Episode 319 – Katelan Foisy

Virtual Memories Show 319:
Katelan Foisy

“Magic is opening doors you didn’t know existed.”

Her first crush was Nosferatu, she started reading Burroughs at 12, she’s fused Roma and Santeria, and now Katelan Foisy joins the show to talk about making art, magic, and a personal mythology. We get into the course of her artistic career, the perils of a public persona, the experience of making art for Smashing Pumpkins and William Patrick Corgan (& the genesis of their friendship), understanding the tarot as storyboards, learning to paint mosaics to make the Sibyls Oraculum, the allure of old hotels, the duality of Al Capone, and why she traded the East River for Lake Michigan. Plus, the great advice she got from Molly Crabapple, forming a Third Mind with Vanessa Sinclair, her adherence to William Burroughs’ twin beliefs that you can write your way out of any problem and that photographs can change the future, and how her art tries to capture the Romany notion of the Stopping Place. Give it a listen! And go check out Katelan’s marketplace for art and magic!

“Everything I make as commercial art still plays into my personal mythology.”

“I discovered Burroughs when I was 12 or 13, and I remember thinking, ‘This doesn’t feel good, but I can’t stop.'”

“The reason I met Molly Crabapple is that we had the same idea. But she was doing it and I was just thinking it.”

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

Lots of ways to follow The Virtual Memories Show! iTunes, Spotify, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, TuneIn, Tumblr, and RSS!

About our Guest

Katelan Foisy is a multimedia artist, occultist, and writer. Her fine art pieces have been displayed at The Worcester Art Museum, Ohio History Museum, MODA, WEAM, A&D Gallery, and Last Rights. She has graced the pages of the Grammy Award programs and the stage of Cynthia von Buhler’s immersive historical plays “Speakeasy Dollhouse” and “The Brothers Booth.” Katelan has been featured in the NY Times, Elle magazine, Paper Magazine, GQ Italy, Time Out NY, Witches & Pagans, and many others—for her work as an artist, curator and occultist. She has written for Motherboard/VICE, Electric Literature, Luna Luna, ERIS magazine, COILHOUSE and held events with Atlas Obscura and lectured at Morbid Anatomy. Her short films have been shown at Cinamatique Francaise as part of the Romani Avante Garde Film Sessions and her illustrations are featured on The Smashing Pumpkins “Shiny And Oh So Bright” Tour as well as William Patrick Corgan’s “Ogilala” tour. She is the artist for the Sibyls Oraculum with Tayannah McQuillar and the forthcoming Hoodoo Tarot. Chaos of the Third Mind, with Vanessa Sinclair, will be released in 2020 from Fulgar Ltd, UK. She’s on Instagram and Twitter as katelanfoisy. She was called a “Female Jack Kerouac” by Taylor Mead, a “Modern Day Francesca Woodman” by Cynthia von Buhler, and William Patrick Corgan has said, “They used to burn witches like Katelan.”

Credits: This episode’s music is Fella by Hal Mayforth, used with permission from the artist. The conversation was recorded at Katelan’s home on a pair of Blue enCORE 200 Microphones feeding into a Zoom H5 digital recorder. I recorded the intro and outro on a Heil PR-40 Dynamic Studio Recording Microphone feeding into a Cloudlifter CL-1 and a Mackie Onyx Blackjack 2×2 USB Recording Interface. All processing and editing done in Adobe Audition CC. “About Our Guest” pix of Katelan by me. Other pix by her, I think. Mine are on my instagram.

Episode 318 – Ersi Sotiropoulos

Virtual Memories Show 318:
Ersi Sotiropoulos

“It’s very important how you say things, because the stories themselves are the same: love, death, sex, betrayal. Since Homer, we repeat the same stories.”

How does an artist make The Leap into greatness? In Ersi Sotiropoulos‘ wondrous new novel, What’s Left of the Night (New Vessel Press, tr. Karen Emmerich), we explore three days in the mid-life of the poet CP Cavafy and how they may have helped him become the most distinguished Greek poet of the 20th century. Ersi & I talk about how an off-the-cuff discovery of Cavafy’s 1897 trip to Paris led her to this novel over three decades, how she almost drowned in research before a poet browbeat her into writing the proemium of her novel, and how the book rebelled against itself until she had a dream of Cavafy that quelled the unrest. We also get into the universality of desire, her non-challenge of writing from the perspective of a gay man, the process of translation and Ersi’s tendency to over-edit translators when it’s a language she knows. Plus, she tells us why she considers me a pantophile (one who likes everything), and why she prefers hotels over being home in Greece, the Iliad over the Odyssey, and the daemon over the muses when it comes to the font of creativity. BONUS: You get to hear about the novel I never got around to writing, featuring Henry Miller and George Orwell! Give it a listen! And go buy What’s Left of the Night!

“Writing the book, with all the research that I went through, Cavafy became very close as a person. I enjoyed him and I enjoyed his flaws. He amuses me very much.”

“In a hotel room, I feel like life can start again.”

“For me, writing is discovery. Otherwise, it would be boring.”

