Podcast – The Hollow Man

Virtual Memories Show:
The Hollow Man

It’s the ONE-HUNDREDTH EPISODE of The Virtual Memories Show! And they said it would never last! To celebrate hitting the century mark, I asked past guests, upcoming guests and friends of the show to interview me this time around!

The sorrow of the lonely podcaster

This special episode includes questions and recorded segments with Maria Alexander, Ashton Applewhite, John Bertagnolli, Lori Carson, Sarah Deming, Paul Di Filippo, Michael Dirda, Robert Drake, Aaron K. Finkelstein, Mary Fleener, Drew Friedman, Josh Alan Friedman, Kipp Friedman, Richard Gehr, Ben Katchor, Sara Lippmann, Brett Martin, Zach Martin, Seth, Jesse Sheidlower, Ron Slate, Tom Spurgeon, Levi Stahl, Maya Stein, Rupert Thomson, Peter Trachtenberg, Wallis Wilde-Menozzi, Frank Wilson, and Claudia Young.

Find out about my reading childhood, my dream list of pod-guests, my best practices for productivity (don’t have kids!), my favorite interview question, my top guest in the afterlife, the book I’d save if my house was on fire, what I’d do if I won a Macarthur Grant. and more! Give it a listen!

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

Follow The Virtual Memories Show on iTunes, Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, and RSS!

About our Guest

Gil Roth is the host of The Virtual Memories Show and the president of the Pharma & Biopharma Outsourcing Association.

Credits: This episode’s music is Stupid Now by Bob Mould. Several of the conversations were recorded on a pair of Blue enCORE 200 microphones feeding into a Zoom H5 digital recorder. I recorded the intro and outro and the self-interview segments on a Blue Yeti USB Microphone. Processing was done in Audacity and Logic Pro. Photo of me by Aaron K. Finkelstein.

Podcast: Hello, Columbus

Caitlin McGurk on the Virtual Memories Show

Virtual Memories – season 4 episode 15 – Hello, Columbus

“I’m a person who works in comics and knows a lot about comics, and I’m teaching people who know nothing about comics to talk to other people who know nothing about comics, about comics.”

Caitiln McGurk, fresh off of curating her first exhibition at Ohio State’s Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum, The Irresistible Force Meets the Immovable Object: A Richard Thompson Retrospective, joins us to talk about how she got into the rather narrow field of comics librarian, the appeal of Columbus, OH, her dream-exhibition, how the Stations of the Cross got her started on comics, and what it was like to meet Bill Watterson! Give it a listen!

“Because of his whole mystique, people assume Bill Watterson’s a real jerk or so socially awkward that that’s why he doesn’t want to talk to people. But he just wants to have his own life and not be bombarded by fans all the time.”

We also talk about her theory on why Ohio has spawned more cartoonists than any other state in the union, how she worked with the cartoonist Richard Thompson to put together his retrospective, why Dan Clowes makes That Face in every photo, why she loves the lost New Yorker cartoonist Barbara Shermund, and more!

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

Follow The Virtual Memories Show on iTunes, Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, and RSS!

About our Guest

Caitlin McGurk is the the Engagement Coordinator at the Ohio State University’s Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum. She previously served as Head Librarian at the Center for Cartoon Studies in White River Junction, VT. She’s also an intermittent zinester and cartoonist.

Credits: This episode’s music is Sweet Librarian by Railroad Jerk. The conversation was recorded at Daniel Levine’s childhood home on a pair of Blue enCORE 200 microphones, feeding into a Zoom H4n recorder. The intro and outro were recorded on Blue Yeti USB Microphone. Processing was done in Audacity and Garage Band. Photo of Ms. McGurk by me.

