{"id":1686,"date":"2007-10-08T04:34:00","date_gmt":"2007-10-08T09:34:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/ill-starred\/"},"modified":"2007-10-08T04:34:00","modified_gmt":"2007-10-08T09:34:00","slug":"ill-starred","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/ill-starred","title":{"rendered":"Ill-starred"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Back in 2002, I got a fortune-cookie that read, &#8220;A reunion with an old acquaintance will turn out disastrous.&#8221; I saved it because it was so pessimistic. Also, I appreciated the fact that it was a fortune, and not an aphorism. A week or so later, I hooked up with an ex-girlfriend I hadn&#8217;t seen in almost a decade, and it didn&#8217;t turn out so bad.<\/p>\n<p>According to the NYTimes, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2007\/10\/08\/business\/smallbusiness\/08fortune.html\" target=\"_blank\">bad fortunes are making their way through the rotation<\/a>. My official VM fortune to you: Avoid Chinese food for a while.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Back in 2002, I got a fortune-cookie that read, &#8220;A reunion with an old acquaintance will turn out disastrous.&#8221; I saved it because it was so pessimistic. Also, I appreciated the fact that it was a fortune, and not an aphorism. A week or so later, I hooked up with an ex-girlfriend I hadn&#8217;t seen &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/ill-starred\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Ill-starred&#8221;<\/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":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1686","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4C7K-rc","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1341,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/monday-morning-montaigne-4","url_meta":{"origin":1686,"position":0},"title":"Monday Morning Montaigne","author":"Gil","date":"February 12, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"From Various Outcomes of the Same Plan: Now I say that not only in medicine but in many more certain arts Fortune has a large part. Poetic sallies, which transport their author and ravish him out of himself, why shall we not attribute them to his good luck? He himself\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Art&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Art","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/art"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1576,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/how-do-you-say-vista-in-spanish","url_meta":{"origin":1686,"position":1},"title":"How do you say &#8220;Vista&#8221; in Spanish?","author":"Gil","date":"July 3, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Carlos Slim has passed Bill Gates as the richest guy in the world. With a name like that, I wouldn't be surprised if he made his fortune hustling people at pool.","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Big Business&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Big Business","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/big-business"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1295,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/drinks-at-the-stasi-lounge-after","url_meta":{"origin":1686,"position":2},"title":"Drinks at the Stasi Lounge after?","author":"Gil","date":"January 17, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Contrary to my previous post, there were some aspects of running a micropress that I enjoyed. In particular, I got to meet some great people (you'd be surprised at how many people take your calls when you say that you're a publisher). One of the best connections I made was\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;literature&quot;","block_context":{"text":"literature","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/literature"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=virtualmemories-20&l=as2&o=1&a=1561582654","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":12819,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/episode-357-walter-bernard","url_meta":{"origin":1686,"position":3},"title":"Episode 357 &#8211; Walter Bernard","author":"Gil","date":"January 13, 2020","format":"audio","excerpt":"Virtual Memories Show 357: Walter Bernard \"The first thing you try when you're called in, is to find out how the top people see the problem. That's often similar from project to project: the disconnect from the readership.\" Legendary designer Walter Bernard joins the show to talk about Mag Men:\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Art&quot;","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\/wbernardcomp.jpg?fit=1200%2C683&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/wbernardcomp.jpg?fit=1200%2C683&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/wbernardcomp.jpg?fit=1200%2C683&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/wbernardcomp.jpg?fit=1200%2C683&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/wbernardcomp.jpg?fit=1200%2C683&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":6813,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/podcast-disarm","url_meta":{"origin":1686,"position":4},"title":"Podcast: Disarm","author":"Gil","date":"January 7, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Virtual Memories - season 3 episode 1 Ron Rosenbaum -\u00a0Disarm Our first guest of 2013 is Ron Rosenbaum,\u00a0one of my favorite living writers!\u00a0This episode of The Virtual Memories Show is The Bomb! I've been a fan of Ron's writing (let's call it \"literary journalism\") since reading Long Island, Babylon\u00a0(originally titled\u00a0The\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;literature&quot;","block_context":{"text":"literature","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/literature"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=voyantpublishing&l=as2&o=1&a=1416594221","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1071,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/drug-deal-2","url_meta":{"origin":1686,"position":5},"title":"Drug Deal","author":"Gil","date":"August 9, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"I know this story about the generic release of Plavix requires some knowledge of how the pharmaceutical industry works, but it's a really funny tale of corporate manuevering. The CEO of the generic company (Apotex) gives an interview with the Times in which he goofs on Bristol-Myers Squibb and Sanofi-Aventis\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Big Business&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Big Business","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/big-business"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1686","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=1686"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1686\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}