The Virtual Memories Show

With Marcus Aurelius: The Stoic Emperor (Yale University Press), author & therapist Donald J. Robertson brings us the life and philosophy of the last of the Five Good Emperors. We talk about how knowing the life and travails of Marcus Aurelius helps one understand how to lead a Stoic life, how the Antonine Plague compares with our life in Pandemia, the reasons Donald found modern biographies of Marcus Aurelius wanting, and how this book brought him new understanding of the intricacies of Ancient Roman life and Marcus Aurelius' big decisions. We also get into the role of Stoicism in his own life and how that philosophy's been debased into the unhealthy "lower-case stoicism", the literal toxicity of being a tough guy, how Stoicism and its nuanced view of emotions inspired modern Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, why the psychotherapy field is resistant to acknowledging Stoicism's contribution, and why Freudians really disapprove (think symptom substitution). We discuss the importance of building emotional resilience and understanding one's value judgements, Robert Burns' role as a gateway drugs to Stoicism, the alternate history in which Socrates was part of Christian tradition, Donald's Eureka! moment and how he accidentally became a writer, how Wilko Johnson can help me live a fuller mortal life, and a lot more. Follow Donald on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, and subscribe to his Substack and his podcast • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal and via our e-newsletter

With her incredible new book, THE FURIES: Women, Vengeance, & Justice (Harper), journalist Elizabeth Flock explores the lives of three women who responded to violence with violence, and how they run up against the social institutions that seem designed to grind them down. We get into how the book grew from her interest in female vigilantes and her own experience of sexual violence, how she wound up reporting on the YPJ all-women army in Syria (but didn't tell her mom until a few days before flying out there), how we try to reconcile revenge and a just world, and how cultures of honor wreak havoc on women and men. We talk about how she balanced reporting with the near-mythic characters of some of her subjects, what she's learned over 15+ years in journalism (including how not to re-traumatize her subjects as they tell her their stories), the mind-body connection & how wrecked her body got by the time she finished writing this book, and how she went into this book starry-eyed and came away with a muddied picture. And we discuss how flexible podcasts are for journalistic storytelling, how women and men have responded to The Furies, what it was like reporting during the pandemic, guns & gun culture (& my embarrassing gun story), that time her dad took her to a murder scene when she was a kid (tbf, he was a journalist), having her first child a few months ago, whether things are getting a little better for women, and a lot more. Follow Liz on Twitter and Instagram • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal and via our e-newsletter

Hey! Anything good on TV? No? Then listen to legendary film critic David Thomson as we discuss his amazing new book, REMOTELY: Travels in the Binge of TV (Yale University Press)! David & I get into how TV has changed and how it's changed us, the communal experience of going to the movies vs. sitting on the sofa, the ways his relationship with his wife deepened in front of the tube during lockdown (and why he gave her some of the best lines in Remotely), and the personal, political, & social implications of watching crap over a long period of time. We talk about falling into the stream of streaming, how advertising was the snake in American TV's garden, BBC's very strange exception for its licence fee, the courage in actually writing about what he's watching (even though Remotely isn't a critical guide), and what made Ozark special to him. We also discuss Clive James' transformation of TV criticism, the end of a golden age of TV, the importance of live sports events, the joy of seeing Barbie in a packed theater, how everything points to a world where no one is in charge, and a lot more. • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal and via our e-newsletter

With his graphic novel, BLOOD OF THE VIRGIN (Pantheon), Sammy Harkham tells a story of personal and professional disintegration, against the backdrop of exploitation movies and the Iraqi Jewish diaspora in '70s L.A. We get into the obsessions and family lore that drove him to make the book, why it took him 14 years to complete it, what it means to focus on the 'novel' part of 'graphic novel', and how craft is always trying to catch up to ambition. We talk about the need to get past the cliches of the 'inside Hollywood' story, what he learned about his process over the course of making this book, why he didn't read the earlier chapters until he finished the story, and the John Steinbeck advice that got him over the finish line. We also discuss his comics upbringing, his thoughts on the late Joe Matt, the Jim Woodring panels that have haunted him for decades, the joyful anxiety of not knowing what his next project will be, and a lot more. Follow Sammy on Instagram • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal and via our e-newsletter

