The Virtual Memories Show

With The Picture Not Taken: On Life and Photography (NYRB), Benjamin Swett brings us a subtly beautiful series of essays that explore memory and identity and what we really see in the viewfinder. We talk about the role of photography in his life, how Musil, Sebald, and Knausgaard and taught him to trust digressions, the freedom to be found in the essay, how working in the NYC Parks Dept. led him into some strange career choices, and the challenge (& reward) of photographing trees. We get into our respective rebellions against our fathers and linearity, the loss of his daughter and how her shadow looms over the book, his idea for a negative-autobiography and my own photo-text project, how his family felt about being included in the essays, and the moment he felt comfortable moving from film to digital. We also discuss his 9/11 and what it revealed to him about himself, how the constraint of Instagram captions can lead to good storytelling, the ~30-year gap he took to finish his MFA, the benefits of leaning in to awkwardness and self-revelation, and a lot more. Follow Benjamin on Instagram • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal and via our e-newsletter

LIVE from Labyrinth Books, artist and vulgarizer of history (in the French sense) Ken Krimstein returns to the show to celebrate his new book, EINSTEIN IN KAFKALAND (Bloomsbury)! We talk about the mystery of the 15 months Einstein & Kafka overlapped in Prague, how the two of them invented the modern world, what Ken has learned about graphic storytelling after 3 books, how the theory of relativity bedeviled him since childhood, and how he managed to make a graphic novel about Jews in Prague and not include a golem. We get into all the research and rabbit-holes of this project, including his monthlong research-stay in Prague, as well as the chapter he had to cut on Kafka's love of Yiddish theater, the challenges of portraying Einstein's professional and personal struggles, and his discovery that readers would follow his phantasmagoric flights and surreal episodes. We also discuss Ken's fixations on Mitteleuropa and scenes & salons, Sam Gross' observation about his art, Kenny Werner's concept of effortless mastery, why he wants to bring some joy to his next project, and more. Follow Ken on Instagram • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal and via our e-newsletter

Cartoonist & historian Eddie Campbell returns to the show with his fantastic new book, KATE CAREW: America's First Great Woman Cartoonist (Fantagraphics Underground), which explores turn-of-the-(20th)-century artist, cartoonist, illustrator, caricaturist, interviewer & journalist Kate Carew. We get into how Eddie discovered Kate's work while researching The Goat-Getters, how Kate wound up interviewing the likes of Mark Twain, Picasso, the Wright Brothers, and other celebs (& non-celebs) of her time, how her self-caricatures serve as a sorta graphic autobiography (and precursor to the whole world of graphic memoir storytelling), her support of women's suffrage, and how I accidentally semi-sorta inspired Eddie to make this book. We also talk about how Kate's story evades sentimentality, how Eddie & Audrey Niffenegger formed the Digital Art Burglars firm™, what he's learned from exploring the early history of American cartooning, why his next book is about the Midwest school of cartooning, how he wound up writing the comics histories he wanted to read, and why he had to pull a page from this book due to a complaint from the printer. Plus we discuss his new graphic novel about how he met Audrey, how his comic strip of the Pajama Girl, a murder victim in Sydney, led to him working with Alan Moore on From Hell, his life-lessons about making every pitch & taking every job that was offered, and why Kate Carew was such an enormous outlier in the world of cartooning. Follow Eddie on Bluesky • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal and via our e-newsletter

Comics librarian and curator Caitlin McGurk returns to the show to celebrate her amazing new book, TELL ME A STORY WHERE THE BAD GIRL WINS: The Life and Art of Barbara Shermund (Fantagraphics). We talk about Caitlin's shock at her 2012 discovery of Barbara Shermund's incredible gag-comics and illustrations in the archive of the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum, how her interest in Barbara evolved from blog posts to a museum exhibit to a book, the challenge of writing about someone who did no interviews or press and had no close relatives, and how easily women get erased from history. We get into the gestalt of Barbara's fantastic linework and washes and her wry sense of humor, why Caitlin wound up writing an academic press version of the book before rewriting it for a trade publisher, the challenges & rewards of designing a book to showcase so much art, how Barbara helped create the look of The New Yorker in its early years, why Caitlin speculated (but not too much) about Barbara's sexuality. We also discuss the malleability of history, how the Billy Ireland has changed in the 10 years since Caitlin & I last recorded, the pep talk she wished she could have gotten from our late friend Tom Spurgeon, time Al Capp (!!) advocated for allowing women into the National Cartoonists Society, the incredible story of tracking down Barbara's remains and giving her a proper funeral 35 years after her death, and a lot more. Follow Caitlin on Instagram and the Billy Ireland blog • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal and via our e-newsletter

Artist Frances Jetter joins the show to talk about her amazing new book, AMALGAM: An Immigrant, His Labor Union, and His American Family in Brooklyn (Fantagraphics Underground). We talk about how the book both expanded and narrowed in scope during its 12-year process, how her grandfather's story bleeds out into American, Jewish and labor history, and how she integrated her trademark linocut prints with other media to create an unforgettable graphic narrative. We get into how the editorial illustration field changed over her career and why she moved toward artist's books and narrative art, why "illustrator" isn't a dirty word & why having her work out in the world is important, how we don't always see the resonances of our work when we're in the middle of it, how working with other materials and forms (like sculpture) rejuvenated her drawing, what she learned about storytelling in the making of AMALGAM, her family's political background and her awakening, how students have changed over her 40+ years teaching at SVA, and more. Follow Frances on Instagram • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal and via our e-newsletter

