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A longer than usual note from a guy whose book came out today: so I (it's me; I'm the guy whose book came out today) got a note from some stranger this morning, writing from "snowy Yorkshire", sharing a photo of his copy of my book, that just arrived at his home. That is amazing to me. I've been doing my odd, little podcast since just about this time, sixteen years ago. It has been popular enough, to my genuine surprise, to be my full-time living for nearly half of those. It makes practical sense that there might be a Memory Palace book, right? But, every time some nice agent or editor at some publishing house came to me about potentially doing one, they would always ask the same question: what story do you want to go long on? We love these short stories; which one would you want to really dig into?

My answer (or at least the feeling their question brought up) would always be the same: I've already dug into them. I've already gone long-- with the research, and the reading and all the rolling it around in my head. That short story? That's what came of it. That's what I do. This is how my brain just works. This is what The Memory Palace is. This is, I suppose, who I am. And we'd shake hands, having had a lovely breakfast. And that would be that.

But, some decade and a half on, the folks @randomhouse let me make the kind of book I wanted to make. Short stories, found photographs, beautiful illustrations, a cover that was gorgeous and maybe a little strange, that might somehow seem to call to the right reader from the display table at their local bookstore, might get them to pick it up and see what it's all about, they might flip through and see that the stories were short, occasionally tiny even, they could read one right there in the store, and maybe they'd get drawn in. Take the book home. Pick it up now and then from the shelf. And it might become, for the right reader, one of those books that seems to kind of hum with this low-grade magic there on your shelf. The kind you might pull down from time to time, and see what it means to you now. Maybe that reader is you.

Here's the latest episode of The Memory Palace. https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/dovetail.prxu.org/_/3/1d8e3e14-86c7-46fc-ba48-41d996e9bfb0/thememorypalace.mp3

An excerpt from our @thememorypalacepodcast crossover; a peek into my new song “Rollercoaster.” Listen to the full episode on the podcast feed.
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[ visuals by @seanfstout, edited by @caleb_online ]

Here's the latest episode of The Memory Palace.

https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/dovetail.prxu.org/_/3/52364f13-d28e-433e-b891-ea76a3d75042/thememorypalace.mp3

Not cherries.

A special episode in two parts today: first, a beautiful story from @thememorypalacepodcast called “The Thundering Herd, The Vanishing American,” and then, the story of how hearing that podcast episode changed the course of my own song, “Rollercoaster.”
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[ illustration by @jessgupta ]

This Thursday I'll be at UCLA for a one-time-only event. It'll be fun! It'll be free! Info and ticket link here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-poetics-philosophy-and-neuroscience-of-memory-tickets-1986834129365?aff=oddtdtcreator

Very Special Episode alert:

This is so fun to share: a story from The Memory Palace and a song it helped inspire from the wonderful @hrishihirway prx_3_2a3f4223-20ed-4262-917d-de3eb0ddaa90

New paperback edition spotted not just in the wild but in the window of @skylightbooks.