Virtual Memories Show

A weekly podcast about books and life, not necessarily in that order

Virtual Memories Show is a arts podcast hosted by Gil Roth, with 10 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80. PitchCentric scores this show on Booking Probability, Listen Score, and live audience signals refreshed every 24 hours.

Gil Roth hosts Virtual Memories Show, a arts show with 10 episodes published.

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  Virtual Memories Show

  Episode 691 – Emil Wilson

  Sep 19, 20261h 15m

  Virtual Memories Show 691: Emil Wilson “With comics, I think I was looking for an art form that I could devote the most amount of creative skills to, and graphic novels let me do art, let me write, let me do graphic design: different types of skills.” With his fantastic debut graphic novel, THE NIGHTINGALES (Avid Reader Press), Emil Wilson tells a heartbreaking and beautiful coming-of-age story of the AIDS era. We talk about his father’s decision in 1985 to bring a work-friend with AIDS into their home (in a small town in Oregon), how he fictionalized his family and the story well enough to make the fiction true, how he figured out the amazing sketchbook style of the book, and how he only came to comics in his 50s, following a 25-year career as an at director an ad agency. We get into his experiences at The Center for Cartoon Studies , where he was older than most every other student, the Nora Krug book that was his gateway drug into comics, my advice when he began this project, his work as an AIDS buddy for Gay Men’s Health Crisis in the ’80s and how younger people he meets have no knowledge of the AIDS era, how making The Nightingales changed his understanding of his family, and how it felt to make a “user’s manual” for his father. We also get into the contrast between advertising and comics, how making comics can feel a bit like making films or videos, how the language to describe comics may need to evolve just as the language for gay life had to, why this book isn’t a memoir but is full of faces, how kindness can be complicated, and more. Give it a listen! And go read The Nightingales ! “There was this feeling in the small town I grew up in, that AIDS is something happened in New York or San Francisco, but it didn’t happen here.” “The thing I went to CCS for was to meet people and to give myself time to just think about how I wanted to do this.” “Drawing your family is a different ballgame than just writing about them.” “I believe that all the people reading middle-grade books are going to become adults and they’re going to start saying, ‘I’m not going to walk away from this form, and I just want it to evolve with me.’ I think that’ll be really exciting.” Enjoy the conversation! Then check out the archives for more great episodes! Lots of ways to follow The Virtual Memories Show ! iTunes , Spotify , BlueSky , Instagram , YouTube , Tumblr , and good ol’ RSS ! About our Guest Emil Wilson is an art director, illustrator, and comic artist based in San Francisco. His work has appeared in numerous magazines and newspapers, as well as on websites, billboards, National Public Radio, the Oscars, and the Super Bowl. He is a graduate of The Center for Cartoon Studies. The Nightingales is his first book. 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 Zoom PodTrak P4 . All processing and editing done in Adobe Audition CC . Photo of Emil by Bee Elton. It’s on my instagram .

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  Virtual Memories Show

  Episode 690 – Jonathan Ames

  Sep 8, 20261h 16m

  Virtual Memories Show 690: Jonathan Ames “My goal is creating that sensation for the reader of having to turn the page. It’s like a kind of music.” Jonathan Ames returns to celebrate his fantastic new crime novel, A PAST WITHOUT PICTURES (Mysterious Press). We talk about his obsession with pulp fiction, how he found the character of Maria Cole and her tortured relationship with her father after setting out to write a companion to You Were Never Really Here , how hard (and rewarding) it is to craft page-turning prose, and how he compares the experience of reading Death in Venice to reading a Parker novel. We get into how his Buddhist interests are under the surface of this book and are on the surface of his Happy Doll novels (including the one he’s working on!), how writing is a form of seeing, and how good writing helps the reader create a movie in their mind. We also discuss his samsara of not reaching out to people, the bit from Our Town that guides him to be more loving and present in the world, the shock of seeing his lengthy letters from the ’80s and ’90s, why LA is so weird for me, why he reads different translations of the Tao, how Marc Maron gives us a model of how to learn to listen, and more. Give it a listen! And go read A PAST WITHOUT PICTURES ! “Everything we do causes a karmic ripple.” “If you don’t have utter clarity, it’s better to be quiet.” “When you cut off entirely from social media, you don’t miss it. There’s literally nothing to miss.” Enjoy the conversation! Then check out the archives for more great episodes! Lots of ways to follow The Virtual Memories Show ! iTunes , Spotify , BlueSky , Instagram , YouTube , Tumblr , and good ol’ RSS ! About our Guest Jonathan Ames is the author of thirteen books, including the Happy Doll series. Two of his books, You Were Never Really Here and The Extra Man , have been turned into films. Ames is also the creator of two television series: Bored to Death and Blunt Talk . Earlier in his life, he was an occasional guest on The David Letterman Show, was a frequent performer with The Moth, and dabbled in boxing, fighting as “The Herring Wonder.” He currently lives in Los Angeles. Listen to our 2018 , 2022 , and 2025 conversations! Credits: This episode’s music is Fella by Hal Mayforth , used with permission from the artist. The conversation was recorded at Jonathan’s home on a pair of Shure Beta 58A microphones feeding into a Zoom PodTrak P4 digital recorder & interface. I recorded the intro and outro on a Heil PR-40 Dynamic Studio Recording Microphone feeding into a Zoom PodTrak P4 . All processing and editing done in Adobe Audition CC . Photo of us by me; Fezzik, too. It’s on my instagram .

