Gil Roth & his Virtual Memories Show

Jason Collins, on his cancer diagnosis: It's Stage 4 glioblastoma and I'm fighting In an exclusive with ESPN, the 13-year NBA veteran and pioneer reveals that he is fighting for his life.

Terrible news www.espn.com/nba/story/_/...

Justice x Revenge + A Toy and His Dog

Latest newsletter...

deanhaspiel.substack.com/p/justice-x-...

Photo of main hall of Union Station in Washington, DC, with no people.

Photo of white man with long curly hair and a pair of white over-ear headphones, tiredly smirking at the camera from a seat on a 5 a.m. train

Upsides of getting near-zero sleep: getting the first Acela out of DC & getting to see a people-less Union Station

wow

Soft Skills A new podcast about Thomas Mann & The Magic Mountain, my impromptu mentoring at the Metropoitan Club, a Kirby-esque Instax throwback, & more

New pod-newsletter! Check out the latest episode, thrill to my adventures mentoring brainy high-school students at an old money NYC club, and more! GO READ: buttondown.com/vmspod/archi...

Photo of white man in black corduroy suit & pale blue shirt, vaguely smiling at camera

5:45 Acela NWK->BAL, then Lyft to FDA HQ.

Want to float the San Juan together? Join me on Glen Canyon Institute’s 2026 Membership trip! glencanyon.org/product/2026...

Photo of memorial plaques in front of a leafless tree.

The ground above Dad’s grave is subsiding a little

The Magic Mountain Check out The Magic Mountain - <b>NOBEL PRIZE WINNER &bull;&#160;A monumental work of erudition and irony, sexual tension and intellectual ferment, <i>The Magic Mountain</i> is an enduring classic.</b...

And if you haven't read The Magic Mountain, do yourself a favor and make it your 2026 book-resolution! bookshop.org/a/4669/97806...

cover of the book The Master of Contradictions: Thomas Mann and the Making of The Magic Mountain

And go get THE MASTER OF CONTRADICTIONS from the publisher, @yalepress.bsky.social yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300... , or from your fave bookshop bookshop.org/a/4669/97803...

Episode 666 – Morten Hoi Jensen Virtual Memories Show 666: Morten Høi Jensen “Part of what The Magic Mountain is about is the sense of having lived through a really major rupture in time, of living through a moment in which…

New #podcast is up! @mortenhoijensen.bsky.social joins the show to talk about his fantastic new literary #biography: THE MASTER OF CONTRADICTIONS: Thomas Mann and the Making of The Magic Mountain! This one's a blast, so GO LISTEN: chimeraobscura.com/vm/episode-6...

To quote Ron Carey, "N-V-T-S nuts!"

HBD! Glad you're with us!

I had a CT scan that insurance wouldn't cover w/out 6 weeks of PT first. I asked radiology how much it would cost if I paid cash: $322. When I paid online, the form noted I was saving 96%, because they WOULD have charged my insurance co. $8,900 for it. There's no true price, just accounting tricks.

image of T-shirt for REID FLEMING, WORLD'S TOUGHEST MILKMAN, in which a grizzly-looking milkman points at a flower-bed and said, "78 cents or I piss on your flowers!"

I'm going old-school with this one, but

(yeah, yeah, I know: "Get out of the way and let me check out those bookshelves.")

Finished a 5-day workout cycle. It's evening, lamps don't give good lighting for a post-weights pic, and I suspect my iPhone is using Popeye Effect or something, but I'm starting to get back into shape, even if I'm ~10 lbs. over where I'd like to be.

#ClickAtYourOwnRisk #shirtless #workout

Spirits of the Rutting Moon No. 188

Field Notes from November in the East Austin edgelands, with frisky deer, late bloomers, cold moons, riverine fog, and the passing of a legend: fieldnotes.christopherbrown.com/p/spirits-of...

Hitting The Links: 12/7/25 A whole lot of links, + thoughts on literary canons, my book-buying addiction, BIRDY! in Sphinx-pose, some workout craziness, and the loveliness of wings

Follow the tracks to my latest linky-newsletter!
buttondown.com/vmspod/archi...

Far Side cartoon showing two spiders on a leaf. One is wearing a fright mask, and the other has a huge line of web dangling from its backside. The caption read,s "Hey, Bob . . . did I scare you or what?"

Panel of a 1960s Spider-Man comic, zoomed in on Spidey's masked face, with black lines emanating from his head, and an altered thought-balloon above him reading, "WAIT A MINUTE! MY SPIDER-SENSE IS TINGLING! ANXIETY IS NEAR . . . VERY NEAR!!"

Perry Cox killed like 3 people with this in an episode of SCRUBS

In this issue of my newsletter, I present gift ideas (and alternates!) for your:

•Mom, who loves a weirdo
•Friend with whom you’re in a 2-person book club
•Friend who loves I Capture the Castle
•Friend who has read all of Barbara Pym, Anita Brookner, and Elizabeth Taylor

And many other people!

The Virtual Memories Show News This is the 2x/week newsletter that accompanies the weekly Virtual Memories Show podcast, where host Gil Roth helps preserve & promote culture in this benighted age, one conversation at a time.

you can subscribe to aforementioned FREE newsletter at buttondown.com/vmspod#subsc...

(it's free, which means you can share that money with some of these great independent journalists like Marisa!)

(this'll be in tomorrow's linky-newsletter: SUPPORT INDEPENDENT JOURNALISM, folks!)

Was just told, “You look like a Bond villain.”

John Weaver: 1944 - 2025 — Caity Weaver We hate to tell you this: The world’s friendliest man has gone away.

I’m afraid I have to share very sad news about a very nice man: www.caity.info/blog-1-1/38p...

The one true World’s Greatest Comics Magazine returns: Love and Rockets Vol. IV #17 is out 1/21! And you've got two covers to choose from: the standard cover by Jaime Hernandez and the exclusive Fanta variant by Gilbert Hernandez--available for pre-order now! https://ow.ly/9lMP50XE7By

Alright, kittens, reply to this post if you'd like a #TinyPoem. I'll do as many as I can.