Where I've been, where I'm headed
Some housekeeping and notes on my upcoming schedule
This week’s podcast episode is the first where I venture out of my house to interview someone in the world of flesh and blood. I met up with writer Ryan Goldberg at Aqueduct Racetrack in New York to watch some races and discuss the handicapper Len Ragozin’s memoir The Odds Must Be Crazy. The book itself isn’t a great read, to be honest, which is a shame because Ragozin is one of the most fascinating characters in the sport of horse racing in my opinion. He just wasn’t a great writer, which is fine. Ryan and I read the book so you don’t have to. We also read and discuss several well-written profiles of Ragozin from the New Yorker, Sports Illustrated, the Washington Post, and the New York Times. Ryan was a blast to hang out with and talk to and I think you’ll really like the episode. As usual, we talk about plenty more than just the book we’re supposed to talk about.
Just a reminder: you don’t have to listen to the podcast here on substack. You can subscribe to it wherever you listen to podcasts. The episodes are free and publicly available.
A quick update on the book club: The survey results are in, and Laughing in the Hills by Bill Barich narrowly won! Kirkus Reviews described Laughing in the Hills as “a somber, obsessive, insidiously involving meditation on modern horseracing and Renaissance Platonism after the model of Robert Persig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.” The book was based on a series of pieces Barich wrote for the New Yorker in 1980, and it details a period in the writer’s life where he retreats to a cheap motel near Golden Gate Fields to gamble on horses every day as he processes grief and loss. It’s a really remarkable book and I’m glad we are starting with it. I’m currently in the process of putting together a book club guide for it and when I finish I’ll send that out, along with a podcast schedule. So paid subscribers look out for that soon! (I’m currently doing a lot of traveling so please bear with me. Once summer is over I’ll be much more on top of this.) And if you haven’t signed up as a paid subscriber yet, here’s your chance:
I recently returned from Indianapolis where I attended GenCon, the largest board gaming convention in North America. I’m writing a story about GenCon for a magazine, but while there I had the opportunity to play in the U.S. Diplomacy Championship. I didn’t fare so well, but it was cool to be around so many Diplomacy players, many of whom remembered me from the stories I did back in 2014 on the game: a feature in Grantland titled “The Board Game of the Alpha Nerds” and an episode of This American Life titled “Absolutely Stabulous.” One guy even asked me to autograph his copy of the Diplomacy rulebook, which was a first for me. GenCon was massive, with over 70,000 people from around the world gathered in both the Indiana Convention Center as well as all over Lucas Oil Stadium to play games of every stripe. I had a lot of fun, and it was a reminder that being a freelance writer is a pretty good job sometimes. I’ll send along a link when the story eventually runs, but I seriously doubt this story will get me nearly the mileage those Diplomacy stories evidently did.
Next week I’m off again to Las Vegas for Bet Bash, a big gathering of professional and semi-professional sports bettors at Circa hosted by the one and only Spanky (another past subject of one of my stories). It’s a good chance to do some book research, see some old friends, make some new ones, and hopefully learn a thing or two. I also plan on recording a new episode of the podcast while I’m out there.
If any of you are planning on going and would like to meet up, send me a message and let me know. And if I owe you a signed book and you’ll be there, please get in touch and remind me so I make sure to pack enough books!
Until then,
David