{"id":4886,"date":"2010-01-28T22:16:24","date_gmt":"2010-01-29T03:16:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/?p=4886"},"modified":"2010-01-28T22:16:26","modified_gmt":"2010-01-29T03:16:26","slug":"enjoy-the-silence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/enjoy-the-silence","title":{"rendered":"Enjoy the Silence"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was 16 and my high school english teacher, Rocco Gratale, was assigning term papers for the spring. I read over the list of novels that we could select for our subjects, and tried to go off the reservation. At the end of class, I asked him, “Do you mind if I do The Razor’s Edge<\/em>, by Somerset Maugham?” My mom had that book on our shelf for years, and I thought this would be a good opportunity to read it.<\/p>\n

My teacher said, “No, Gil. I think you want to do your term paper on The Catcher In The Rye<\/em>.”<\/p>\n

I’d never heard of it. I was all about the science fiction and the comic books back then. We were on pretty good terms, so I told him, “Geez, I’d sure like to do that Maugham book, Roc.”<\/p>\n

“No, Gil. I think you want to do your term paper on The Catcher In The Rye<\/em>.”<\/p>\n

“Yes, Rocco. I’d . . . like to do my term paper on The Catcher In The Rye<\/em>?”<\/p>\n

I shudder to think of what aspects of my personality led him to “suggest” that book.<\/p>\n

Now go read Ron Rosenbaum’s wonderful 1997 essay about Salinger<\/a>. I never did get around to The Razor’s Edge, but I did see the movie<\/a> a few years later.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was 16 and my high school english teacher, Rocco Gratale, was assigning term papers for the spring. I read over the list of novels that we could select for our subjects, and tried to go off the reservation. At the end of class, I asked him, “Do you mind if I do The Razor’s … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Enjoy the Silence”<\/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":[4],"tags":[627,86],"class_list":["post-4886","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-literature","tag-jd-salinger","tag-ron-rosenbaum"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4C7K-1gO","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":4910,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/catcher","url_meta":{"origin":4886,"position":0},"title":"Catcher","author":"Gil","date":"February 11, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm not too sure what the name of the song was that he was playing when I came in, but whatever it was, he was really stinking it up. He was putting all these dumb, show-offy ripples in the high notes, and a lot of other very tricky stuff that\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=0316769177","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4904,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/what-it-is-2810","url_meta":{"origin":4886,"position":1},"title":"What It Is: 2\/8\/10","author":"Gil","date":"February 8, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"What I'm reading: Alec: The Years Have Pants, and The Catcher in the Rye and THE SAINTS WON THE MOTHERFUCKING SUPERBOWL! What I'm listening to: Silence, by Deborah Anderson and THE SAINTS WON THE MOTHERFUCKING SUPERBOWL! What I'm watching: THE SAINTS WINNING THE MOTHERFUCKING SUPERBOWL! What I'm drinking: Rogue Spirits\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Football"","block_context":{"text":"Football","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/sports\/football"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=virtualmemories-20&l=as2&o=1&a=1603090479","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3935,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/0-fer-20th-century-edition","url_meta":{"origin":4886,"position":2},"title":"0-fer 20th century edition","author":"Gil","date":"June 10, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Because I'm not some commie pinko, I don't listen to NPR. So I don't know if Dick Meyer has worthwhile literary opinions or not. What I do know is that he posted this list of his top English-language novels written last century. He organized the list in terms of \"how\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":[]},{"id":7991,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/podcast-haste-ye-back","url_meta":{"origin":4886,"position":3},"title":"Podcast: Haste Ye Back","author":"Gil","date":"June 16, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Virtual Memories: Seth\u00a0- Haste Ye Back The great cartoonist (and designer and illustrator) Seth joins the Virtual Memories Show to talk about memory and time, his love of digression, being \"Mr. Old-Timey\", what it means to be a Canadian cartoonist, and learning to let go of the finish and polish\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Architecture"","block_context":{"text":"Architecture","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/architecture"},"img":{"alt_text":"rhythm-sprott","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/rhythm-sprott-620x223.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/rhythm-sprott-620x223.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/rhythm-sprott-620x223.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":239,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/maybe-the-yankees-can-hold-gsa-night","url_meta":{"origin":4886,"position":4},"title":"Maybe the Yankees can hold GSA night!","author":"Gil","date":"May 7, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"For the first time, my publishing persona and my sports persona have come together. No, I'm not publishing a Paul West book on cricket (not a bad idea . . .). Rather, the spring-training pre-game practice of Yankee catcher Jorge Posada feels like something straight out of The Mad Man.Money\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":14156,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/episode-415-jerome-charyn","url_meta":{"origin":4886,"position":5},"title":"Episode 415 – Jerome Charyn","author":"Gil","date":"January 5, 2021","format":"audio","excerpt":"Virtual Memories Show 415: Jerome Charyn \"Any great work is a shove to the incomprehensible, but it's JUST on our side instead of the other side. You have to take tremendous risks in order to find your language.\" With his amazing new novel, Sergeant Salinger (Bellevue Literary Press), Jerome Charyn\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Art"","block_context":{"text":"Art","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/art"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/charyn2021comp.jpg?fit=1200%2C726&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/charyn2021comp.jpg?fit=1200%2C726&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/charyn2021comp.jpg?fit=1200%2C726&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/charyn2021comp.jpg?fit=1200%2C726&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/charyn2021comp.jpg?fit=1200%2C726&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4886","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=4886"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4886\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4887,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4886\/revisions\/4887"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4886"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4886"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4886"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}