Episode 598 - Anita Kunz

07/30/24 • 72 min

Artist & illustrator Anita Kunz returns to the show to talk about how art saved her life, as we catch up on her fantastic books, ORIGINAL SISTERS and STRIKING A POSE: A Handy Guide to the Male Nude (Pantheon and Fantagraphics, respectively). We talk about Anita's passion for figure drawing, how disconcerted some male viewers were by Striking A Pose, the difference between drawing women and men and all the tension and dynamics that go into making art from each gender, and why Winston Churchill's granddaughter was none-too-pleased by his appearance in her book. We get into how her 2020 lockdown project of painting one portrait of a badass woman every day evolved into her Original Sisters series, how it feels to be closing in on 500 portraits (!), and how she keeps finding more badass women to paint. We also discuss her transition from an acclaimed illustration career into big art projects, how Barbara Nessim helped her find a gallery (and how she had to get over her fear of gallery owners), the book of parables & fables she's making, how it feels to see her Original Sisters in museum exhibitions (and how much she's looking forward to their big show at the Norman Rockwell Museum), the burden of having to be A Nice Girl In A Small Town growing up, how she makes great art while being racked with self-doubt, the importance of mentors and art-friends, and a lot more. Follow Anita on Instagram, check out the Original Sisters site, and listen to our 2021 conversation • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal and via our e-newsletter

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Episode 597 - Shalom Auslander

With his amazing new book, FEH: A Memoir (Riverside Books), Shalom Auslander explores how the judgmental disgust of FEH infected his life, and what it meant to get sick & tired of the disgust and outrage FEH-stival and look for a way out. We talk about the sense of shame, disgust and self-loathing at the core of our common story, why every bookstore should be called, 'You Suck', his friendship with the late Philip Seymour Hoffman and how they bonded over FEH, and how hard he's worked to find the un-FEH for his kids. We get into how story is our operating system (but what happens when there are bugs in the OS?), how the FEH machine came after his psychiatrist, the notion of misotheism, and his video series UNGODLY where he reads the Bible and asks, 'What if God is the antagonist?'. We also discuss his ultra-orthodox upbringing, how "Jewish heritage" has been subsumed by Holocaust memorials, his antipathy toward the pop-culture Anne Frank and how he rewrote her for HOPE: A Tragedy, his time in the advertising industry and how it led to his TV show Happyish, his bleak Peanuts parody strip that got Jeannie Schulz's approval, the neurological condition where blind people believe they can see and how it parallels our existential state of FEH, the realization that cynicism doesn't mean you're smart (just lazy), and a lot more. Subscribe to Shalom's Substack • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal and via our e-newsletter

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Episode 599 - Mirana Comstock

This one's all about legacies: familial, literary, cultural & institutional! Mirana Comstock joins the show to celebrate the publication of The Algonquin Round Table: 25 Years with the Legends Who Lunch (Excelsior Editions/SUNY Press), by her grandfather, the late literary lion Konrad Bercovici. We get into how Mirana discovered this manuscript, what it meant to edit it & write the intro, what it was like to help bring the Algonquin scene & Konrad's writing to life for a new generation of readers, and the experience of growing up in a multigenerational household of compulsive artists & writers. We talk about why her grandfather's immense literary stature diminished, the nature of charisma and The Aura, the scandal of Chaplin stealing Konrad's script for The Great Dictator, how the Algonquin habitués were the influencers of their time (only with something to say), how the Algonquin scene was like Vienna café society transposed into New York & American capitalism, Mirana's discoveries as she researched the figures in the book, and why there'll never be another book like this one. We also discuss the New-York Historical Society's acquisition of Konrad's papers, her New York and how it's changed, her idea for transforming her family's writing into a meta-stage production, and a lot more. More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal and via our e-newsletter