On Dying

Last week’s podcast with DG Myers is one of my faves (he wrote a great piece spinning out of it on his site). As I mentioned in my intro, it’s not the only episode I’ve recorded with a guest about illness, dying, or the impact of a near-death experience on one’s life. If you’re interested in more of those conversations, here’s a list of them:

  • DG Myers – Will succumb to Stage IV prostate cancer within the next 18 to 24 months
  • Rachel Hadas – Husband died after developing early onset Alzheimer’s disease
  • Tom Spurgeon – Infection left him in a coma a few years ago; his recovery has led him to re-evaluate his life
  • Boaz Roth – On rebuilding after a house fire
  • John B. – Was dead for 10 minutes and then resuscitated; we talked a year later about it

I thought about breaking out a few other categories here as a sort of podcast primer, but realized that “Older Jewish Writers” was taking up way too many entires, so you’re probably best served checking out all the episodes over here.

Podcast: Visible Cities

Virtual Memories – season 3 episode 8 – Visible Cities

“My impulse is to break the windows of Starbucks, but I’d get arrested if I did that, so I make comics about people breaking the windows of Starbucks.”

Cartoonist and MacArthur Foundation “Genius” Fellowship winner Ben Katchor joins us for the first live episode of The Virtual Memories Show (in conjunction with the New York Comics & Picture-stories Symposium). Ben & host Gil Roth talk in front of — and take questions from — an audience of 50 or so about Ben’s career in cartooning, including his new book, Hand-Drying in America and Other Stories (Pantheon), which collects his monthly comic page from Metropolis magazine. During the episode, Ben even performs several of his comics. If you’d like to see the comics themselves, you can download Manumission Houses and Lossless Things.

“People ask about influences and where I get my ideas. A lot of people looked at all the stuff I looked at, and they’re doing something else. It’s not like there’s an equation, like you read Saul Bellow and you look at Poussin, and then you make my comics. It’s not an equation. It’s brute force.”

The conversation and Q&A also cover his work process (with a surprising revelation about how he draws!), how book publishing lost its identity, what he learned from working in other art forms (like musical theater), how he teaches cartooning, the allure of new technologies, his one critical audience demographic, the joy of imperfections, whether he has an ideal era for New York, what happened to his History of the Dairy Restaurant book, how fear of shame keeps him productive, how Google can help when you need to draw a Russian prostitute, what he picked up from the Yiddish humor strips he read as a child, which one book the Library of America should withdraw, and how to pronounce “Knipl”! He didn’t win a “Genius” grant for nothing!

“It’s a golden age of art comics. It didn’t exist when I started. Most bookstores wouldn’t carry a comic, or even something that looked like a comic, back then. I can’t imagine what it must be like for a young cartoonist now, when these things are taken seriously and there’s an audience for them.”

Enjoy the conversation! Then check out our archives for more great conversations!

Ben Katchor on The Virtual Memories Show

Follow The Virtual Memories Show on iTunesFacebookTumblr, and RSS!

About our Guest

Ben Katchor’s picture-stories appear in Metropolis magazine. His most recent collection of monthly strips, Hand-Drying in America and Other Stories, was published in March 2013 by Pantheon Books. Up From the Stacks, his most recent music-theater collaboration with Mark Mulcahy, was commissioned in 2011 by the Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library and Lincoln Center and was performed at both venues. He is an Associate Professor at Parsons, The New School for Design in New York City. For more information, visit www.katchor.com.

Credits: This episode’s music is Big City Blues by Sun Ra and his Arkestra. The conversation was recorded in the Bark Room at The New School in NYC on a pair of AT2020 mics, feeding into a Zoom H4n recorder. Mr. Katchor’s readings and some of the questions from the audience were recorded on a second Zoom H4n. I recorded the intro and outro on a Blue Yeti USB mic into Audacity. All editing and processing was done in Garage Band. Photo by Amy Roth.

Moustache Rides to Williamsburg (blech)

I had two missions for November: write a novel for National Novel Writing Month and grow a moustache for Movember. I failed miserably in the former (although I did write about 1500 words of something that could grow into a short story, a first chapter, or a one-act play) but succeeded wildly in the latter, proving that natural facial hair growth will always trump creativity and a sketchy work ethic.

