Episode 608 - Sven Birkerts

The Virtual Memories Show

Author & essayist Sven Birkerts returns to the show to celebrate his fantastic new essay collection, The Miró Worm and the Mysteries of Writing (Arrowsmith Press). We talk about the estrangement of the everyday, the problem of other minds, how serendipity tells us something about where we are, authors' photos and self-mythologizing, moving house (& turning 70) during COVID, and the inspiration of Cortazar's Around the Day in Eighty Worlds. We get into the threat of AI to writing, reading, and thinking, opening up to ambivalence, why people find it so tough to say the word "soul", what he misses about teaching, Kierkegaard & Walker Percy's The Moviegoer & being on The Search, and wondering what Bob Dylan is like in the kitchen in the morning. We also discuss writers' homes & graves and the myth of inspiration, his new Sketches From Memory essays and how they've opened him up as a writer, how we build circles of affinity, how his father's career as an architect influenced his eye (but not his writing), why people find it so tough to say the word "soul", and more. Follow Sven on Instagram • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal and via our e-newsletter