{"id":2457,"date":"2008-09-15T05:15:31","date_gmt":"2008-09-15T09:15:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/?p=2457"},"modified":"2008-09-15T05:30:52","modified_gmt":"2008-09-15T09:30:52","slug":"what-it-is-91508","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/what-it-is-91508","title":{"rendered":"What It Is: 9\/15\/08"},"content":{"rendered":"

What I’m reading:<\/em> The Long Goodbye<\/a>\"\", which I haven’t read since 1992. I gotta read more of Chandler’s stuff. For some reason, 9 of his novels are available for the Kindle. So . . . any suggestions? (Also, The Last Musketeer<\/a>\"\", by Jason, and still with Montaigne’s essays<\/a>\"\". . .)<\/p>\n

What I’m listening to:<\/em> Beck’s Modern Guilt<\/a>\"\". And REM’s “Ignoreland<\/a>\"\",” which shuffled up recently on my iPod and will probably be in heavy rotation through the election.<\/p>\n

What I’m watching:<\/em> Your mom. There. I’ve said it. (Amy had a pretty busy week, so we didn’t get around to finishing up the last season of The Wire<\/em>. Two episodes left!)<\/p>\n

What I’m drinking:<\/em> Red Stripe! Hooray beer!<\/p>\n

What Rufus is up to:<\/em> Accidentally showing up at a greyhound meet & greet! The admin of the Greyhound Friends NJ<\/a> list dropped our e-mail by accident, so we didn’t know that our local pet store was hosting an event on Saturday. Coincidentally, we took Rufus up there to buy his pet food (we could’ve done it without him, but he loves going to the store), and discovered 4 or 5 greyhounds & owners in the parking-lot. Rufus, of course, was very happy to make some new friends.<\/p>\n

Where I’m going:<\/em> To the GFNJ Annual Fall Picnic\/Greyhound Planet Day<\/a> on Sunday in Bridgewater, NJ! My pal\/co-worker Jason & his wife are picking up their grey at the picnic, so we’ll find out if their girl gets along with Rufus before we set up a playdate.<\/p>\n

What I’m happy about:<\/em> Having a quiet weekend, between pretty busy weeks.<\/p>\n

What I’m sad about:<\/em> David Foster Wallace’s suicide, even though I hadn’t read a book of his in around 10 years. (I suppose this title<\/a>\"\" is a bit ironic now.) Here’s a terrific appreciation of\/meditation on DFW<\/a> by David Gates. Gates & I talked about Wallace in our first conversation, c. 1996, when I called him through the Newsweek switchboard because I was bored at my office and thought maybe he’d be around and willing to shoot the breeze. He was. (UPDATE: Gates suggests I\/we read Laura Miller’s DFW piece<\/a> on Salon.) (UPDATE 2: Michael Bierut has a good post on DFW viewed through a design\/marketing lens<\/a>.)
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

What I’m pondering:<\/em> How SiteMeter made so many poor decisions when it “upgraded” this weekend<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What I’m reading: The Long Goodbye, which I haven’t read since 1992. I gotta read more of Chandler’s stuff. For some reason, 9 of his novels are available for the Kindle. So . . . any suggestions? (Also, The Last Musketeer, by Jason, and still with Montaigne’s essays. . .) What I’m listening to: Beck’s … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “What It Is: 9\/15\/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":[61,4],"tags":[324,323,120,212,325,271,322],"class_list":["post-2457","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adventures-in-rufus-and-or-otis","category-literature","tag-beck","tag-david-foster-wallace","tag-david-gates","tag-greyhound","tag-laura-miller","tag-michael-bierut","tag-raymond-chandler"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4C7K-DD","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":8041,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/podcast-fail-better","url_meta":{"origin":2457,"position":0},"title":"Podcast: Fail Better","author":"Gil","date":"July 15, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Virtual Memories: David Baerwald\u00a0- Fail Better \"Artistically, LA's a disaster. It's full of amazing stories. But as a city, it's not a city. Nobody but bus-drivers see the whole place.\" Singer-songwriter, musician, inventor, dad, reader, and writer David Baerwald joins the show to talk about the ups and downs of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Big Business"","block_context":{"text":"Big Business","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/big-business"},"img":{"alt_text":"coverblock","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/coverblock-440x440.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":13316,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/covid-check-in-with-david-baerwald","url_meta":{"origin":2457,"position":1},"title":"COVID Check-In with David Baerwald","author":"Gil","date":"May 5, 2020","format":"audio","excerpt":"Virtual Memories Show COVID Check-In: David Baerwald Let\u2019s check in with musician, songwriter, producer, inventor and now novelist David Baerwald. 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