“The image we have of Cavafy is someone who is already old, who possesses wisdom. But I was interested in what happened before, before becoming Cavafy.”

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

Lots of ways to follow The Virtual Memories Show! iTunes, Spotify, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, TuneIn, Tumblr, and RSS!

About our Guest

Ersi Sotiropoulos has written fifteen books of fiction and poetry. Her work has been translated into many languages, and has been twice awarded Greece’s National Book Prize as well as her country’s Book Critics’ Award and the Athens Academy Prize. What’s Left of the Night won the 2017 Prix Méditerranée Étranger in France.

Credits: This episode’s music is Fella by Hal Mayforth, used with permission from the artist. The conversation was recorded at the home of Michael Z. Wise on a pair of Blue enCORE 200 Microphones feeding into a Zoom H5 digital recorder. I recorded the intro and outro on a Heil PR-40 Dynamic Studio Recording Microphone feeding into a Cloudlifter CL-1 and a Mackie Onyx Blackjack 2×2 USB Recording Interface. All processing and editing done in Adobe Audition CC. Photos of Ersi and Michael Z. Wise by me. It’s on my instagram.

Episode 317 – Frederic Tuten

Virtual Memories Show 317:
Frederic Tuten

“I told Jerome Charyn, ‘You escaped the Bronx by writing about it. I escaped by never going back.'”

With My Young Life (Simon & Schuster), Frederic Tuten had to get over his notion that memoir is a cheap shot in order to look back at the beginning of a career in writing, teaching, and art criticism in the New York of the 1940s, ’50s, and ’60s. We get into what started him on this book, how he’s haunted by his childhood in the Bronx, his emphasis on quality over quantity in literary output (while coping with the cautionary example of his writing teacher, Leonard Ehrlich, who only published a single, well-acclaimed novel), his mentorship by artist and convicted murderer John Resko, the joys of cafe culture (and his favorite haunt, Cafe Mogador), and how he got two-timed by “the Elizabeth Taylor of the Bronx” with Jerome Charyn. We also lament today’s celebration of the mundane, celebrate his friendships with Herge, Lichtenstein, Resnais and Queneau, and talk about the books he wants loaded in his casket when he dies, the great allure of Juan Rulfo’s sole book, Pedro Paramo, why future pod-guest Iris Smyles’ first novel is better than F. Scott Fitzgerald’s first novel, how fact-checker Anne Stringfield corrected some virtual memories in My Young Life, how poverty shaped his later life, what he learned from sobriety, Gaugin and The Magic Mountain, and plenty more! Give it a listen! And go buy My Young Life!

“In my 80s I feel like I’m just beginning life. Beginning to learn how to live, and to work, and to enjoy.”

“Live in the dream of the work and rest easy. Something will come. It doesn’t have to be perfect, but you’ve done it. And you can always fix it.”

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

Lots of ways to follow The Virtual Memories Show! iTunes, Spotify, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, TuneIn, Tumblr, and RSS!

About our Guest

Frederic Tuten grew up in the Bronx. At fifteen, he dropped out of High School to become a painter and live in Paris. He took odd jobs and studied briefly at the Art Students League, and eventually went back to school, continuing on to earn a Ph.D. in early 19th century American Literature from New York University.

He travelled through Latin and South America, studied pre-Columbian and Mexican mural painting at the University of Mexico, wrote about Braziliian Cinema Novo, and joined that circle of film makers, which included Glauber Rocha and Nelson Pereira dos Santos. Tuten finally did live in Paris, where he taught film and literature at the University of Paris 8. He acted in a short film by Alain Resnais, co-wrote the cult film Possession, and conducted summer writing workshops with Paul Bowles in Tangiers.

Tuten’s short stories, art and film criticism have appeared in such places as ArtForum, the New York Times, Vogue, Conjunctions, Granta and Harpers. In addition, he has written essays and fictions for artists’ catalogues including John Baldessari, Eric Fischl, Pierre Huyghe, Jeff Koons, David Salle and Roy Lichtenstein. He has published five novels: The Adventures of Mao on the Long March; Tallien: A Brief Romance; Tintin in the New World: A Romance; Van Gogh’s Bad Café: A Love Story; The Green Hour; and most recently, Self Portraits: Fictions, a collection of stories.

Tuten received a Guggenheim Fellowship for Fiction and was given the Award for Distinguished Writing from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His new book is the memoir My Young Life.

Credits: This episode’s music is Fella by Hal Mayforth, used with permission from the artist. The conversation was recorded at Frederic’s apartment on a pair of Blue enCORE 200 Microphones feeding into a Zoom H5 digital recorder. I recorded the intro and outro on a Heil PR-40 Dynamic Studio Recording Microphone feeding into a Cloudlifter CL-1 and a Mackie Onyx Blackjack 2×2 USB Recording Interface. All processing and editing done in Adobe Audition CC. Photos of Mr. Tuten by me. It’s on my instagram.

Episode 316 – Michael Carroll

Virtual Memories Show 316:
Michael Carroll

“I think I became a writer because my father never wanted to get out of the car.”