Amy hated the ‘stache with a passion, and offered to contribute to the men’s health charity behind Movember just to get me to shave it off early. I decided to keep it for a few extra days so that she could take some pix in natural light.

Stash

And, of course, while shaving it off, I had to try out The Hitler:

My pal Tom Spurgeon, the Comics Reporter, was visiting from New Mexico (and staying with us) this weekend to attend the Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival, so on Saturday I drove out to the Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Church in Williamsburg to see some cartoonists and serve as Tom’s valet. I took no pictures, so instead you get 20 quick observations/notes on the afternoon. After I shaved off the Hitler.

1. I was dressed pretty generic adult-prep at the event — white button-down oxford, black sweater, tobacco khakis — and was kinda stunned to find out that all the sartorial stereotypes about Williamsburg hipster guys were true: the trucker hats, wild facial hair, chunky eyeglasses, flannels, skintight jeans, Converse, etc. I had assumed this stuff was an exaggeration, but it was a veritable uniform for the men at the festival and in the neighborhood. I think some of the cartoonists treated me nicely because I was dressed like such a (non-ironic) square. Or an adult. Whatever.

2. The festival was just packed. I was impressed by the turnout. It’s a smaller affair than the Toronto Comic Arts Festival we attend every May, but New York paradoxically may not have the same space opportunities that Toronto has, at least for an event that doesn’t charge admission for attendees. It’s got a lot of potential, esp. with the Williamsburg art-crowd, but it’ll be tough to keep the show from getting too crowded.

3. I was awfully darned happy to get to chat with Drew Friedman, whose work I’ve enjoyed for about 20 years. He turned out to be a really pleasant guy, and liked the stylish business card my wife got me for my 40th birthday. I gave him the card so he could spell my 3-letter name correctly in the copy of Too Soon? that I bought from him. I also picked up a super-awesome print that’s going to be a Christmas present for a pal of mine. He seemed happy when I told him that his dad’s memoir is the next book on my reading list. Overall, I was surprised by how warm he was in conversation. For some reason, I thought he’d be a bit irascible.

4. Earlier in the day, I discovered a great Gary Panter rarity, a cardboard-bound proto-collection of his Jimbo comics from 1982, at our local Barnes & Noble. It was in the first-editions case of the B&N’s used books section. I thought Gary would like to see it, so I brought it to the festival. He beamed, and drew me a great Jimbo & dinosaur sketch inside the front cover. He also liked Amy’s business card and asked to keep it. (You should read my wacky story about my first meeting with Gary.)

5. I turned from one table and literally bumped into Matt Groening, who was at the festival with his son Abe. He may be the highest net worth individual to whom I’ve ever said, “Pardon me.” I’m pretty sure some of my friends would have simply fainted dead away upon meeting Mr. Groening.

6. I had a mind-blowingly good tongue burrito at Yola’s Cafe on Metropolitan Ave.

7. I wanted to pick up some original art from the Scott Eder Gallery table, but wasn’t inclined to spend in excess of $2,000 for a Jim Woodring page. (The “Matt Groening’s here!” prices, as one wag put it.) I ended up buying a partially inked sketch by Al Columbia and a set of 4 silkscreen prints of Woodring’s stuff. It was a lot cheaper. Multiple people warned me against showing the art to Al Columbia when he was signing at the Fantagraphics table later in the evening, for fear that he would take it from me and rip it to shreds. When I saw Al at the table, I realized they were right to worry. This is what I bought:

bobby.jpg

8. I bought the new Gloria Badcock comic from Maurice Vellekoop, because he’s a hoot. He also loved my business card and asked to keep it.

