{"id":506,"date":"2005-03-11T17:48:00","date_gmt":"2005-03-11T22:48:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vmalt\/?p=506"},"modified":"2005-12-09T10:20:02","modified_gmt":"2005-12-09T15:20:02","slug":"see-the-gates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/see-the-gates","title":{"rendered":"See the Gates"},"content":{"rendered":"

Well, dear reader, I have a pretty bad admission to make: I never got around to seeing The Gates<\/a>, Christo & Jeanne-Claude’s big installation in Central Park. The one Saturday that the official VM girlfriend<\/a> & I were thinking of going, it was too darn cold. So I missed it. I was somewhat interested in it, just to see if it’d make a good impression on me. Plus, I could’ve tied it into a visit to the Frick<\/a> and the Met<\/a>, where I’d spend some time among friends.<\/p>\n

To make up for it, I spent yesterday evening with David Gates, a senior editor at Newsweek and author of two novels I really enjoy: Jernigan<\/a> and Preston Falls<\/a>. David & I had been in correspondence off and on since 1996, since I called him outta the blue over at his day job. I think he was the first legit author I ever shot the bull with.<\/p>\n

Since then, I’ve come to know several more authors, and there’s a key thing to know about them: Writers like<\/span> to hear from people who like their books and stories. Corollary: Writers don’t<\/span> like to hear from obsessive stalkers.<\/p>\n

Gates & I had several nice conversations\/exchanges over the years, and I got to meet up with him last night. When we first sat down, I mentioned that it had been nine years since we started corresponding, and David did that thing that Swann and his dad did, raising the glasses and rubbing the eyes and bridge of the nose. (A past girlfriend of mine once marveled of the fact that I’ve managed to never meet my 20-something-year-old first cousin who lives in Queens; that’s Israelites for ya . . .)<\/p>\n

It was an entertaining evening. He spoke to a class of NYU freshmen about writing, then headed out with me and occasional VM contributor Elayne<\/a> for a couple of drinks at a bar I’ll never find a hyperlink for. We slagged some authors, praised others, drank Makers Mark, and got back to slagging authors. I won’t dish, since David’s got a job to uphold.<\/p>\n

And I’ve gotta get back to writing about methods development for extractables\/leachables testing in pharmaceutical processes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Well, dear reader, I have a pretty bad admission to make: I never got around to seeing The Gates, Christo & Jeanne-Claude’s big installation in Central Park. The one Saturday that the official VM girlfriend & I were thinking of going, it was too darn cold. So I missed it. I was somewhat interested in … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “See the Gates”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"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],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-506","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-literature"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4C7K-8a","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":505,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/more-on-gates","url_meta":{"origin":506,"position":0},"title":"More on Gates","author":"Gil","date":"March 12, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"In our previous installment, I wrote about meeting up with Newsweek editor and author David Gates. During his conversation with the NYU writing students (the occasion of our meeting), he counseled them against coincidence in fiction. \"We all know that this stuff happens in real life--people get hit by cars,\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":2116,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/just-a-lonely-ol-bill","url_meta":{"origin":506,"position":1},"title":"Just a lonely ol’ bill","author":"Gil","date":"June 27, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Congrats to Bill Gates and Will Leitch on the last day at their current jobs!","rel":"","context":"In "Big Business"","block_context":{"text":"Big Business","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/big-business"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3933,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/0-ford","url_meta":{"origin":506,"position":2},"title":"0-Ford","author":"Gil","date":"May 27, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"I refuse to read this article by Richard Ford on the genesis of his character Frank Bascombe . . . because I've never read a word of Ford's stuff! Congrats on being my latest 0-fer! Someone told me that I should read The Sportswriter after I mentioned that I liked\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "0-fer"","block_context":{"text":"0-fer","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/literature\/0-fer"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=virtualmemories-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0679762108","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1385,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/hot-gates-hot-box-office","url_meta":{"origin":506,"position":3},"title":"Hot Gates, Hot Box Office?","author":"Gil","date":"March 10, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"A few posts ago, I mentioned that I was going to mark-out for 300, and that Amy & I would likely go catch it this weekend at the local IMAX, so as to get the full theme-park experience of Thermopylae on a giant screen. This morning, I went online and\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":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2604,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/unrequired-reading-oct-10-2008","url_meta":{"origin":506,"position":4},"title":"Unrequired Reading: Oct. 10, 2008","author":"Gil","date":"October 10, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Ready for this week's serving of links? Just click more! Steven Millhauser on the nature of short stories. His novel Edwin Mullhouse is one of David Gates' faves (at least it was 10 or so years ago; that sorta thing can change). Anyone read him or it? * * *\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Big Business"","block_context":{"text":"Big Business","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/big-business"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=virtualmemories-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0679766529","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2657,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/unrequired-reading-oct-17-2008","url_meta":{"origin":506,"position":5},"title":"Unrequired Reading: Oct. 17, 2008","author":"Gil","date":"October 17, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"It's time for your weekly dose of links, dear readers! Jack Anderson to FBI: F*** you! * * * Wait: he's white? * * * Mama always told me not to look into the eyes of the sun. (Via Kottke) * * * Christoph Neimann diagrams the cheat codes of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Urban issues"","block_context":{"text":"Urban issues","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/urban-issues"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506","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\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=506"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=506"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}