The great cartoonist and humorist Ed Subitzky gets his long-delayed due with the new collection, POOR HELPLESS COMICS! (New York Review Comics). We talk about Ed's amazing career at National Lampoon, how he developed his "can't draw' style after taking a cartooning class with RO Blechman & Charles Slackman A DOZEN TIMES, how the Rapidograph became his Excalibur, and why this collection includes some of his favorite prose pieces alongside all the comics. We get into how he began experimenting with the form & structure of comics, his lifelong curiosities for science and philosophy and how he wound up getting published in the Journal of Consciousness Studies, his longtime career writing direct marketing pieces, and how it took preparing this book and looking back at his work for him to realize his comics were really funny. • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal and via our e-newsletter

Did you make a 2024 resolution to put down your phone? This week's guest might make you rethink that! Chris Silverman has been making gorgeous, weird, haunting artwork daily for more than 2 years, using only his iPhone's Notes app and his fingertips. We get into how #notesArt began, how it's evolved, what his drawing process is like, what it's been like to build an audience for his art, and how viewers bring their own meanings to his #notesArt. We talk about the challenges of keeping up a regular art practice (daily!), how upgrading to iOS17 jump-started his new creative phase, the artists and cartoonists who influence him, whether Undo is his friend or enemy, his fascination with traffic lights, empty buildings, and masks, and the subconscious burbling that gives birth to the images he draws. We also share our thoughts on mortality, authenticity and identity, what it means to share your art with the world, the pressure that comes when someone is watching, and a lot more! Follow Chris & #notesArt on Instagram, Mastodon, Glass, and at notes.art • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal and via our e-newsletter

Our host, Gil Roth, closes out 2023 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, 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. More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal and via our newsletter

Seventeen of this year's Virtual Memories Show guests tell us about the favorite books they read in 2023 and the books they hope to get to in 2024! Guests include Ho Che Anderson, Josh Bayer, Howard Fishman, Priscilla Gilman, Bill Griffith, Dean Haspiel, Sara Lippmann, Patrick McDonnell, James McMullan, Lisa Morton, Jonathan Papernick, Andrew Porter, Dawn Raffel, Paul B. Rainey, Peter Rostovsky, Scott Samuelson, and Karl Stevens (+ me)! • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal and by subscribing to our Substack

For the last guest-episode of 2023, art critic Jarrett Earnest joins me to celebrate his beautiful new book, VALID UNTIL SUNSET (Matte Editions), which brings together his Polaroids and a second-person narrative to create a bewitching trip through memory, art, grief, friendship, and more. We talk about how the sudden death of his father paralyzed and then catalyzed him, the importance of making art before fully recovering from a bad experience, how the artist's job is to be a question mark, and how a Nan Goldin exhibition started him on taking pictures of the people and places that mattered to him. We get into his friendships with Genesis P-Orridge and Peter Schjeldahl, and Genesis' imprecation to do/make/be the Most Fabulous Imaginable Version, the importance of road trips and pilgrimages, what he learned from interviewing a series of art critics, the freedom & addictiveness of writing in the second person, why we need to make an argument about why any art matters at all today, and why he loves writing about artists he knows. Plus, we discuss the value of public-facing life in NYC, how it felt to perform selections from Valid Until Sunset, how he thinks of writing in terms of shape, the importance of having a really good analyst and really dumb personal trainer, why you don't need to be part of Barbenheimer, and a lot more. Follow Jarrett on Instagram and subscribe to his Substack • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal and via our Substack

With his new book, ZERO AT THE BONE: Fifty Entries Against Despair (FSG), Christian Wiman fuses essay, poem, memoir and anthology in a singular work that explores how the act of writing a poem is a gesture of faith. We talk about the varieties of despair and joy, the question of whether the world is chaos or has order, and whether the relationship between art and life is a tension or an actual antipathy (as Henry James would have it). We also get into the urgency of mortality and the rare cancer that almost killed Christian on three separate occasions (including this year), the notion of having a calling and the difference between given and earned callings, who we're really trying to reach when we write a poem, whether Philip Larkin's Aubade is a poem of pure despair, how literature has taken the place of sacred texts, and what he's learned from teaching at Yale Divinity School. We also discuss The Void & how to tune it out, his thoughts on faith and Christ and how the incarnation of God in Jesus sacralizes the physical world, where poetry began for him, whether joy is passed down epigenetically like trauma (allegedly) is, what it's like having a Ninja Blender for a brain, coming around on poets in translation like Yehuda Amichai, the meaning of existence, and a lot more (I mean, if you can have a lot more after the meaning of existence). More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal and via our Substack