9. I walked over to Union Pool to attend the Chip Kidd & David Mazzucchelli panel, but the room was way overfilled, with attendees milling outside in the bar’s courtyard, way out of earshot. I was bummed. Later in the day, I bumped into Chip and had a pleasant conversation. We have a mutual friend in Samuel Delany, so I established my not-just-a-fanboy bona fides. We talked about his work, the panel earlier in the day, comics in general, and Delany’s health. I told him that I wanted to bring my copy of The Learners along with me for him to sign, but decided to bring “this neat Gary Panter Jimbo rarity” instead. He knew exactly the edition, and was happy to hear that I own both his novels. I also told him that I admired his becoming a celebrity in the field of book and graphic design, since it’s not an area that generates celebrities. He joked it was a little like being the world’s greatest plumber. I was too afraid he’d sneer at them to give him one of my business cards.

10. The BQE separated the church (where the festival was) from the Union Pool bar (where the panels were). The city noise was kinda exaggerated by the volume of cars zooming by overhead.

11. I bought the new Kramers Ergot anthology. I thought about getting each of the contributors to sign/sketch it, because they were all on hand, but I didn’t know many of them by name or work, and thought it would be rude to say, “Don’t know you, don’t know you, don’t know you, don’t — Oh! Hey! Sammy Harkham! What are you doing out on shabbat?” And in a church, no less!

12. I got to meet Jeff Wong, who drew the cover for Tom’s book on Stan Lee. I knew his work from The Comics Journal and Sports Illustrated, and he seemed pretty delighted when I praised his work on the latter. I doubt the Venn diagram of indy comics nerds and SI readers has much overlap.

13. Like all artists, cartoonists really do like to receive praise for their work. I (briefly) interrupted R. Sikoryak’s conversation with a couple to let him know how much I enjoyed his Masterpiece Comics. He really lit up and thanked me effusively for the compliment. I told him that I first read his “Inferno Joe” (Dante’s Inferno in Bazooka Joe style) strips in a late-’80’s issue of Raw, and that it was a positively warping experience (as in, I was warped positively). You really oughtta read his book.

14. I hoped that the Drawn & Quarterly table would be able to replace a recent issue of the Acme Novelty Library that had been misprinted, but they didn’t have it in stock. They promised to send a replacement. When I tried reading the book 2 years ago, I thought perhaps Chris Ware was engaging in some post-modern storytelling wackiness by running the last 12 pages of the book twice, but concluded that the printer/binder just screwed up. It was almost as bad as when I started reading a Xerox preview of The Birth Caul from the last page forward and didn’t realize my mistake for a dozen pages. Now I’ll finally find out what happened to whoever!

15. Near the end of the evening, I caught up with Gary Groth at the Fantagraphics table. We spoke briefly a few nights earlier, at an event at The Strand honoring legendary cartoonist Jack Davis (Fantagraphics just published a retrospective of Davis’ career). This time, I asked Gary what he’s been reading lately (non-comics division). He was so fried from working the table all day that he just stared down at the various books on display, pondered for a bit, and then mentioned a brief biography of Cahiers du Cinema, but said he was drawing a blank otherwise. A few moments later, when I bought a copy of Michael Kupperman’s new book, Mark Twain’s Autobiography 1910-2010, with a $20 bill, Gary tried to give me $80 back. It was a long day.

16. I found street parking right around the corner from the festival, which made up for my getting raped by bridge-tolls: $12 at the GW, $6.50 each way on the Triborough. The Triborough really is an amazing bridge. Robert Moses sure had a heck of a vision for New York City. (You can be wrong and still have a vision.)

17. Tom moderated a conversation with Brian Ralph and CF, neither of whose work I’d read before. I took Tom out for dinner before the panel, where he worked on his questions, and then dropped him at Union Pool while I took our stuff back to the car. I thought that the panel would be more sparsely attended than the Kidd/Mazzucchelli one from a few hours before, since it was the last one of the day, but it was packed, with people spilling out of the room and into the courtyard. So I sat in the bar, had a Plymouth & tonic, and wrote for a little bit.

