Here, Now

Starting a new thing, 218 episodes in.

Hello.

Nate DiMeo here.

O! Am I tired of posting things to multiple social media sites, none of which I particularly enjoy. At least a couple of which feel actively bad for me and none of which felt as fun and useful as they once did. I have come here, personally, for utility: as Twitter became X and engagement withered and as Facebook became, you know, Facebook and Instagram, having signed up relatively recently after resisting for all these years, proved to be just as soul-sucking-while-simultaneously-kind-of-delightful-and-thus-soul-sucking as I’d feared, I just want a place to put things. I want to be able to get information to people who want it, and I want to be able to share stuff that I care about— both about my own work and that of others — in a space that doesn’t feel so icky or just dumb.

For you, the reader, hopefully this’ll be useful and fun. I’ll give you some extra stuff about the latest episode and take you inside a bit into the process of writing and soon to be publishing my Memory Palace book. I’ll be figuring it out as I go along. So this will be a work in progress about works in progress.

I won’t flood your inbox.

I was taking a walk around my neighborhood with our new rescue dog and a dear friend visiting from out of town. I was catching her up on how things have been going with the book and I was telling her that, as I am just entering the phase when I get to promote the book, chase media coverage, try to figure out the best way to get the book in front of people who might like it, and all that, it is touching a sensitive nerve. I hate bugging people. I hate asking people for favors. So, I will not be sending you annoying substack messages.

There’ll be a new post with each new episode and then the occasional one when there’s a particularly exciting announcement about the book or live events and the like. And, please, if I’ve overstayed my welcome in your in-box, please do not hesitate to unsubscribe. Unsubscribing to stuff can be deeply satisfying. (I, for instance, have lately derived outsized joy from writing STOP when I get unsolicited political texts).

So anyway, on to…

Episode 218: Olga

https://play.prx.org/e?ge=prx_3_b2dad234-cb8d-43cd-b2b0-ecc39de99335&uf=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.thememorypalace.us%2Fthememorypalace

(If, as it may not, as I am still learning the ropes here, the above link doesn’t work, you can use this one to listen to the episode).

I loved the Olympics as a kid. Watched them obsessively. Particularly the less popular sports. I grew tired of the endless swimming heats. Didn’t care much at all for Olympic basketball or hockey. I wanted the biathalon. Or the steeple chase. Give me judo. Give me the hammer throw. I wanted to learn the minutiae. The rituals. What made a great triple jumper better than the rest. Upon which obscure criteria will this pairs ice dance be judged? Loved all of it. And I was particularly fascinated by the trowing events. Clearly, to put a shot, or hurl a hammer, took more than just strength. But what? And what did it mean to train for years of your life to master this single skill? To mold your body to move in these precise ways within this tiny space?

I had never heard of Olga Fikotova Connolly before reading her obituary in the New York Times, beautifully written by Frank Litsky. Every once and a while, an obituary knocks me out. This one sent me back to wondering about a life lived in that small circle. Preparing to perform, under pressure, in a defining act of your life that is concentrated in just a few seconds.

I realized, midway through writing this episode that this is a bit of a theme for me. I’ve done episodes about a human cannonball, a sprinter, and an acrobat, and this theme animates each of them in different ways. It’s in this story too, but, so is love. I couldn’t resist a love story.

Here are Olga and Hal. Their second Olympics, Rome, 1960. Never a bad thing to be young and in love in Rome.

At home in Santa Monica, I believe, in the early sixties. An extraordinarily mid-century pair.

Newlyweds.

On the medal stand.

Now, there really is something that happens when you see mid-century photos. There she is, above, in black and white. Her joy radiating through time, just managing to make this feel something other than a million years ago. But, color and motion… it’s a whole different thing.

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And, finally, here are Olga and Hal, in 1968, as though you couldn’t tell.

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