Episode 388 – Margot Mifflin

Virtual Memories Show 388:
Margot Mifflin

“It’s especially odd for Miss AMERICA to have a crown, because if it’s a pageant that represents America and American values, then the symbolism is off, and has been for a long time.”

With her new book, Looking for Miss America: A Pageant’s 100-Year Quest to Define Womanhood (Counterpoint), Margot Mifflin has written a compelling, thoughtful history and exploration of a uniquely American phenomenon. We got together to talk about the story of the Miss America Pageant — sorry, Competition — and its cultural significance (including its racist restrictions), how the pageant has evolved over a century, sometimes reflecting women’s roles in America, sometimes reflecting men’s perspectives of women, the pageant’s heyday of the 1950s and ’60s and its struggles since then, and the 2018 decision to get rid of the swimsuit portion. Along the way, we talk about feminist protests of the pageant, the great life-story of 1951 winner Yolande Betbeze, the history of Atlantic City and its decline, the common elements of most Miss America memoirs, the one winner she wishes she’d interviewed, Philip Roth’s thread throughout her book, and how she’d change Miss America for this era. Give it a listen! And go read Looking for Miss America!

“The feminist protest of 1968 was the point at which second-wave feminism unleashed the phrase ‘women’s liberation’ into the public lexicon.”

“I would keep the scholarships, because that seems to be the real, concrete value of Miss America. . . . It’s benefited lower economic and middle-income women who might not have been able to college if not for these scholarships.”

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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

Margot Mifflin is an author and journalist who writes about women’s history and the arts. She wrote the first history of women’s tattoo culture, Bodies of Subversion: A Secret History of Women and Tattoo, and The Blue Tattoo: The Life of Olive Oatman. Her new book, Looking For Miss America: A Pageant’s 100-Year Quest to Define Womanhood, is the first feminist cultural history of the Miss America pageant. Margot’s writing has appeared in The New York Times, Entertainment Weekly, Vogue, Vice, Elle, ARTnews, Bookforum, The Los Angeles Review of Books, The Believer, O, The Oprah Magazine, The New Yorker.com, The Chronicle of Higher Education, The Washington Post, and other publications.

Margot is an English professor at Lehman College/CUNY and teaches arts journalism at CUNY’s Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism. She’s served as a consultant on exhibitions at The Museum of Modern Art, The New York Historical Society, and The Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, and she curated the exhibition “Body Electric” at Ricco/Maresca Gallery.

Follow Margot on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

Credits: This episode’s music is Fella by Hal Mayforth, used with permission from the artist. The conversation was recorded remotely via Zencastr. I used 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. Photo of Margot by someone else. It’s on my instagram.

Episode 387 – Benjamin Taylor

Virtual Memories Show 387:
Benjamin Taylor

“I had a reverent feeling about the writers of that generation. They were little children in the Great Depression, and they saw fear in their parents’ eyes, and it made workhorses of them.”

Author, editor & memoirist Benjamin Taylor joins the show to talk about his wonderful new memoir, Here We Are: My Friendship with Philip Roth (Penguin). We get into how his relationship with Roth evolved over 20 years, how it affected his own writing, and his notion that everything that happened is still happening. We talk about the nature of friendship and how it may differ from literary friendship, Benjamin’s fixation on older friends, why The Human Stain is his favorite of Roth’s novels, the notion of “literary lions” like Roth, Bellow, Oates, Updike, and Ozick, and why this era seems bereft of them. He also fills us in on how long walks with Vivian Gornick have helped him handle Pandemic World, why fiction isn’t the only worthwhile game in town, what it means to be an American and a heartbroken patriot, and plenty more. Give it a listen! And go read Here We Are!

“I think that American writers in general are heartbroken patriots, who see more of the disparities than ordinary citizens. Think of Hawthorne, think of Whitman. This is what makes us an essentially Romantic civilization. We believe that the ideal is what is most real.”

“Did I feel I was in their shadow? No, I felt I was in their light!”

“The grafting of manhood onto his particular childhood was always uneasy and awkward.”