18. There were 3 women at the table behind me, arguing about whether one of them knew she was hot and was just downplaying it. One said, “Screw you! You don’t go to a comics festival in a kimono and thigh-highs if you don’t think you’re hot!” I was puzzled because, when I walked past the table on my way in, I reflexively noted that none of them were hot.

19. A woman standing by my table looked at me like she was about to say something, then stopped. I asked her if I knew her. She said she thought I was someone else. “The mayor of Chicago?” I asked. “Because I got that last week.” She didn’t see any resemblance between me and Rahm Emanuel. I admitted it was puzzling. She sat down at my table and we chatted for a big about cartooning. She gave me her new photcopied 8-page comic, presumably because I told her I was here with Tom.

20. Lots of people give Tom their comics. We joked about the “Comics Reporter sales bump” and thought about designing a stamp, a la Oprah’s book club, for the CR Seal of Approval. After his panel, Tom made his round of goodbyes back at the festival, and we headed back to NJ. The drive home was smooth, and I was glad to escape the constant vibration of the city. I’m afraid I’m a little out of tune.

Unrequired Reading: April Link Showers

Bizarre! I was just settling in to collect my May Twitter-links for a big Unrequired Reading when I discovered that last month’s load o’ links never went live! So here’s all of April’s great stuff! I’ll post May’s tomorrow!

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It’s time for another month’s worth of Twitter links, dear readers! If you want to follow along, I’m at twitter.com/groth18!

First, the retweets:

RT @mookiewilson86 (paul raff): David Koresh had a better homestand than the Mets.

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RT @ESQStyle Esquire Style: And the best-dressed male guest at the #RoyalWedding is… not David Beckham.

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RT @felixsalmon (felix salmon): Wherein Martin Amis blathers on for 4,000 dutiful but unnecessary words about Christopher Hitchens.

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RT @kylevanblerk (Kyle van Blerk): Client request of the year.

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RT @simondoonan (Simon Doonan): Creative factory: Simon Doonan, My Faves!

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RT @GreatDismal (William Gibson): “WE HELPED YOUR GRANDAD GET LAID” #daytonbootsvancouver

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RT @mattzollerseitz (Matthew Zoller Seitz): “‘After Hours’ exists to prove that ‘Taxi Driver’ actually displayed some restraint. @notjustmovies

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RT @JPosnanski (Joe Posnanski): In honor of touching CNN story, I write a little more about Nick Charles and a moment I’ll never forget.

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RT @asymmetricinfo (Megan McArdle): Why Europe won’t develop as an independent military power

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RT @kottke (kottke.org): Hilarious fake TLC promo

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RT @kylevanblerk (Kyle van Blerk): Bored at work. Photoshopping Bieber’s head onto things.

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RT @questlove (?Love of The Roots): Man. Not even “OJ Guilt” is the proper colloquialism for what I feel after eatin Cinnabon.

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And now, the links!

NBA Action: Bet On It! #IhadSpursandMagicinthefinals

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Ah, #vodka, with your “marketing gimmicks that make getting drunk seem like a gateway to fame and fortune

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The bowling alley of the #Frick: it’s no basement of the Alamo, but still.

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There’s now a computer as dumb as my boss. #thatswhatshesaid

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Joe Queenan goofs on the #gehry glut.

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Is anyone at the #royalwedding sporting a monkey-tail beard?

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Via @khoi, abandoned Yugoslavia monuments of awesomeness.

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Xanadu comes back to life! (Will #MichaelBeck and @olivianj be at the opening?)

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Xanadu: More of disaster than @XanaduMovie? #likedecoratinganuclearreactor #bringbacktheAlexander’smural

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In the movie, I see Billy Bob Thornton as the local, and Pesci as the mobster: #greateststoryever #trustme

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Tefillin: it’s like Jewish blood pressure.” Go, @MitzvahTank! #areyouJewish?

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Will nobody think of the #pistachios?!

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#AllStarSuperman never should’ve released the sun-eater from captivity:

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The Walk of Shame goes #StreetStyle, via @sartorialist

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So VCs are like the AIDS activists of our time?

