable culture today are not going to be given the same valence?”

Enjoy the conversation! Then check out the archives for more great episodes!

Lots of ways to follow The Virtual Memories Show! iTunes, Twitter, Instagram, Soundcloud, Facebook, Tumblr, and RSS!

About our Guest

Karen Green serves as Curator for Comics and Cartoons at Columbia University. She founded the graphic novels collection in the Columbia University Libraries, while working as the Ancient and Medieval History librarian. She has acquired the papers of Chris Claremont, Wendy and Richard Pini, Al Jaffee, and the Kitchen Sink Press for Columbia’s Rare Book and Manuscript Library, as well as items from the estate of Jerry Robinson and research materials from Larry Tye’s history of Superman. A former bartender, Green holds graduate degrees from Columbia University and Rutgers University. For four-and-a-half years, she wrote the “Comic Adventures in Academia” column for Comixology. She served as a Will Eisner Comics Industry Awards judge in 2011, a member of the jury for the Pulitzer Prize in Editorial Cartooning in 2014, serves as vice-president of the board of directors of the Society of Illustrators–and former trustee of the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art, before its transfer to the Society–has taught and lectured on comics in academia, and curated the Fall 2014 exhibition, “Comics at Columbia: Past, Present, Future,” in Columbia’s Rare Book & Manuscript Library.

Credits: This episode’s music is Nothing’s Gonna Bring Me Down by David Baerwald, used with permission from the artist. The conversation was recorded in a meeting room in Columbia University’s Butler Library on a pair of Blue enCORE 200 Microphones feeding into a Zoom H5 digital recorder. I recorded the intro and outro on a Heil PR-40 Dynamic Studio Recording Microphone feeding into a Cloudlifter CL-1 and a Mackie Onyx Blackjack 2×2 USB Recording Interface. All processing and editing done in Adobe Audition CC. Photo of Karen Green by me. It’s on my instagram.

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Episode 196 – Myke Cole

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Virtual Memories Show #196: Myke Cole

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“I feel like the soul of writing is character, and the writers I admire the most are those who can evoke characters who are nothing like themselves.”

shadowopscoverMyke Cole joins the show to talk about military fantasy and his fantasies about the military, his journey from IT to CIA to merc to Coast Guard to fantasy writer, his biggest nerd-out author moments, how he came up with his “Black Hawk Down Meets The X-Men” Shadow Ops series, what PTSD feels like, the importance of having a plan for crisis management, reconciling his art, politics, job, and readership, and more! Give it a listen! And go buy his Shadow Ops books, starting with Control Point!

“I take a tremendous amount of pride in being a difficult person to kill.”

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Unfortunately, before you can get to it, you’ve gotta wade through nearly 15 minutes of intro! It’s almost Marc Maron-like! If you wanna get past me talking about getting stood up by a publisher and discovering that I’ve become an anecdote in a business book (as well as my Myke intro), then skip to the 14:30 mark! Now go listen to the show!

“Intelligence, at its root, is breaking the laws of other countries and stealing their shit. I understand it’s necessary, but it’s not nice and it’s not ethical.”

Enjoy the conversation! Then check out the archives for more great episodes! You might like:

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About our Guest

As a security contractor, government civilian and military officer, Myke Cole’s career has run the gamut from Counterterrorism to Cyber Warfare to Federal Law Enforcement. He’s done three tours in Iraq and was recalled to serve during the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

All that conflict can wear a guy out. Thank goodness for fantasy novels, comic books, late night games of Dungeons and Dragons and lots of angst-fueled writing.

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 a friend’s apartment in NYC on a pair of Blue enCORE 200 Microphones feeding into a Zoom H5 digital recorder. I recorded the intro and outro on a Heil PR-40 Dynamic Studio Recording Microphone feeding into a Cloudlifter CL-1 and a Mackie Onyx Blackjack 2×2 USB Recording Interface. All processing and editing done in Adobe Audition CC. Photo of Myke Cole by me.