The Village People tell us that Key West is the key to happiness, but is it also the key to a literary legacy? Michael Carroll joins the show to talk about his new collection, Stella Maris: And Other Key West Stories (Turtle Point Press), and the role Key West has played in his life. We get into the pros and cons of being married to a literary titan (Edmund White, in this case) and how they’re portrayed in each other’s work, the value of short stories in the short attention span era (and his lament that young gay men don’t read), growing up Southern Baptist and gay, whether his upbringing in Jacksonville means he is Florida Man (and whether Florida is The South or South-Ish), why he avoids hookup apps, the influence of Joy Williams on his writing and the sustenance he gets from Lana Del Rey, and how writing about gay sex helps him vent his political rage. Give it a listen! And go buy Stella Maris: And Other Key West Stories!

“This book is a way to save Key West in my life and in my mind.”

“I used to torture myself over a paragraph or two a day. Then I realized that if I’m not enjoying the writing, you’re not going to enjoy the reading.”

TUNEIN

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

Lots of ways to follow The Virtual Memories Show! iTunes, Spotify, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, TuneIn, Tumblr, and RSS!

About our Guest

Michael Carroll’s debut story collection, Little Reef and Other Stories, won the Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction from American Academy of Arts and Letters and was shortlisted for the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Fiction and the Publishing Triangle Award. His work has appeared in Ontario Review, Boulevard, The Yale Review, Southwest Review, Open City, and The New Penguin Book of Gay Short Stories. Originally from Jacksonville, Florida, he is married to writer Edmund White and lives in New York City. His new book is Stella Maris: And Other Key West Stories, from Turtle Point Press.

Credits: This episode’s music is Fella by Hal Mayforth, used with permission from the artist. The conversation was recorded at Michael’s home on a Zoom H2n digital recorder (I got too much fuzz on the H5 so I went with the backup). I recorded the intro and outro on a Heil PR-40 Dynamic Studio Recording Microphone feeding into a Cloudlifter CL-1 and a Mackie Onyx Blackjack 2×2 USB Recording Interface. All processing and editing done in Adobe Audition CC. Photos of Michael and of Edmund White by me. It’s on my instagram.

Episode 315 – David Shields

Virtual Memories Show 315: David Shields

“We’ll all be dead quite soon. This is our one chance to learn something about life on earth. I’m imbued with the question of, ‘Why all these masks?'”

With his new book, The Trouble with Men: Reflections on Sex, Love, Marriage, Porn, and Power (Mad Creek Books), essayist David Shields applies the literary microscope to his own marriage and explores — through a collage of perspectives — the subtle psychological game of S/M it’s grown into over the decades. David & I get into the challenge of writing about his marriage without destroying it, what his family thinks of the book, whether he finds it funny to be blurbed as “the most honest writer alive”, his ‘nothing but epiphanies’ approach to the personal essay, the obsessive personae he adopts for his books and the influence of (two–time pod-guest) Phillip Lopate on his work. We also talk about the difference between vulnerability and weakness, the taboo about male submission, the limits of disclosure, the lessons of parenting, our mutual sports-fixation and our love for Ichiro, and plenty more! BONUS: My all-important advice about what not to do in your hotel room. Give it a listen! And go buy The Trouble with Men: Reflections on Sex, Love, Marriage, Porn, and Power!

“I think a writer carves a swath through some part of their psyche, and phrases themselves as the whole world turning on this subject. That gives you a book.”

“Stripped-nakedness is my go-to, my writing strategy.”

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

Lots of ways to follow The Virtual Memories Show! iTunes, Spotify, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, TuneIn, Tumblr, and RSS!

About our Guest

David Shields is the internationally best-selling author of twenty-two books, including Reality Hunger: A Manifesto (named one of the best books of 2010 by more than thirty publications), The Thing About Life Is That One Day You’ll Be Dead (New York Times bestseller), Black Planet (finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award), and Other People: Takes & Mistakes (NYTBR Editors’ Choice selection). The film adaptation of I Think You’re Totally Wrong: A Quarrel was released by First Pond Entertainment in 2017. A recipient of Guggenheim and NEA fellowships and a senior contributing editor of Conjunctions, Shields has published essays and stories in the New York Times Magazine, Harper’s, Esquire, Yale Review, Salon, Slate, McSweeney’s, and Believer. His work has been translated into two dozen languages. His new book is The Trouble with Men: Reflections on Sex, Love, Marriage, Porn, and Power.

Credits: This episode’s music is Fella by Hal Mayforth, used with permission from the artist. The conversation was recorded at the Lexington Hotel in NYC on a pair of Blue enCORE 200 Microphones feeding into a Zoom H5 digital recorder. I recorded the intro and outro on a Heil PR-40 Dynamic Studio Recording Microphone feeding into a Cloudlifter CL-1 and a Mackie Onyx Blackjack 2×2 USB Recording Interface. All processing and editing done in Adobe Audition CC. Photos of Mr. Shields by me. It’s on my instagram.