{"id":2264,"date":"2008-08-18T05:00:36","date_gmt":"2008-08-18T09:00:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/?p=2264"},"modified":"2008-08-17T15:28:44","modified_gmt":"2008-08-17T19:28:44","slug":"what-it-is-81808","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/what-it-is-81808","title":{"rendered":"What It Is: 8\/18\/08"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>What I&#8217;m reading:<\/em> Finished that book on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/1560979216?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=virtualmemories-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=1560979216\">Steve Ditko by Blake Bell<\/a><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"border:none !important; margin:0px !important;\" src=\"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=virtualmemories-20&amp;l=as2&amp;o=1&amp;a=1560979216\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" \/>, started <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/B000FC1KZC?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=virtualmemories-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=B000FC1KZC\">When Genius Failed<\/a><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"border:none !important; margin:0px !important;\" src=\"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=virtualmemories-20&amp;l=as2&amp;o=1&amp;a=B000FC1KZC\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" \/>, Roger Lowenstein&#8217;s chronicle of the collapse of Long-Term Capital Management, and am continuing with <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/1400040213?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=virtualmemories-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=1400040213\">Montaigne&#8217;s essays<\/a><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"border:none !important; margin:0px !important;\" src=\"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=virtualmemories-20&amp;l=as2&amp;o=1&amp;a=1400040213\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" \/> (still reading his <em>Apology for Raymond Sebond<\/em>).<\/p>\n<p><em>What I&#8217;m listening to:<\/em> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/B000S5BUXI?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=virtualmemories-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=B000S5BUXI\">Boxer<\/a><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"border:none !important; margin:0px !important;\" src=\"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=virtualmemories-20&amp;l=as2&amp;o=1&amp;a=B000S5BUXI\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" \/>, by The National, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/B0000014QO?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=virtualmemories-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=B0000014QO\">Songs from Venice Beach<\/a><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"border:none !important; margin:0px !important;\" src=\"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=virtualmemories-20&amp;l=as2&amp;o=1&amp;a=B0000014QO\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" \/>, by Ted Hawkins<\/p>\n<p><em>What I&#8217;m watching:<\/em> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/B000QXDJLI?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=virtualmemories-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=B000QXDJLI\">Fourth season of The Wire<\/a><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"border:none !important; margin:0px !important;\" src=\"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=virtualmemories-20&amp;l=as2&amp;o=1&amp;a=B000QXDJLI\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" \/>. And, um, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0461770\/\" target=\"_blank\">Enchanted<\/a>. Listen: it was just starting and I thought there might be some neat art direction to contrast the mundane world with the cartoon-fantasy world. There wasn&#8217;t, but we still had some laughs over the way Patrick Dempsey&#8217;s hairstyle changed from shot to shot. We thought it would&#8217;ve been funny if he ended up with a high-top fade in one scene, then dreadlocks in another. And I thought it was a great idea to cast Idina Menzel in a movie with musical numbers but not give her a singing role! I&#8217;m going back to the <em>Wire<\/em>. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/name\/nm1782153\/\" target=\"_blank\">Chris<\/a> just beat a dude to death.<\/p>\n<p><em>What I&#8217;m drinking:<\/em> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/mmitchell\/2477483834\/\" target=\"_blank\">Cerveza de la Pacifica<\/a><\/p>\n<p><em>What Rufus is up to:<\/em> Still getting freaked out by thunder, still willing to walk up to anyone he meets, tail a-wag.<\/p>\n<p><em>Where I&#8217;m going:<\/em> Nowhere special, which is sad, since the summer is just about over.<\/p>\n<p><em>What I&#8217;m happy about:<\/em> That my wife made tongue tacos for lunch on Sunday (a process she began on Saturday)! And I did some manly-ass work out in the yard, ripping up forsythia and digging up some of my dad&#8217;s illegal dumping &#8212; including cinderblocks, carpeting, paint trays, metal pipes, airplane cable, something with vacuum tubes, and gas cans &#8212; to open up space around the big-ol&#8217; rock in the backyard.<\/p>\n<p><em>What I&#8217;m sad about:<\/em> That I consider landscape work manly.<\/p>\n<p><em>What I&#8217;m pondering:<\/em> How Russia&#8217;s invasion of Georgia <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pajamasmedia.com\/instapundit\/archives2\/023017.php\" target=\"_blank\">may have backfired<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What I&#8217;m reading: Finished that book on Steve Ditko by Blake Bell, started When Genius Failed, Roger Lowenstein&#8217;s chronicle of the collapse of Long-Term Capital Management, and am continuing with Montaigne&#8217;s essays (still reading his Apology for Raymond Sebond). What I&#8217;m listening to: Boxer, by The National, Songs from Venice Beach, by Ted Hawkins What &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/what-it-is-81808\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;What It Is: 8\/18\/08&#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-2264","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-Aw","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2264","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=2264"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2264\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2265,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2264\/revisions\/2265"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}