{"id":5818,"date":"2010-12-27T10:28:37","date_gmt":"2010-12-27T14:28:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/?p=5818"},"modified":"2010-12-27T10:28:37","modified_gmt":"2010-12-27T14:28:37","slug":"what-it-is-122710","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/what-it-is-122710","title":{"rendered":"What It Is: 12\/27\/10"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>What I&#8217;m reading:<\/em> I finished <em>Black Swan Green<\/em> on the 24th, read <em>The Humbling<\/em> on Christmas Day, and am undecided on what to start. Im tempted to begin Anthony Powell&#8217;s <em>A Dance To the Music of Time<\/em>, but it <em>is<\/em> 12 books long. I should probably write a post about reading\/writing projects.<\/p>\n<p><em>What I&#8217;m listening to:<\/em> Not Christmas music.<\/p>\n<p><em>What I&#8217;m watching:<\/em> On the flight down to Louisiana, I watched a Ken Burns doc about Huey Long (which made me want to read <em>All the King&#8217;s Men<\/em> again), and started a second viewing of Danny Boyle&#8217;s <em>Sunshine<\/em>. Amy &#038; I went out to a ratty theater to catch <em>True Grit<\/em> on Sunday. Of course, <em>A Christmas Story<\/em> was on its 24-hour rotation. And, if I haven&#8217;t mentioned this before, virtually all of my in-laws will watch college bowl games regardless of who&#8217;s playing. I also discovered that they would rather watch high school football than an NBA game. Boo&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><em>What I&#8217;m drinking:<\/em> Except for a Beefeater &#038; tonic on Christmas night when Amy &#038; i went to Bistreaux in the French Quarter to listen to my pal Paul Longstreth play piano, I&#8217;ve been dry for a week.<\/p>\n<p><em>What Rufus &amp; Otis are up to:<\/em> Playing with their grey-girlfriends, Ruby &#038; Willow, while we&#8217;re away.<\/p>\n<p><em>Where I&#8217;m going:<\/em> Back to NJ, I hope. We were supposed to fly home Sunday afternoon, but the blizzard rolled up so quickly that Continental cancelled all flights for that day by Saturday evening. They put us on an early morning Tuesday flight, for which we&#8217;ve just checked in. Good thing I always pack a few extra days&#8217; worth of contact lenses.<\/p>\n<p><em>What I&#8217;m happy about:<\/em> Not being home for the blizzard, which may have dumped around 2 feet of snow on our place.<\/p>\n<p><em>What I&#8217;m sad about:<\/em> That I started the year with a funeral (my pal Sang) and ended it with one (one of Amy&#8217;s elderly relatives).<\/p>\n<p><em>What I&#8217;m worried about:<\/em> The volume of snow waiting for me when I get home. Bad enough that I parked the car on the roof of the parking garage at Newark; I&#8217;m hoping my neighbors remembered to ask their snowplow guy to take care of my driveway, too.<\/p>\n<p><em>What I&#8217;m pondering:<\/em> Borrowing my mother-in-law&#8217;s car and driving in to New Orleans for a few hours today. Also, I keep thinking about Achilles and how that recent reading of <em>The Iliad<\/em> affected me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What I&#8217;m reading: I finished Black Swan Green on the 24th, read The Humbling on Christmas Day, and am undecided on what to start. Im tempted to begin Anthony Powell&#8217;s A Dance To the Music of Time, but it is 12 books long. I should probably write a post about reading\/writing projects. What I&#8217;m listening &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/what-it-is-122710\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;What It Is: 12\/27\/10&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_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},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[8,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5818","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-new-orleans","category-travel"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4C7K-1vQ","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3126,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/dreaming-of-a-grey-christmas","url_meta":{"origin":5818,"position":0},"title":"Dreaming of a Grey Christmas?","author":"Gil","date":"December 25, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Adventures in Rufus and\/or Otis&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Adventures in Rufus and\/or Otis","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/adventures-in-rufus-and-or-otis"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1262,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/happy-holiday","url_meta":{"origin":5818,"position":1},"title":"Happy Holiday","author":"Gil","date":"December 25, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Have a great Christmas, dear gentile readers! I don't know why you're on the internet on Christmas, instead of in the family room, ripping through the gift-wrap on your presents, but that's your problem. Amy's busy putting together a drum-kit for her godson, so his parents will hate us forever.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Comic books &amp; strips&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Comic books &amp; strips","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/literature\/comics"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1248,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/question-of-the-season","url_meta":{"origin":5818,"position":2},"title":"Question of the Season","author":"Gil","date":"December 15, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"I headed into NYC last night after work to pick up Amy after her office's Christmas party. My company's party is this afternoon, which'll give me a nice break from that big-ol' directory I'm laying out. Our \"holiday\" party has had some entertainment over the years. I mean, in addition\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 8 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 8 comments","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/question-of-the-season#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":447,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/holy-crap","url_meta":{"origin":5818,"position":3},"title":"Holy Crap","author":"Gil","date":"January 19, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"A few weeks late, but mind-blowing messed-up-edness from some guy's family Christmas get-together.","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1203,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/its-better-than-my-marinate-garotte","url_meta":{"origin":5818,"position":4},"title":"It&#8217;s better than my marinate garotte","author":"Gil","date":"November 10, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"I think we found a Christmas gift for Amy's brother-in-law.","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1834,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/sino-judaic-conspiracy","url_meta":{"origin":5818,"position":5},"title":"Sino-Judaic Conspiracy","author":"Gil","date":"December 25, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"In a time-honored tradition (okay, from 2 or 3 years ago), I offer up Christmastime for the Jews and, in a bow to modern times, Chinese Food on Christmas!","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Religion&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Religion","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5818","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=5818"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5818\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5819,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5818\/revisions\/5819"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5818"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5818"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}