{"id":4754,"date":"2009-12-31T13:57:44","date_gmt":"2009-12-31T18:57:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/?p=4754"},"modified":"2011-01-03T07:52:28","modified_gmt":"2011-01-03T11:52:28","slug":"man-out-of-time-introduction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/man-out-of-time-introduction","title":{"rendered":"Man Out Of Time: Introduction"},"content":{"rendered":"

Introduction<\/em> | Music<\/a> | Movies<\/a> | Comics<\/a> | Sports<\/a> | Books<\/a><\/p>\n

I imagine “future generations” will consider the decade to begin with the contested election of 2000 and end with “man, they messed up the country so badly, people were willing to vote a black guy president.” Maybe they’ll take 9\/11 as the thematic starting point instead. Whatever. What I’m saying is, I think the decade’s outward\/historical manifestation is The Bush Years, but I’m hard put to understand what my inner\/hysterical manifestation of it is.<\/p>\n

As the decade progressed, I found myself writing less about politics, finance\/business and international relations, and more about my own life. There was no changeover moment; it must’ve occurred to me at some point that there are plenty of other blogs to turn to for commentary on those topics. I still care deeply about those fields, and spend a lot of time reading up on them. Maybe it was my time with Montaigne that taught me about the value of looking inside to get a perspective on the outside. As far as I know, no one else is writing about my love, my dogs, my travels, my friends, my photos<\/a>, my work, etc., except for my wife<\/a>, and she focuses much more on my eats. So I’m my niche and welcome to it.<\/p>\n

(Also, there’s less chance I’ll offend someone with an, um, off-color joke like the one in the first sentence of this post.)<\/p>\n

Still, with all the decade-mania going on, I thought it would be interesting if I wrote about movies, books, comics and music for a “decade-retrospective” post. Trying to assemble my own lists for each category \u00e2\u20ac\u201d “favorites,” mind you, not “bests” \u00e2\u20ac\u201d was more daunting than I expected. I keep a running list of the books in my life, but not those other art forms, so much of this has to be painted from memory.<\/p>\n

(I considered adding TV as a category, but realized that the drop-off from The Wire<\/a> to whatever came in second was too steep.)<\/p>\n

Compiling lists \u00e2\u20ac\u201d fun though it is \u00e2\u20ac\u201d hasn’t helped me reach a deeper understanding about what this decade “meant,” but I’m fine with that. I’ve spent almost seven years writing here and maybe that’s the story in itself: digital distribution has transformed the way we experience\/consume all forms of art and how we share our thoughts with others. I’m not going to wax rhapsodic or elegiac about Facebook, Twitter, Kindles or iTunes (okay, a little about iTunes), so much as writing about some artworks that were created or published in the past 10 years and why I like them.<\/p>\n

Welcome to my Virtual Memories. On with the show!<\/p>\n

Introduction<\/em> | Music<\/a> | Movies<\/a> | Comics<\/a> | Sports<\/a> | Books<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Introduction | Music | Movies | Comics | Sports | Books I imagine “future generations” will consider the decade to begin with the contested election of 2000 and end with “man, they messed up the country so badly, people were willing to vote a black guy president.” Maybe they’ll take 9\/11 as the thematic starting … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Man Out Of Time: Introduction”<\/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":[22,26,4,40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4754","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art","category-comics","category-literature","category-music"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4C7K-1eG","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":4816,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/man-out-of-time-sports","url_meta":{"origin":4754,"position":0},"title":"Man Out of Time: Sports","author":"Gil","date":"January 3, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Introduction | Music | Movies | Comics | Sports | Books It occurred to me this morning that I should also write up my favorite sports moment of the decade: Introduction | Music | Movies | Comics | Sports | Books","rel":"","context":"In "Football"","block_context":{"text":"Football","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/sports\/football"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4759,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/man-out-of-time-music","url_meta":{"origin":4754,"position":1},"title":"Man Out Of Time: Music","author":"Gil","date":"December 31, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Introduction | Music | Movies | Comics | Sports | Books I think music is the one field where \"the decade\" really is a delineator. I try not to extrapolate broader trends from my own experience, but this is one case where I think I'm just part of the new\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Music"","block_context":{"text":"Music","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/music"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=virtualmemories-20&l=as2&o=1&a=B00005N8CQ","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5838,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/man-out-of-time-the-books","url_meta":{"origin":4754,"position":2},"title":"Man Out of Time: The Books","author":"Gil","date":"January 2, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Introduction | Music | Movies | Comics | Sports | Books On the evening of January 4th, 2009, I was settling in to write about a post about my favorite books of the past decade (2000-2009), the final part of my Man Out of Time series. I was in the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "literature"","block_context":{"text":"literature","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/literature"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=virtualmemories-20&l=as2&o=1&a=B0036S49GE","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4722,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/what-it-is-12709","url_meta":{"origin":4754,"position":3},"title":"What It Is: 12\/7\/09","author":"Gil","date":"December 7, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"What I'm reading: I finished Up in the Air last week, and enjoyed the heck out of it. I'm still sifting through my impressions of the book as a time capsule of the end of the '90's. It was published in 2001, just a few months before 9\/11. While that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Comic books & strips"","block_context":{"text":"Comic books & strips","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/literature\/comics"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=virtualmemories-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0307476294","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4808,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/man-out-of-time-comics","url_meta":{"origin":4754,"position":4},"title":"Man Out of Time: Comics","author":"Gil","date":"January 2, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Introduction | Music | Movies | Comics | Sports | Books There are three major problems I have with writing about comics for this \"favorites of the decade\" post: One of my best pals is a comics critic, and I always feel like I'm coming up short when I try\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Classic Comics Criticism"","block_context":{"text":"Classic Comics Criticism","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/literature\/classic-comics-criticism"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=virtualmemories-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0375714545","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3354,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/0-forum","url_meta":{"origin":4754,"position":5},"title":"0-forum?","author":"Gil","date":"February 4, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"When I was a small press book publisher, I was put on the Comp list at Bookforum. Despite not having published a book since 2003 and closing down the company in 2004, I've remained on the freebie list. The new issue arrived last week, on the heels of my 0-fer\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "0-fer"","block_context":{"text":"0-fer","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/literature\/0-fer"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4754","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=4754"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4754\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5846,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4754\/revisions\/5846"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4754"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4754"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4754"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}