“We live in what is called a democracy, rule by the majority of the people. A fine ideal if it could be made to work. The people elect, but the party machines nominate, and the party machines to be effective must spend a great deal of money. Somebody has to give it to them, and that somebody, whether it be an individual, a financial group, a trade union or what have you, expects some consideration in return.”<\/p>\n
— Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye<\/em> (1953)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Here’s a quote from this morning’s reading: “We live in what is called a democracy, rule by the majority of the people. A fine ideal if it could be made to work. The people elect, but the party machines nominate, and the party machines to be effective must spend a great deal of money. Somebody … <\/p>\n
Continue reading “Not long enough”<\/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":[4,17],"tags":[322],"class_list":["post-2599","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-literature","category-politics-explicit","tag-raymond-chandler"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4C7K-FV","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2564,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/what-it-is-92908","url_meta":{"origin":2599,"position":0},"title":"What It Is: 9\/29\/08","author":"Gil","date":"September 29, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"What I'm reading: Back to Raymond Chandler! Then, who knows? What I'm listening to: Joe Jackson's Rain record What I'm watching: Amy was pretty unwell this weekend, so she watched some chick flicks on Saturday afternoon, before we tuned into the LSU win over Miss State. Don't worry; we TiVo'd\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Joe Jackson\"","block_context":{"text":"Joe Jackson","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/tag\/joe-jackson"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=virtualmemories-20&l=as2&o=1&a=B0012TSCDU","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2505,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/what-it-is-92208","url_meta":{"origin":2599,"position":1},"title":"What It Is: 9\/22\/08","author":"Gil","date":"September 22, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"What I'm reading: Didn't have much time to read this week, so I'm still on Raymond Chandler's The Long Goodbye and Jason Lutes' Berlin. I don't anticipate getting much reading in next week, with all the work on our October issue and our conference ahead. What I'm listening to: Meet\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Adventures in Gin"","block_context":{"text":"Adventures in Gin","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/adventures-in-gin"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=virtualmemories-20&l=as2&o=1&a=B000FC1J58","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":11322,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/episode-263-jonathan-ames","url_meta":{"origin":2599,"position":2},"title":"Episode 263 – Jonathan Ames","author":"Gil","date":"April 2, 2018","format":"audio","excerpt":"Virtual Memories Show 263: Jonathan Ames \"For me, all writing -- scripts, essays, novels -- it comes down to enjoying writing a sentence.\" On the eve of the premiere of You Were Never Really Here, writer Jonathan Ames returns to his stomping grounds of northern NJ to talk about crime\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\/IMG_9145.jpg?fit=1200%2C1055&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_9145.jpg?fit=1200%2C1055&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_9145.jpg?fit=1200%2C1055&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_9145.jpg?fit=1200%2C1055&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_9145.jpg?fit=1200%2C1055&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":2438,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/monday-morning-montaigne-an-apology-for-raymond-sebond-take-4","url_meta":{"origin":2599,"position":3},"title":"Monday Morning Montaigne: An Apology for Raymond Sebond, Take 4","author":"Gil","date":"September 15, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"As promised, it's the final part of my writeup on the Apology for Raymond Sebond (have fun with parts 1, 2, and 3 and you'll see why I gave up on this project for a full year)! After this, it's back to shorter, less preachy (I hope) essays! But this\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Monday Morning Montaigne"","block_context":{"text":"Monday Morning Montaigne","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/monday-morning-montaigne"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1243,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/absent-friends-and-comedians","url_meta":{"origin":2599,"position":4},"title":"Absent Friends and Comedians","author":"Gil","date":"December 11, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"My weekend started with an 80-minute drive after work Friday evening. I managed to cover nearly 33 miles in that time, getting from Ramsey, NJ to a bar on Amsterdam and W. 83rd St. in NYC. Which is to say, there are certain aspects of living and working in NJ\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":8041,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/podcast-fail-better","url_meta":{"origin":2599,"position":5},"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":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2599","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=2599"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2599\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2601,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2599\/revisions\/2601"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2599"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2599"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2599"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}