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“There was an amoral streak in Philip. He was also a man of great tenderness.”

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

Benjamin Taylor‘s family memoir, The Hue and Cry at Our House, received the 2018 Los Angeles Times/Christopher Isherwood Prize and was named a New York Times Editors’ Choice; his Proust: The Search was named a Best Book of 2016 by Thomas Mallon in The New York Times Book Review; and his Naples Declared: A Walk Around the Bay was named a Best Book of 2012 by Judith Thurman in The New Yorker. He is also the author of two novels, Tales Out of School, winner of the 1996 Harold Ribalow Prize, and The Book of Getting Even, winner of a Barnes & Noble Discover Award. He edited Saul Bellow: Letters, named a Best Book of 2010 by Michiko Kakutani in The New York Times and Jonathan Yardley in The Washington Post, and Bellow’s There Is Simply Too Much to Think About: Collected Nonfiction, also a New York Times Editors’ Choice. His edition of the collected stories of Susan Sontag, Debriefing, was published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux in 2017. Taylor is a founding faculty member in the New School’s Graduate School of Writing and teaches also in the Columbia University School of the Arts. He is a past fellow and current trustee of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and serves as president of the Edward F. Albee Foundation. His new book is Here We Are: My Friendship with Philip Roth.

Credits: This episode’s music is Fella by Hal Mayforth, used with permission from the artist. The conversation was recorded remotely via Zencastr. I used 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. Photo of Benjamin by Alison West. It’s on my instagram.

Episode 386 – Judy Gold

Virtual Memories Show 386:
Judy Gold

“Don’t tell me what I’m allowed to talk about. There’s no growth without discourse. When you start shutting people up, that’s the end of evolution.”

Comedian, actress and Emmy-winning TV writer Judy Gold joins the show to celebrate her brand new book, Yes, I CAN Say That: When They Come for the Comedians, We Are All in Trouble (Dey St.). We get into the role of comedy in society, the perils of censorship (from the left and the right), and what living through the AIDS crisis taught her about the need to laugh. We get into her history in standup, how audiences have become more offendable, how she got into her IDGAF mode in her 40s, who can take a joke and who can’t (and who can tell a joke and who can’t), the crucible of hanging out with comedians after shows, how she’s dealing with pandemic life and how COVID-19 forced the longest break in her career, what she’s learned from hosting Kill Me Now for 5+ years and who some of her Mount Rushmore guests have been, and plenty more. Give it a listen! And go read Yes, I CAN Say That!

“Every safe space has a door that leads to the real world.”

“Nothing is sacred in a comedy club. And this is the only art form where our work in progress needs an audience.”

“I found that, once you don’t give a shit, you’re much funnier.”

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“A woman in her late 40s in standup is invisible. I’ve been told I can’t get a Netflix special because I don’t ‘fit the algorithm’.”

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

Judy Gold is an American standup comedian, actress, television writer, and producer. She won two Daytime Emmy Awards for her work as a writer and producer on The Rosie O’Donnell Show, and has starred in comedy specials on HBO, Comedy Central, and Logo. She has also written and starred in two critically acclaimed, Off-Broadway hit shows: The Judy Show―My Life as a Sitcom and 25 Questions for a Jewish Mother. She is currently the host of the hit podcast Kill Me Now. Her new book is Yes, I CAN Say That: When They Come for the Comedians, We Are All in Trouble.

There’s a longer version of her bio at her website.

 

Credits: This episode’s music is Fella by Hal Mayforth, used with permission from the artist. The conversation was recorded remotely via Zencastr. I used 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. Photo of Judy by Justine Ungaro. It’s on my instagram.

Episode 385 – Ellen Lindner

Virtual Memories Show 385:
Ellen Lindner

“Women have always played baseball; it just hasn’t been discussed. In the late 19th century, in concert with American imperialism, white men looked at baseball and said, ‘This is something we want for ourselves.'”

