Virtual Memories Show 569:
Silence
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“This story involves a mild concussion, and starts with an altered state of consciousness, but everything I’m telling you happened, even the neighbor and the waitress. At least, it’s how I remember it.”
No interview this time! Instead, our host, Gil Roth, closes out the year with the story of a week of transformations! This one’s got a Yom Kippur fast gone trippy, and a bathroom-door-induced concussion, a lightning-bolt realization about grief and mourning, a secret mission at a comics festival in Ohio, the Book of Life & the books of the dying, a pharma conference, Tom The Emotional Support Dancing Bug, crying eyes and deaf ears and a mess of signs & portents, plus a dwarf, a salamander, David Koechner and a lot more. But seriously, it’s about coming to terms with the loss of a dear friend, and what it means to know you’re not alone, so give it a listen.
“I realized with absolute clarity that I had never come to terms with Tom’s sudden death. I’d never really mourned him, and I needed to do something about it.”
“My anxiety leads to overplanning and micromanaging, not dropping everything and hopping a flight when I’ve got a conference looming. Not flying into the unknown.”
“He said a reason for the fasting was because angels neither eat nor drink, and by emulating them for a day, we can get closer to God. And maybe they don’t experience time the way we do, and I was getting a little closer to that through this.”
Enjoy the story-hour! Then check out the archives for more great episodes!
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Credits: This episode’s music is Fella by Hal Mayforth, used with permission from the artist. The monologue was recorded at Chez Virtual Memories on a Heil PR-40 Dynamic Studio Recording Microphone feeding into a Zoom PodTrak P4. All processing and editing done in Adobe Audition CC. Photos of Auguste Preault’s Silence, myself, and the late Tom Spurgeon’s house by me. It’s on my instagram.