{"id":4550,"date":"2009-10-19T05:00:58","date_gmt":"2009-10-19T09:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/?p=4550"},"modified":"2009-10-19T15:13:31","modified_gmt":"2009-10-19T19:13:31","slug":"what-it-is-101909","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/what-it-is-101909","title":{"rendered":"What It Is: 10\/19\/09"},"content":{"rendered":"

What I’m reading:<\/em> I finished Moby Dick<\/a>\"\" last week, and got swept up in George, Being George<\/a>\"\", an oral history of George Plimpton, over the weekend. Reading the section on Plimpton’s divorce from his first wife, I felt really sad for his kids. I went to college with his oldest daughter, but don’t recall having any interaction with her during our time at Hampshire. When I finished that chapter, I thought, “Man, I hope she has kids and they give her a big hug today.” Outside of that, the book’s very entertaining. The scenes at the Paris Review<\/em> offices sound like they were wonderful, although I’m guessing that, had I submitted a resume back in my post-college days, my name would’ve triggered a lack of a callback. (Not that Plimpton was anti-semitic, so much as, um, well, it just sounds like there weren’t many Jews (or black people) working at the Review<\/em>, is all I’m saying.) Midway through the book, it occurred to me that Plimpton was “Fitzgerald who wanted to be Hemingway.” I thought this was a pretty good insight until I reached the last quarter of the book, where I learned that Plimpton had in the 1990’s adapted Fitzergald and Hemingway’s correspondence into a dramatic dialogue that he performed with Norman Mailer and Mailer’s wife Norris Church (who played Zelda). So I’m no genius. Anyway, it’s a really fantastic book, despite the sadness of the closing years of Plimpton’s life, where it became clear that his devotion to the social sphere had taken its toll on his body (and was part of his inability to be a good husband). Here’s the only passage that I dog-eared:<\/p>\n

JAMES SCOTT LINVILLE: The only time I saw George nervous was when he was about to interview Andy Warhol for the magazine. There was something in Warhol’s voice, which had always been so flat, almost inhuman-seeming, but here . . . well, I thought: My God, he really wants George to like<\/em> him. I realized he’d have had to have been hurt by the Edie<\/a>\"\" book years before, and here he was talking to him. And George, George clearly did not like him, but he was fascinated by him. I suddenly realized these two guys had in some sense studied each other, for decades, how the other fashioned himself in the media \u00e2\u20ac\u201d George of course with his effortlessness, the patrician thing, and Warhol . . . well, whatever he was. It was clear they had each paid attention to how the other had moved through some grid of public awareness.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s a topic I’d love to spend time writing about, trying to understand these two representative figures and how they shaped our ideas of celebrity. But I’m too busy watching the Balloon Boy story unfold. (Just kidding; I laughed about the story when it first began and devoted zero time to it after that.)<\/p>\n

What I’m listening to:<\/em> Nothing specific; just letting the iPod shuffle away.<\/p>\n

What I’m watching:<\/em> Adventureland<\/a> (meh), the Yankees (yay!).<\/p>\n

What I’m drinking:<\/em> Not a thing till I’m over this cold.<\/p>\n

What Rufus is up to:<\/em> Wearing his coat when we go out for walks, and making friends at our local dry cleaner. I was a little nervous when the proprietor said, “Greyhounds are very valuable in Korea!” but he didn’t make any comment about how tasty their haunches are, so yay.<\/p>\n

Where I’m going:<\/em> Probably down to suburban Philadelphia, to deliver a TV. Don’t ask. Also have a get-together with a bunch of pals at Peter Luger<\/a> in Brooklyn on Thursday evening.<\/p>\n

What I’m happy about:<\/em> That my wife’s pal Kate delivered her baby! Welcome, Charlotte!<\/p>\n

What I’m sad about:<\/em> Getting snow on Thursday. And being sick for basically two straight weeks. Grr.<\/p>\n

What I’m worried about:<\/em> Pettitte will have That One Inning this afternoon in Anaheim. You Yankee fans know what I’m talking about.<\/p>\n

What I’m pondering:<\/em> When NJ diners began getting liquor licenses. Was it around the same time they got rid of their jukeboxes?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What I’m reading: I finished Moby Dick last week, and got swept up in George, Being George, an oral history of George Plimpton, over the weekend. Reading the section on Plimpton’s divorce from his first wife, I felt really sad for his kids. I went to college with his oldest daughter, but don’t recall having … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “What It Is: 10\/19\/09”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","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":[632,4,32],"tags":[873,334,871,872],"class_list":["post-4550","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-baseball","category-literature","category-sports","tag-andy-pettitte","tag-andy-warhol","tag-george-plimpton","tag-medora-plimpton"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4C7K-1bo","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":4563,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/not-by-george","url_meta":{"origin":4550,"position":0},"title":"Not By George","author":"Gil","date":"October 21, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Looks like it's Tangential Connections to George Plimpton Week here at Virtual Memories! Here's another passage that stuck with me from George, Being George: MYRA GELBAND: By the late 1980s, of course, the magazine evolved, and the kind of journalism George did for [Sports Illustrated], which was his signature journalism\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Sports"","block_context":{"text":"Sports","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/sports"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=virtualmemories-20&l=as2&o=1&a=1400063981","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":11690,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/episode-282-lance-richardson","url_meta":{"origin":4550,"position":1},"title":"Episode 282 – Lance Richardson","author":"Gil","date":"August 13, 2018","format":"audio","excerpt":"Virtual Memories Show 282: Lance Richardson \"We focus so much on the people on the stage, we forget about the people in the wings who help them get there. I wanted to write a book about the people in the wings.\" House of Nutter: The Rebel Tailor of Savile Row\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Design"","block_context":{"text":"Design","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/design"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_0790.jpg?fit=1080%2C1079&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_0790.jpg?fit=1080%2C1079&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_0790.jpg?fit=1080%2C1079&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_0790.jpg?fit=1080%2C1079&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_0790.jpg?fit=1080%2C1079&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":4576,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/publishers-at-play","url_meta":{"origin":4550,"position":2},"title":"Publishers at Play","author":"Gil","date":"October 25, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"When I was a pretentious young man (I'm older now; but that doesn't mean I'm less pretentious), the Paris Review Writers at Work anthologies were my Bible. (Or at least my Apocrypha. My Bible was a mash-up of Tropic of Cancer and Inside the Whale.) 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About a month ago, he covered 72nd St., between York and FDR. I found this post fascinating, especially\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "literature"","block_context":{"text":"literature","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/literature"},"img":{"alt_text":"1565461.1","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/1565461.1.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":6360,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/bookbuys","url_meta":{"origin":4550,"position":5},"title":"Bookbuys","author":"Gil","date":"May 5, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Since we're building a library downstairs and adding a bunch more shelf-space, I'm no longer quite so constrained in my book-buying. I'm still on an austerity plan for 2012, so I'll generally only pick something up on the cheap. Here's what I've bought lately and why. 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