Batter up! Let’s celebrate Major League Baseball’s 2020 Opening Day by talking with cartoonist, illustrator and baseball fan Ellen Lindner. We get into Ellen’s great ‘zine about the role of women in the history of baseball, Cranklet’s Chronicle (1 & 2), her own history with baseball, why she’s a Mets fan, her theories about Aaron Judge’s mystery-injury, and what it’s like being in the narrow Venn overlap of comics-makers and sports fans. We also explore her comics upbringing, the education she got by volunteering at the Words and Pictures Museum of Sequential Art, the comics festivals she misses the most in Pandemic World, the time she impressed David B. with her French, how to tell family stories without alienating one’s family, her side-project of sewing masks and biking around NYC to deliver them, the cut-out figure she submitted to the Mets, and more. Give it a listen! And go read issues 1 & 2 of Cranklet’s Chronicle, as well as Ellen’s contribution to the new Pandemix anthology!

“The fine art world was totally focused on money, and so comics was an escape for me.”

“Just telling a family story can open so many old wounds.”

“I will admit I did go to Smith College partly because of its proximity to the Words And Pictures Museum.”

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

Ellen Lindner is the author of the Ignatz-nominated graphic novel The Black Feather Falls, as well as The Cranklet’s Chronicle, a history of women, baseball and social change in America. Her comics have appeared in The Lily, Spiralbound, World War 3 Illustrated, and a variety of other publications and anthologies. Ellen is also an editor and educator, and her activist art has been acquired by the Smithsonian Institution. A member of the ART HQ cartooning studio, she lives in Upper Manhattan.

Follow Ellen on Twitter and Instagram.

Credits: This episode’s music is Fella by Hal Mayforth, used with permission from the artist. The conversation was recorded remotely via Zencastr. I used 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 Ellen supplied by her. It’s on my instagram.

Episode 384 – Adrian Tomine

Virtual Memories Show 384:
Adrian Tomine

“For all those years, one of the main questions in my mind was: What is my own style? What isn’t a hodgepodge of things I’ve borrowed from my heroes? With this book, it felt like a great opportunity to probe that and challenge myself to investigate that.”

Cartoonist and illustrator Adrian Tomine is in it for the long haul. With his new graphic memoir, The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Cartoonist (Drawn & Quarterly), he explores his lifelong connection to comics and the embarrassments & humiliations they’ve caused him. We get into the new book and talk about whether it was worth it, what brought him to the sketchbook style he adopted for this one, the differences between his comics and illustration work, being accepted by his cartooning heroes, and the importance of mindless time. We also talk about his ideal reader, the anxiety of influence and vice versa, what he misses about floppy comics (as opposed to bookstore graphic novels), the redactions he made in Loneliness to protect the douche-y, Adrian’s remembrances of the late Richard Sala, and much more. Give it a listen! And go read The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Cartoonist!

“I’ll always be attracted to people like Richard Sala, who have achieved so much, who are at the top of their game in some ways, who could by every right be an arrogant snob, but are completely down on themselves, alienated, and think their own work is terrible.”

“As a parent, my life has opened up in ways I wouldn’t have sought out on my own.”

“I don’t think anybody looks up to me the way I looked up to my heroes. The world has changed and younger cartoonists are very excited by the work of their peers and even of artists younger than themselves.”

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“The friendships I have in comics are irreplaceable and couldn’t be reproduced from someone outside the industry.”

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

Adrian Tomine was born in 1974 in Sacramento, California. He began self-publishing his comic book series Optic Nerve when he was sixteen, and in 1994 he received an offer to publish from Drawn & Quarterly. His comics have been anthologized in McSweeney’s, Best American Comics, and Best American Nonrequired Reading, and his graphic novel Shortcomings was a New York Times Notable Book. His previous book, Killing and Dying, appeared on numerous best-of lists and was a New York Times graphic bestseller. Since 1999, he has been a regular contributor to The New Yorker. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and daughters. His new graphic memoir is The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Cartoonist.

Follow Adrian on Instagram.

Credits: This episode’s music is Fella by Hal Mayforth, used with permission from the artist. The conversation was recorded remotely via Zencastr. I used 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. Drawings of Adrian by him. It’s on my instagram.