The Virtual Memories Show
For more than 40 years, the breathtaking pictures of photographer have chronicled New York City and America (and a couple of war zones), and now the amazing new documentary (Greenwich Entertainment) by director has launched a rediscovery of James Hamilton's work, life & times. D.W. rejoins the show to talk about how James' career at the NY Herald, Village Voice, and NY Observer opened the door to a a bigger story about NYC, arts/culture and media, how NYC has changed and how the culture adapts, and how young viewers react upon learning about the city's vibrant newspaper & alt-weekly...
info_outline Episode 586 - Jen SilvermanThe Virtual Memories Show
Author-playwright-screenwriter-poet returns to the show to celebrate their amazing new novel, (Random House). We get into how Jen accidentally stumbled into the 2018 Gilets Jaunes protests in Paris and triggered this new book, the ways we're shaped by our parents' failures and secrets, the many routes of radicalization, and the theatricality of protests, how they draw people in (with a boost from ), and how they contrast with theater itself. We also talk about the role of art in understanding the times, how Jen's stories start with character, their work on and how TV writing differs from...
info_outline Episode 585 - Leonard BarkanThe Virtual Memories Show
With (Fordham), professor blends memoir and deep reading of Shakespeare's greatest plays to explore his lifelong relationship with literature and the way(s) we use art to construct our identities. We get into what it means to read, hear, perform, direct, teach Shakespeare, why it took him a lifetime to get to this book, how he contrasts himself with a radically naive reader (and why it's important to try to capture our naïveté), the gayness of Shakespeare's two Antonios, the many stories he couldn't tell until his folks were gone, and the role Shakespeare played in Leonard's gay coming of...
info_outline Episode 584 - Emily RaboteauThe Virtual Memories Show
After a ~10-year gap, rejoins the show to celebrate her amazing new essay collection, (Holt). We talk about her sparkbird and the in Washington Heights that center the book, her transformation into a climate activist, the joy of the flaneuse, her scavenger hunt for 's environmental art, and the idea of pain with a purpose. We also get into the differences between mothering & motherhood, the reason she put "the Apocalypse" in quotes in her subtitle, how COVID lockdown made her realize her kids' lives had been overscheduled (and how lockdown gave them some room to breathe), and the...
info_outline Bonus Episode - Trillian Stars and Kyle CassidyThe Virtual Memories Show
Photographer and writer and actor and model join us for a Bonus Episode to talk about their new Kickstarter, (closing May 4, 2024)! We get into their inspiration to make a book combining the poems of Pre-Raphaelite muse/model/artist with photos of Trillian (in a Pre-Raphaelite mode), how the project changed once they began shooting in East London, how they found enough costumes for all the photos they wanted to take, why Lizzie Siddal was dismissed by the peers of her husband, , and how modeling and acting overlap and differ (and why Kyle prefers shooting with actors). We also get into...
info_outline Episode 583 - Leela CormanThe Virtual Memories Show
At long last, artist joins the show as we celebrate her breathtaking new graphic novel, (Schocken Books)! We talk about how the book brings together the women welders of WWII-era Brooklyn Navy Yards, professional wrestling, and her lifelong obsession with the Shoah, how discovering her watercolor style was like the portal between life and death opening, the art school experience that derailed her, and how the artistic ground start shifting beneath her as she got serious about her comics. We get into her life-defining visit to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the sacred responsibility of...
info_outline Episode 582 - Keith MayersonThe Virtual Memories Show
How did an eBay search lead to the discovery of a lost classic of comics? How can art help us build a better America? Artist and teacher joins the show to talk about co-editing the amazing new book, (Fantagraphics) and his multi-decade "wordless novel" in paintings, (Karma). We get into how Frank Johnson made thousands of pages of comics in private, never published, and may have created the first American comic-book in history, whether he constitutes an Outsider Artist, how his creative legacy contrasts with 's, and what it means to make a lifelong body of work with no sense or expectation...
info_outline Episode 581 - Edith HallThe Virtual Memories Show
Classicist joins the show to talk about her fantastic, important new book, (Yale University Press). We talk about the taboo of talking about suicide, how that taboo can lead to transgenerational damage, how that compares to the family curses in Greek tragedies, and what the Tragedians have to teach us about life (and death) today. We get into her grandmother's suicide and her mother's conspiracy of silence around it, her own suicidal ideation and how Heracles Mad helped her through her worst phase, the way Facing Down the Furies sprung from Edith's previous book, , the process of researching...
info_outline Bonus Episode - Dean HaspielThe Virtual Memories Show
LEAN INTO DEAN! Cartoonist, playwright, schmoozer, etc. returns for a Bonus Episode to talk about his new Kickstarter, (closing March 28, 2024)! We get into why he's making the plunge into Meta-Mem-Noir and bringing Dean Haspiel as a character into his New Brooklyn comics universe, what it's like to be part of the story, and how this podcast is also becoming more autobiographical with each passing week. Plus, we talk about getting old and not being able to stay out all night (even though he tried this weekend), what it's like to treat comics as a reductive art rather than a rendering one,...
info_outline Episode 580 - David SmallThe Virtual Memories Show
With his brand new collection, (Liveright), brings us a trio of stories about the beast within (that is, within the heart, within the psyche, and within the body politic). We talk about the on-and-off 40-year history of this collection, the themes of transformation and aging that suffuse these stories, and the schism in Leonora Carrington's estate that nearly derailed the whole project. We get into the the challenges of adapting prose fiction into comics, his move from graphic novels (think and ) to short stories, why he's come to love drawing digitally, and just how bad most surrealist...
info_outlineHey! 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