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I’m all for taking advantage of gorgeous chicks, but sheesh! #modelscam (via @felixsalmon)

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#HaroldBloom and his “elite Europhile glasses” #agon

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Eat lead! #staedtler and #fabercastell at war

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Every so often, I remind myself why I find contempo literary fiction useless and stultifyingly dull

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Go read this #BenKatchor interview! Nownownow! #CardboardValise (just plow through the “what is comics?” section)

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@felixsalmon delivers a (much appreciated) Jonathan Franzen smackdown

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@witoldr on the secret language of architects.

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This #Houdini article escapes from the need to write in complete sentences. #escapeartistry

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I guess I oughtta get around to reading #GeoffDyer sometime, huh?

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In honor of tonight’s season 2 premiere of #Treme on #HBO, check out this interview with #WendellPierce (#BunkMoreland)

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#ChrisElliott has a DAUGHTER on SNL? #igrowold

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Dali makes aliyah!

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Ron Rosenbaum implores us to visit (Joyce’s) Ithaca (but not much else). (I admit I’ll likely skip #Ulysses)

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I’m awfully happy with my @allenedmonds, I have to say

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I look down on my wife. #shekicksmeintheshins

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#Starbury = Jim Jones?

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Is it good or bad that my TV/movie/prose diet is so similar to that of #StevenSoderbergh? #MillersCrossing!

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25 years ago: Graceland and the Gatwick Baby

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“People who drink coffee are different in many ways from those who don’t drink coffee” #whataboutgin?

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Geoff Dyer on being allergic to David Foster Wallace’s writing (his compare/contrast w/Federer is great)

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“You look into the fiery furnace and see the rich man without any name” #wallstreet

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Neat video of @billy_reid at home.

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@simondoonan on camp: “I am not the brightest Art Nouveau lamp in the room…” #needIsaymore?

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NOLA: The Big Hypothetical

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Fun interview with Glenn O’Brien, onetime Warhol employee and current #StyleGuy for #GQ: #howtobeaman #glennobrien

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Ah, get back to me around yer 20th reunion, ya young bastid.

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Neat take on Android, Google’s business model, and moats.

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Authors and broken promises. #Icantgetstarted

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I would prefer not to poke you. #groupmeh

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Um, the good news is that “cancer” doesn’t exist (the bad news is that it’s more complex than anyone thought) #uhoh

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Would it have more success if it were called a “scrodpiece”? #probablynot

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“It’s still real to me, dammit!” #soareconcussions #andearlydeath #wwe

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When Antonioni met Tarkovsky: #shakeitlikeaPolaroidpicture

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RPG = Rocket-Powered Genius (of design) #rocketpunchgeneration

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@rupaul answers all questions, except, “What’s up with the mustache?” #dragrace

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@david_j_roth speaks truth to pizza (I still don’t understand how @pizzahut stays in business here in NJ.)

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Is there a Damien Hirst level to unlock? #jeffkoonsmustdie

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By @mattnycs: Vote for the man in the small hat: a rabbi runs for office … in Uganda: Parts I and II #really

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Hot chicks with (old) douchebags: #Iblamesociety #Ialsoblamehotchicks

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No Shakespeare in Topeka? #talentnotgenius #billjames

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#Koppenburg: why I don’t bike. #whoneedstheexercise?

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Accidental Mysteries: masked #seenandunseen

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GREAT piece by @comicsreporter on a trip to the #centerforcartoonstudies

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Because, as we know from #chrisrock, books are like Kryptonite to… certain people: #padandquill

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The Perplexitude of Hilfiger

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Proto-Facebook

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Darkness at Noonan: #tomgoestothebar (happy 60th, Tom Noonan!)

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And I close this month’s edition with a non-link:

“I used to believe that worry was a talisman against something bad happening to you.” thx for the wisdom, @ConanOBrien (& @MarcMaron)!