{"id":1992,"date":"2008-04-07T06:58:39","date_gmt":"2008-04-07T10:58:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/what-it-is-4708\/"},"modified":"2008-04-07T07:01:02","modified_gmt":"2008-04-07T11:01:02","slug":"what-it-is-4708","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/what-it-is-4708","title":{"rendered":"What it is: 4\/7\/08"},"content":{"rendered":"

What I’m reading:<\/em> Wrong for All the Right Reasons<\/a>, by Glenn Dakin. My pal Tom gave me this collection of Dakin’s comics a few years ago, and I kept getting put off by the clunkiness of the first few installments. I tried it one more time, and made it past their sci-fi\/superhero trappings to reach some lovely and poetic strips about an aimless life and the wonders of the visible world.<\/p>\n

What I’m listening to:<\/em> Veneer<\/a>, by Jose Gonzalez (not as good as his new album, In Our Nature<\/a>)<\/p>\n

What I’m watching:<\/em> Miss Guided<\/a>. I have a crush on Judy Greer<\/a>. There, I’ve said it. Oh, and Amazing Grace<\/a>, starring the guy<\/a> who played both Mister Fantastic and<\/em> Mister Miracle. (For the record, it was structured poorly, starting in 1797 and using extensive flashbacks to 1782 to show Wilberforce’s early battles to get slavery abolished in the British territories. Near as I can tell, the only reason to assemble the story that way was so they could introduce the hot wife-to-be early on in the movie. The story would’ve been far more effective if it had been told linearly, with a “15 years later” title coming up after Wilberforce’s initial failure in Parliament. Oh, and Albert Finney<\/a> should’ve had more screen time. On the plus side, the guy who plays William Pitt is named Benedict Cumberbatch<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

What I’m happy about:<\/em> Getting to see my friends for brunch on Sunday.<\/p>\n

\"Samuel<\/a><\/p>\n

What I’m sad about:<\/em> Dog toys made with such shoddy workmanship that Rufus tears them to pieces within minutes. Last night, we had to stop him from chewing on the plastic squeak-insert in his toy bunny, which he’d received 4 hours earlier. And don’t ask what happened to his toy crawfish.<\/p>\n

What I’m pondering:<\/em> Whether to cobble together a new design for this blog.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What I’m reading: Wrong for All the Right Reasons, by Glenn Dakin. My pal Tom gave me this collection of Dakin’s comics a few years ago, and I kept getting put off by the clunkiness of the first few installments. I tried it one more time, and made it past their sci-fi\/superhero trappings to reach … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “What it is: 4\/7\/08”<\/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":[61,22,26,4],"tags":[62,66,68,67,65],"class_list":["post-1992","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adventures-in-rufus-and-or-otis","category-art","category-comics","category-literature","tag-dogs","tag-glenn-dakin","tag-jose-gonzalez","tag-judy-greer","tag-samuel-r-delany"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4C7K-w8","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":13375,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/episode-372-tom-hart","url_meta":{"origin":1992,"position":0},"title":"Episode 372 – Tom Hart","author":"Gil","date":"May 14, 2020","format":"audio","excerpt":"Virtual Memories Show 372: Tom Hart \"For my next book, I'm looking for a new form. Everything feels like the old form. I'm giving myself that luxury. I don't owe this to anybody but my own creative satisfaction.\" Cartoonist and educator Tom Hart joins the show to talk about how\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\/tomhartcomp.jpg?fit=1200%2C389&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/tomhartcomp.jpg?fit=1200%2C389&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/tomhartcomp.jpg?fit=1200%2C389&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/tomhartcomp.jpg?fit=1200%2C389&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/tomhartcomp.jpg?fit=1200%2C389&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":3378,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/6th-bloggiversary","url_meta":{"origin":1992,"position":1},"title":"6th Bloggiversary!","author":"Gil","date":"February 6, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Today's the 6th anniversary of Virtual Memories! Congratulate me! I've had a lot of fun doing this, and I hope you readers have gotten something good out of it. I'm always glad to find that there are people reading my stuff. At my day job, I was kinda shocked the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "literature"","block_context":{"text":"literature","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/literature"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":14529,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/episode-439-glenn-head","url_meta":{"origin":1992,"position":2},"title":"Episode 439 – Glenn Head","author":"Gil","date":"June 15, 2021","format":"audio","excerpt":"Virtual Memories Show 439: Glenn Head \"My whole interest in comics and autobiography is to show the dirt that's under everyone's fingernails, to capture that and not look away from it.\" With his new graphic memoir, Chartwell Manor (Fantagraphics), cartoonist Glenn Head returns to the scene of the crime: the\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\/glennhead2021comp.jpg?fit=1200%2C531&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/glennhead2021comp.jpg?fit=1200%2C531&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/glennhead2021comp.jpg?fit=1200%2C531&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/glennhead2021comp.jpg?fit=1200%2C531&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/glennhead2021comp.jpg?fit=1200%2C531&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":10067,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/fanta-pods","url_meta":{"origin":1992,"position":3},"title":"Fanta-pods","author":"Gil","date":"December 12, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Fantagraphics is celebrating its 40th anniversary and holy crap have I interviewed a ton of their cartoonists and writers: Peter Bagge \u2022 mp3 MK Brown \u2022 mp3 Ivan Brunetti \u2022 mp3 Jules Feiffer \u2022 mp3 Mary Fleener \u2022 mp3 Drew Friedman 2013 \u2022 mp3 Drew Friedman 2014 \u2022 mp3 Josh\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\/12650933_10153906782188069_7522455933169836573_n-440x440.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":13664,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/episode-383-everett-glenn","url_meta":{"origin":1992,"position":4},"title":"Episode 383 – Everett Glenn","author":"Gil","date":"July 14, 2020","format":"audio","excerpt":"Virtual Memories Show 383: Everett Glenn \"My motivation? Kinda cookie-cutter: Desperate person doesn't want to die of alcoholism, writes instead. That's the blurb.\" Artist, cartoonist, and clotheshorse Everett Glenn joins the show from Berlin to talk about how narrating his life as a story helped him make (some) sense of\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\/everettglenncomp.jpg?fit=1200%2C549&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/everettglenncomp.jpg?fit=1200%2C549&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/everettglenncomp.jpg?fit=1200%2C549&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/everettglenncomp.jpg?fit=1200%2C549&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/everettglenncomp.jpg?fit=1200%2C549&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":9501,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/episode-158-glenn-head","url_meta":{"origin":1992,"position":5},"title":"Episode 158 – Glenn Head","author":"Gil","date":"March 7, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Virtual Memories Show #158: Glenn Head \"I'd always been really wowed by the idea of artistic freedom, but that was all just an idea and not a reality. Actually being on the street and talking about artistic integrity is a joke. It's a joke that's laughing at you.\" In his\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Art"","block_context":{"text":"Art","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/art"},"img":{"alt_text":"chicagocover","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/chicagocover.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1992","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=1992"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1992\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1992"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1992"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1992"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}