With THE NOTEBOOK: A History of Thinking on Paper (Biblioasis), Roland Allen explores how the proliferation of paper & binding changed culture, business, and maybe the nature of human consciousness. We talk about how keeping a diary got him obsessed-ish with notebooks, how he found a narrative and protagonists as he delved into the history of notebooks, and what it means to see the notebook as a piece of technology/hardware. We get into their influence on art and the Renaissance (and the theory that sketchbooks allowed artists to move toward realism), how diaries created a new, private persona distinct from the public self, how he discovered a new reading for a line of Hamlet, and how digital options never manage to replace the paper notebook. We also discuss how Moleskine came to dominate the notebook market and how Bruce Chatwin's The Songlines jumpstarted their craze, how Roland learned to switch off the "this isn't interesting" filter in his own diaries, how writing this book made him a better notebooker, the way Dutch album amicorum (friendship books) served as a social media precursor, how our notebooks can outlive us (and his posthumous plans for his diaries), and a lot more. Follow Roland on Instagram and Bluesky • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal and via our e-newsletter

With his new graphic novel, NAKED CITY (Dark Horse Books), artist/activist Eric Drooker finishes the New York trilogy begun in Flood! and Blood Song. We talk about how Naked City started with the image of a beleaguered squeegee-man and wound up a love letter to New York and especially Tompkins Square Park, the challenges of using word/thought balloons and captions after making wordless comics for so long, and the importance of staying handmade in the digital era. We get into his upbringing in Stuy Town and the Lower East Side/Loisaida, why we were recording in an apartment above the Museum of Reclaimed Urban Space, how New York changed during his life, why he semi sorta escaped from the city, what it's like being a quality-of-life criminal, and the time he made his start with stencil-graffiti only to get over-tagged by Basquiat. We also discuss his artistic & political awakenings, the Tompkins Square Park riot and police militarization, his ambivalence about street art going into the gallery, the importance of on-the-ground activism (MOAR STREET POSTERS), the surveillance panopticon, and more. Follow Eric on Instagram, Facebook and YouTube • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal and via our e-newsletter

With his fantastic new book, MYSTICISM (NYRB), philosopher Simon Critchley explores mystic traditions from medieval Christianity to the present. We talk about the evolving definition of mysticism, its female-centric history, how it's not just the moment of revelation but the adoption of a form practice (like Julian of Norwich's half-day of revelations and ~40 years of theological examination of them), and whether today's aesthetic experiences can truly be a substitute for the religious transcendence of the past. We get into attention as a form of mysticism and close reading as a form of attention, how we can try to overcome this age of distraction upon distraction, what it means to de-create our creaturely self and 'get out of our own way', how philosophy treated religion as bonkers, and why he's drawn to the weirdness of Christianity. We also discuss how he's made a publishing career out of death, how we each faced our theoretical deaths and found liberation in their wake, the music he makes with his oldest friend, John Simmons, how Brian Eno's concept of a Scenius is hard to create virtually, how his life and his teaching have changed since the pandemic began, The Time He Got To Meet Nick Cave (grr!), and a lot more. Follow Simon on Instagram and Facebook, and follow Critchley And Simmons on Instagram • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal and via our e-newsletter

Hail Satan! It's spooky season, and writer/editor Doug Brod joins the show to celebrate his fantastic new biography, BORN WITH A TAIL: The Devilish Life and Wicked Times of Anton Szandor LaVey, Founder of the Church of Satan (Hachette). We talk about the line between huckster and believer, the history of the Church of Satan, why Doug didn't want to puncture the mythology LaVey built around his life, and the fun of writing a chapter about Sammy Davis Jr. exploring Satanism. We also get into how LaVey's philosophy of self-deification and aesthetics managed to penetrate American culture, how Doug balanced reporting & cultural history for the book, the people he wishes he could've interviewed, how LaVey reveled in spreading his gospel to the post-punk/'zine generation in the '90s, what it takes to create one's own aesthetic world while still going out to Olive Garden, Doug's first book about '70s hard rock, and what it means to consider Satan as metaphor rather than incarnated being, and more. Follow Doug on Instagram • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal and via our e-newsletter

Author & essayist Sven Birkerts returns to the show to celebrate his fantastic new essay collection, The Miró Worm and the Mysteries of Writing (Arrowsmith Press). We talk about the estrangement of the everyday, the problem of other minds, how serendipity tells us something about where we are, authors' photos and self-mythologizing, moving house (& turning 70) during COVID, and the inspiration of Cortazar's Around the Day in Eighty Worlds. We get into the threat of AI to writing, reading, and thinking, opening up to ambivalence, why people find it so tough to say the word "soul", what he misses about teaching, Kierkegaard & Walker Percy's The Moviegoer & being on The Search, and wondering what Bob Dylan is like in the kitchen in the morning. We also discuss writers' homes & graves and the myth of inspiration, his new Sketches From Memory essays and how they've opened him up as a writer, how we build circles of affinity, how his father's career as an architect influenced his eye (but not his writing), why people find it so tough to say the word "soul", and more. Follow Sven on Instagram • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal and via our e-newsletter