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  Virtual Memories Show

  Episode 689 – Dash Shaw

  Sep 2, 20261h 19m

  Virtual Memories Show 689: Dash Shaw “Something not being placeable sticks with me a lot longer, and I think about it a lot more.” With his new book, LIKE SWIMMERS (New York Review Comics), Dash Shaw brings us a supernatural murder mystery set in COVID-era Richmond, VA. We talk about how he uses that story to explore memory, identity, art, marriage, and the social breakdown in America, how a murder mystery helped him reflect on the losses of COVID, LIKE SWIMMERS ‘ pamphlet comic-feel and how that pay tribute to a lost friend who liked very different comics than what Dash usually makes, and how writing this story in the middle of COVID helped him capture details he’d never have recalled after the fact. We get into how we uncover different versions or aspects of the people we’ve lost, why he eschews three-act structures to find new shapes of storytelling, his use of Richmond as a character (and the very bizarre Kroeger that he couldn’t fit into the book), and what it was like to go jogging in 2020 when there were snipers on rooftops. We also talk about his peripatetic project management style, what he thinks about Roy Lichtenstein’s art and what it means to love cliches, getting inspiration from an unfinished Winsor McCay cartoon, working with New York Review Comics for several books, how coloring his comics is almost as tough as writing them, and more. Give it a listen! And go read LIKE SWIMMERS ! “Rashomon was different versions of an event, and this is different versions of a person.” “When movies are good, they feel dreamlike, even more than comics.” “I want a narrative structure that’s created by the story. I can feel the limitations of three-act structures; they just don’t work for me anymore.” Enjoy the conversation! Then check out the archives for more great episodes! Lots of ways to follow The Virtual Memories Show ! iTunes , Spotify , BlueSky , Instagram , YouTube , Tumblr , and good ol’ RSS ! About our Guest Dash Shaw is a cartoonist and animator. His previous graphic novel, Blurry , from New York Review Comics, was named a graphic novel of the year by The New York Times, The Washington Post, Forbes , and others. He’s also the cartoonist of Discipline , New School , Bottomless Belly Button , BodyWorld , and others. He’s written and directed two animated features, most recently the 2021 film Cryptozoo , which won the Sundance Next Innovator Award. He currently lives in Richmond, Virginia. Listen to our 2021 and 2024 conversations! 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 Zoom PodTrak P4 . All processing and editing done in Adobe Audition CC . Photo of Dash by someone else. It’s on my instagram .

