{"id":1247,"date":"2006-12-14T06:30:30","date_gmt":"2006-12-14T11:30:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/if-you-build-it\/"},"modified":"2006-12-14T06:30:30","modified_gmt":"2006-12-14T11:30:30","slug":"if-you-build-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/if-you-build-it","title":{"rendered":"If you build it"},"content":{"rendered":"

A few years ago, I was shooting the breeze about the anicent Greeks with a buddy of mine. It turned out that he was devoted to Herodotus’<\/a> descriptions of the war against the Persians, while I preferred reading Thucydides’<\/a> accounts of What Happened After. In a sense, it encapsulated how our lives contrasted (at the time): as an alienated author, he was interested in the battles and heroism, while as a publisher, I was more interested in how everything gets administered after the heroism.<\/p>\n

(I couldn’t come up with any parallels for the Melian dialogues<\/a>, but nobody’s perfect.)<\/p>\n

Anyway, I bring this up because of an article in this month’s issue of Wired<\/em>. See, it’s one thing for architects like Frank Gehry to come up with never-before-seen organic forms for buildings, but it’s another thing to actually build them<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A few years ago, I was shooting the breeze about the anicent Greeks with a buddy of mine. It turned out that he was devoted to Herodotus’ descriptions of the war against the Persians, while I preferred reading Thucydides’ accounts of What Happened After. In a sense, it encapsulated how our lives contrasted (at the … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “If you build it”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[25,4,18,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1247","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-architecture","category-literature","category-politics-implicit","category-urban-issues"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4C7K-k7","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":449,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/the-man-who-wasnt-there","url_meta":{"origin":1247,"position":0},"title":"The Man Who Wasn’t There","author":"Gil","date":"January 18, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Evidently, Errol Morris was so excited about being added to the Virtual Memories blogroll, he wrote a completely unrelated opinion piece in today's New York Times.To me, John Kerry's heroism encompassed both his actions in combat and his willingness to change his mind and stand up for what he thought\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":242,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/once-in-a-lifetime","url_meta":{"origin":1247,"position":1},"title":"Once in a Lifetime","author":"Gil","date":"May 4, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"I saw some of Pat Tillman's memorial service yesterday evening. Senator McCain was speaking when I tuned in, followed by Chief Petty Officer Steven White, who served with Tillman in Iraq. I didn't catch his introduction, but I think he was a SEAL in the Navy.He spoke wonderfully and plainly,\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10366,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/episode-221-kyle-cassidy","url_meta":{"origin":1247,"position":2},"title":"Episode 221 – Kyle Cassidy","author":"Gil","date":"June 5, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Virtual Memories Show 221: Kyle Cassidy \"In photography, the story is the most important thing, and technical imperfections will be forgiven.\" Photojournalist (or \"artist who sometimes uses a camera\") Kyle Cassidy returns to talk about his new book, This Is What a Librarian Looks Like! Along the way, we also\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Art"","block_context":{"text":"Art","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/art"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/KyleinstaWEB-620x620.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/KyleinstaWEB-620x620.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/KyleinstaWEB-620x620.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":12164,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/episode-312-bram-presser","url_meta":{"origin":1247,"position":3},"title":"Episode 312 – Bram Presser","author":"Gil","date":"March 17, 2019","format":"audio","excerpt":"Virtual Memories Show 312: Bram Presser \"To me, this is a book about how we tell stories, and how we come to understand stories.\" What sort of person breaks into Auschwitz? An author -- and semi-reformed punk rocker, recovering academic and occasional criminal lawyer -- in search of answers. Bram\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "literature"","block_context":{"text":"literature","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/literature"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/brampresser.jpg?fit=1200%2C1200&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/brampresser.jpg?fit=1200%2C1200&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/brampresser.jpg?fit=1200%2C1200&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/brampresser.jpg?fit=1200%2C1200&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/brampresser.jpg?fit=1200%2C1200&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":14805,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/episode-458-robert-emmet-meagher","url_meta":{"origin":1247,"position":4},"title":"Episode 458 – Robert Emmet Meagher","author":"Gil","date":"November 2, 2021","format":"audio","excerpt":"Virtual Memories Show 458: Robert Emmet Meagher \"As I grew as a thinker, as a scholar, as a teacher, I took Camus with me, and my appreciation of him grew as I did.\" With Albert Camus and the Human Crisis (Pegasus Books), professor Robert Emmet Meagher distills a half-century of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "literature"","block_context":{"text":"literature","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/literature"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/meaghercomp.jpg?fit=1145%2C800&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/meaghercomp.jpg?fit=1145%2C800&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/meaghercomp.jpg?fit=1145%2C800&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/meaghercomp.jpg?fit=1145%2C800&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/meaghercomp.jpg?fit=1145%2C800&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":13,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/editorials","url_meta":{"origin":1247,"position":5},"title":"Editorials","author":"Gil","date":"March 18, 2003","format":false,"excerpt":"As I mentioned earlier, I edit a pharmaceutical trade magazine by day. 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Since the\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 1 comment","block_context":{"text":"With 1 comment","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/editorials#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1247","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1247"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1247\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}