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  Virtual Memories Show

  Episode 688 – Phillip Lopate

  Aug 24, 20261h 22m

  Virtual Memories Show 688: Phillip Lopate “The whole history of American prose passed through Irving, then went somewhere else.” Five-Timer Club Alert! Essayist Phillip Lopate rejoins the show as we celebrate his wonderful new book, A WASHINGTON IRVING SKETCH BOOK (Princeton)! We talk about the origins of the biography, incl. how he wound up with a 12-volume set of Washington Irving’s complete works, his choice to write the bio in the form of sketches, how Irving as America’s first professional writer is a precursor/trailblazer for Phillip’s career, and how well Irving understood the fickleness of literary fame. We get into 19th Century American lit and its tensions with Europe, Irving’s fixation on Spain, why he wrote under pseudonyms even late in his career, and how Phillip’s affection for Irving deepened over the course of the book. We also discuss Phillip’s complicated relationship with his brother, Leonard Lopate , why personal essayists tend not to write autobiographies, and how Leonards’s death has spurred him to write a memoir, his passion for visiting writers’ homes (including Irving’s Sunnyside and Montaigne’s tower ), his career-long goal of passing along the writing that’s worth keeping (whether through teaching, editing essay anthologies, or appearing multiple times on some guy’s podcast), our shared exhilaration over the Knicks’ championship (and how we can’t get excited about baseball this season), and a lot more. Give it a listen! And go read A WASHINGTON IRVING SKETCH BOOK ! And listen to our 2013 , 2017 , 2020 , 2023 conversations! “What I was trying to do in the essay anthologies I edited was to pass on the canon of what was worth keeping. I felt that was deeply part of my teaching, and that’s one of the reasons that I stopped teaching; I felt that I’d done it.” “My brother [Leonard Lopate] and I were friendly, but also competitive. I had to listen to a lot of bragging.” “Irving was always expecting to be forgotten.” Enjoy the conversation! Then check out the archives for more great episodes! Lots of ways to follow The Virtual Memories Show ! iTunes , Spotify , BlueSky , Instagram , YouTube , Tumblr , and good ol’ RSS ! About our Guest Phillip Lopate is an award-winning nonfiction writer noted for his anthology The Art of the Personal Essay and his essay collections Bachelorhood , Portrait of My Body , Portrait Inside My Head , and A Year and a Day , as well as Notes on Sontag , Waterfront , and My Affair with Art House Cinema . He is professor emeritus of creative writing at Columbia University and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Go listen to our 2013 , 2017 , 2020 , 2023 conversations! Credits: This episode’s music is Fella by Hal Mayforth , used with permission from the artist. The conversation was recorded at Phillip’s home on a pair of Shure Beta 58A microphones feeding into a Zoom PodTrak P4 digital recorder & interface. I recorded the intro and outro on a Heil PR-40 Dynamic Studio Recording Microphone feeding into a Zoom PodTrak P4 . All processing and editing done in Adobe Audition CC . Photo of me & Phillip by me. It’s on my instagram .

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  Virtual Memories Show

  Episode 686 – Halstead York

  Aug 3, 20261h 4m

  Virtual Memories Show 686: Halstead York “The core Hampshire experience was figuring out how to do things for myself and figuring out how to excite other people about what I wanted to do.” It’s time for the first installment of The Hampshire Tapes! Halstead York (F88) joins the show to talk about his experience at Hampshire College , how the spirit of the school and its grand experiment of student-driven education has stuck with him all these years, how the school’s structure taught him how to pitch projects, how the cover of an unstructured “hippie-trippy” college (my words) masked intense competitiveness and the need to be a self-starter, how reflecting on his time there has helped him maintain his techno-utopianism, and plenty more. Give it a listen! “It’s amazing how much Hampshire prepared me — in stark terms — for what I would actually be doing for a lot of my career, which was pitching.” “With interns from Hampshire, there was no middle-ground: you would either get absolute morons that thought they were geniuses, or some of the most self-possessed, thoughtful, intelligent people I ever worked with.” “Hampshire’s experiment is a worthwhile alternative education structure. It provided a unique take on how you should approach higher education, and what a degree should mean.” Enjoy the conversation! Then check out the archives for more great episodes! Lots of ways to follow The Virtual Memories Show ! iTunes , Spotify , BlueSky , Instagram , YouTube , Tumblr , and good ol’ RSS ! About our Guest Halstead York is a technology product consultant and co-host of The Inflection Cut podcast. He has worked at the crossroads of media and technology for over a quarter of a century. In 1994 he took a wrong turn while trying to get a feature film edited and accidentally co-founded Journeyman, a pioneering services company specializing in digital media production and integration. Over the years, he has worked with Sony, Intel, and Microsoft as a media consultant, as well as Lightstorm Entertainment, Nike, and Hasbro, doing software development and integration. Halstead’s lifelong passion for media and its relationship with culture has lead him to teach media studies at Portland State University and the American Film Institute, and create media programs for Portland Community College and The Northwest Academy. He watches too many movies and plays too many video games for a man of his quickly advancing age, and hopes that he’ll figure out what he wants to be when he grows up before his AARP card arrives. Follow Halstead on Letterboxd , Bluesky and Instagram , and subscribe to The Inflection Cut podcast. Also, he may kill me for posting this, but here’s a pic of Halstead (2nd from right) & other Hampshire pals (yes, that’s me on the far left), c.1990-91: 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 Zoom PodTrak P4 . All processing and editing done in Adobe Audition CC . Photo of Halstead by someone else. It’s on my instagram .

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